Bill Bennett: “something is going to happen today in the State of Arizona that will have great impact on the State of Utah. I would…”

“something is going to happen today in the State of Arizona that will have great impact on the State of Utah. I would like to discuss that issue in somewhat greater detail than I have been able to do in the press. Unfortunately, we now live in a time where the press looks for the 7-second sound bite or the two-sentence summary to print in the newspaper, and the overall issue gets lost. So I appreciate the opportunity to lay out the whole circumstance of what has happened, and is happening, for the record. Several weeks ago in the Washington Post there was a story about a leak out of the White House saying that the President was considering creating a national monument in the State of Utah, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million acres. That came as unexpected news to me and the other Members in the Utah delegation, and we raised the issue. ``Oh, no,'' we were assured, ``nothing is really under consideration. These are just discussions that are taking place in the White House, and they probably should not have been leaked. There shouldn't be any press discussion about it because nothing really is going to happen.'' But the rumors persisted.”