OCR Text |
Show Liston Returns From Western States Conference In Denver Encouraged ESCALANTE Garfield County Commissioner Louise Liston Lis-ton returned recently from the Western States Summit held in mid-February at Denver where more than 150 western lands users from 12 states gathered to organize their efforts. They aired their concerns, con-cerns, sought common ground and expressed directly to President Bill Clinton their concerns over threats to preservation of the custom and culture of western communities from the continued onslaught of federal lawmakers. The Western States Summit was followed immediately by a meeting of the Republican National Policy Forum. The summit was organized by Utah State Representative Met Johnson, New Harmony, as an outgrowth out-growth of his work with the Western West-ern States Coalition. The coalition, an organized group representing the 17 western states, has made issues of property rights, land use and the support of local communities its goal. The key to the coalition is many groups coming together, working toward a common goal," said Johnson. John-son. "The summit was an outgrowth out-growth of that effort, an opportunity to gather people together to discuss their problems, find common ground, and join in a concerted effort ef-fort to take their message to the president." County and state government representatives joined stake-holders from the land in finding consensus. Utah's Speaker of the House Rob Bishop gave the keynote address followed by Bill Howell, executive director of the Southeastern Association Asso-ciation of Counties, who spoke on "Colonialism in the West." Liston then spoke to the group on "Preserving "Pre-serving Our Customs, Culture, and Economic Stability the Wise Way." They also heard from a variety of speakers addressing western states concerns. They discussed the spotted owl, salmon, water rights, endangered species, wetlands, mining rights and other subjects. They also discussed "equal footing" a Constitutional concept emanating from the 10th Amendment that promised every territory that accepted statehood "equal footing" with the original 13 colonies. Their premise is that none of the original 13 colonics had any federally-owned land upon joining the union. Working together, the group produced an hour-long video message mes-sage for the president, with 20 people peo-ple taking part, each with a brief but pointed message. Liston also took part in the video where her message addressed "Community Stability." The taped message to President Clinton was scheduled for immediate immedi-ate delivery, attendants also took with them directive and new incentives incen-tives for their own local and state elected officials to join the movement move-ment toward protecting western lands and livelihoods through supportive sup-portive legislation and the active definition of local custom and culture. cul-ture. It was a very positive and productive pro-ductive summit," Liston said, "that brought together people, primarily of the West, with common concerns about the present administration's policy governing western public lands. The common thread throughout seemed to be bringing government back to the local level instead of having issues decided by Washington bureaucrats who have no idea of the critical impacts resulting re-sulting from their uninformed decisions." deci-sions." Liston said she had learned at the summit that Arizona has appropriated appro-priated SI million to further their Constitutional Rights Committee and will hire top Constitutional attorneys at-torneys to help move it forward. Community stability, indeed the continued viability at all of some communities, become the issue when some western counties are more than 90 percent federally-owned," federally-owned," Liston said. "Our public lands control the economic activity of the nation," she warned. Federal lands attorney Karen Budd-Falcn, Cheyenne, Wyo., urged western lands residents to use the mandates of the National Environmental Envi-ronmental Policy Act (NEPA) as the Act was intended: to protect their county's customs and culture from federal encroachment. "The environmentalists have used NEPA against us, but it works for us as well," she said, "It's important that counties define their customs and culture, and that those things become be-come a matter of record through a county land plan. Then the Act will work for us." Among legislators present were Mel Brown, Brad Johnson, Jim McCowan, Johnson and Bishop along with Sheldon Kinscl of Congressman Con-gressman Bill Orton's office and Ted Lee, executive director of the Utah Woolgrowers Association. Utah county commissioners present included Dixie Thompson, Emery County; Bill Redd, San Juan County; Glenn McKee, Uintah County; Rick Reynolds, Duchesne County; and Gale Allrcd, Washington Washing-ton County, as well as Liston. Among the states represented were Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Mex-ico, California, Washington, Texas and Louisiana. Hosting the National Republican Policy Forum that followed were Senators Hank Brown (Colo.), Malcolm Mal-colm Wallop (Wyo.) and Bob Bennett Ben-nett (Utah). The theme of "It's Time for Washington to Start Listening Lis-tening to the West." dominated the forum that focused on special interests inter-ests of the West. |