St. George, Utah. (Photo by Jason Cameron/Getty Images)
Utah Republican Reps. Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy say the Trump administration presents an opportunity to reign in federal spending on public land management, while greenlighting infrastructure projects that have faced regulatory and environmental setbacks.
That was the sentiment from Maloy and Kennedy during a U.S. House Federal Lands Subcommittee meeting on Tuesday focused on the concept of multiple use — where federal agencies like the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, are required to manage land for a variety of purposes, including energy, recreation, timber harvesting and livestock grazing, all while protecting natural resources.
Maloy and Kennedy, along with a number of other Utah Republicans, routinely criticized the Biden administration for abandoning the multiple use mandate.
Now with the Trump administration slashing funding for federal programs and suspending federal employees, Maloy and other Republicans hope to see a change in how the country’s land management agencies operate. “I’d like to see agencies do less, with less,” Maloy said.
“We’ve had a lot of talk on both sides about federal funding, and whether we need more or we need less,” Maloy told the committee. “It needs to be targeted and it needs to be focused on the agency’s mission. We’re Congress, we control the purse strings. And right now, we’ve got an administration that’s trying to show where money is being spent well, and where it’s not being spent well.”
Maloy, during her allotted time on Tuesday, said the public should “ignore the hysteria and focus on the balance of power. We have an oversight obligation, we’re doing it here.”
The Northern Corridor Highway revived?
Maloy and other Utah politicians have recently pointed to the proposed Northern Corridor Highway in Washington County as the poster child for what they say is poor public land policy from the Biden administration.
After a yearslong process, the Northern Corridor Highway — envisioned as a four-lane highway that would cut through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area to link the northeastern and northwestern areas of St. George — was rejected in December.
Washington County and the state’s most powerful politicians had been advocating for the highway, describing it as a solution to the congestion in St. George, one of the country’s fastest growing metro areas.
During the final days of the first Trump administration in 2021, the federal government approved a right-of-way application for the new highway and, in exchange, Washington County would transfer around 7,000 acres to be protected as part of the conservation area.
But the highway plan fell apart in December after the BLM rejected the plan. Local and national conservation and environmental groups celebrated the decision, worried the highway would damage habitat for the endangered Mojave desert tortoise, only found in parts of Utah, California, Nevada and Arizona.
State leaders, on the other hand, have pointed to the decision and the yearslong process that preceded it as an example of the red tape and burdensome hoops that local governments have to navigate when trying to build infrastructure on federal land.
Feds recommend alternative to long-proposed southern Utah highway, angering state leaders
“I’ve worked on this project for 10 years. And it is beyond frustrating to have our good faith growth and conservation efforts disregarded. Communities surrounded by federal lands need reliable and responsive federal partners,” said Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke, who was one of the witnesses during Tuesday’s meeting.
Clarke, when asked by Maloy how much in taxpayer funds has gone into the back-and-forth with federal agencies during the permitting process, estimated somewhere in the millions.
“Our county taxpayers are easily losing $2-5 million a year as we’re trying to work through these broken processes, on projects that we know need to happen,” he said.
Now that Biden is out and Trump is in, Kennedy said on Tuesday he’s hopeful the highway will be revived.
“I’m committed to working with the Utah delegation, the Trump administration, to construct the highway and boost Washington County’s economy.”
Holly Snow Canada, the executive director of the group Conserve Southwest Utah, pushed back on Kennedy’s remarks, telling Utah News Dispatch the denial was the result of lengthy environmental review, and was supported by locals and conservation groups.
“In today’s hearing, Utah officials asked for more certainty around their Northern Corridor Highway proposal. But the uncertainty comes from their refusal to accept reality: the highway has been rightfully and conclusively rejected seven times,” she said. “Decades of traffic analyses, environmental studies, bipartisan public comments, and legal rulings have repeatedly shown that this highway would devastate local wildlife, recreation, safety, and quality of life — while failing to solve traffic issues. The certainty our community deserves is real, forward-thinking transportation solutions.”
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.