I&#x27;m not trying to defend Congressman Bishop here. I certainly didn&#x27;t vote for him.<p>But as a minor counterpoint to those (pretty biased) articles, it&#x27;s important to understand who he represents.<p>The Federal government owns 66% of Utah. That&#x27;s a lot of land.<p>Most of that is managed under the BLM, which is very permissive as far as public use, but every once in a while, someone scores a political hit with &quot;we made more National Parks&quot; by carving out a chunk of that and severely restricting access.[1]<p>I have family that live in south&#x2F;central Utah and from their point of view the only thing that changes when a monument&#x2F;park is created is that local recreation is limited by people across the country who will likely never even see what they&#x27;ve done. &quot;The common man being oppressed by the suits in their downtown DC ivory towers&quot; is the general feeling.<p>Right or wrong, it&#x27;s a more complicated matter than simply trying to exploit the lands for money.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Grand_Staircase-Escalante_National_Monument" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Grand_Staircase-Escalante_Nati...</a>