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Show Llorrioii undorsGoroe his support of UJaif Urging him to not let a vocal minority of extremists sway his support of James Watt, Rep. Dan Marriott, sent a letter to President Reagan discrediting the recent re-cent media blitz made by the Sierra Club and other environmental en-vironmental groups seeking to oust the belabored Sec. of Interior. Marriott said the Sec retary has been the subject of what I consider to be unfair un-fair and malicious attacks by several groups of extreme environmentalists since taking tak-ing office eight months ago. Though his candor and desire de-sire to utilize lands to their full potential while preserving preserv-ing their natural beauty for future generations has provoked pro-voked a call for his dismis- sal by these groups, I wish to underscore my support for the Secretary and urge you to retain him as the head of the Department of Interior. Mr. Watt has made himself him-self accessible to all parties par-ties of environmental issues is-sues rather than Just the powerful environmental lobbyists lob-byists groups. As a result of this open door policy the Federal government gov-ernment has become a good neighbor in states which largely lar-gely consist of federal lands and the idea of a Sagebrush Rebellion which grewpopu-lar grewpopu-lar during the Cecil Andrus years is becoming more and more a thing of the past. Marriott listed several accomplishments of the Sec. in the letter including a commitment com-mitment to bring National Parks up to acceptable standards; stan-dards; allocation of $4 mil- lion in matching federal grants to develop conservation conser-vation programs for endangered endan-gered and threatened species, spe-cies, a motion in the Dist-rict Dist-rict Court of Utah seeking authority for the Department of Interior to review a Carter Car-ter Administration decision allowing coal surface mining min-ing in a major part of Utah's Alton Coal field and the issuance of new regulations regula-tions designed to reduce re-duce wildfires on public lands to protect users. |