News Monday that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended that President Donald Trump modify 10 national monuments highlights what could be one of the most unpopular environment-related actions of the Trump administration. Zinke’s department solicited public comments this summer, and 98 percent of them spoke favorably about keeping or even expanding monuments’ borders.
With one exception: The Americans most vocally opposed to government control of Western lands were Utah lawmakers and their rural constituents. And of those, many are probably descendants of Mormon pioneers.
While the religious identities of opponents weren’t public, this rings true to me that Mormons could be the leaders of this effort.