Orrin Hatch: “However, to be perfectly frank about it, he is just plain wrong when it comes to our bill to designate wilderness in…”

“However, to be perfectly frank about it, he is just plain wrong when it comes to our bill to designate wilderness in Utah. I do not believe he has a full appreciation for the difficulty these small communities in my State have with maintaining all of this land as wilderness. The longer Congress postpones action on the Utah Public Lands Management Act, the more economically strapped our small towns become. It stands to reason that you cannot take a primary resource out of circulation within an economy and expect that economy to flourish. The land resources in rural Utah are of the utmost importance to an economy whose major industries include mining, farming, and ranching. My friend from New Jersey says our rural Utah counties can live off tourism dollars. Certainly, the tourism industry is vital to our State and important to the general welfare of our economy. But, it is not a panacea for the ills that plagued small town U.S.A. as the Senator pointed out yesterday.”