The Big Bad Wolf ... Not the One You're Thinking Of

Why it took U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar two years to restore administrative authority to the Bureau of Land Management when it comes to protecting some of the best hunting and fishing country in the West is beyond me. But predictably, it took extremists like U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop about five minutes to start whining about the return to the way things used to–and ought to–be.


Back when Gale Norton occupied Salazar's office in D.C., she conspired with the likes of Bishop to effectively hamstring the BLM and prohibit the federal land management agency from, well, managing land. Specifically, Bishop and his bought-and-paid-for buddies in Congres didn't want any more wilderness  or wilderness study areas on public land, particularly in Utah. See, wilderness locks out industrial development while protecting fish and wildlife habitat. In other words, Bishop's campaign financiers (read, the extractive industry lobby) would be unable to drill, mine, rape and pillage on land belonging to every single American if that land–worthy as might be–were to be designated as wilderness or a wilderness study area.