He was also Superintendent of Dead Horse Point State Park for 15 years. While at Dead Horse Point, he also supervised the state’s boating and off-highway vehicle programs in the Moab area.

A 25-year Moab resident and graduate of Utah State University, Rock has worked in various positions around the state for the Forest Service and Utah State Parks, including the Wasatch-Cache National Forest and the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station in Logan, Steinaker State Park near Vernal, and This is the Place State Park in Salt Lake City.

Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey today announced the appointment of two long-time managers to key leadership positions. 

Juan Palma, currently the BLM’s Eastern States Director, will assume the State Director’s job in Utah, and Selma Sierra, currently the Utah State Director, will move to the Eastern States Director position.

“I am very pleased that Juan and Selma have agreed to serve in these key positions,” Abbey said.  “Both bring with them a wealth of experience and knowledge about the BLM’s programs.” 
 
Before serving in his current position, Palma was the field manager in the BLM’s Las Vegas office.  Prior to that, he was the executive director for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a bi-state compact agency that oversees all land-use planning activities within the Lake Tahoe Region. He has held a number of other land-management jobs, including the district manager position for the BLM’s Vale District office in Oregon, and was forest supervisor for the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit.

Palma was raised in Toppenish, Wash. He attended Brigham Young University and graduated from Oregon State University with a business management degree. He received a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of Nevada at Reno.

Sierra has held numerous positions within the BLM and at the Department of the Interior.  Before her current position, she served as the BLM chief of staff in the Washington, D.C., office. Prior to that, she was the agency’s assistant director for communications.  Sierra has also held positions in the Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce and on Capitol Hill.

Sierra is a native of La Union, N.M.  She received a bachelor of arts degree in journalism and government from New Mexico State University.

On Wednesday, May 5, 2010, the House Natural Resources Committee voted down (by a margin of 20-22) a motion offered by Ranking Member Doc Hastings (WA) to favorably report H. Res. 1245 out of Committee. The Resolution is an attempt by Congress to require the Secretary of the Interior to turn over specific information related to potential National Monument designations.

Interestingly, the Department of the Interior (DOI) delivered nearly 400 pages of emails to the Committee less than 24 hours before it was scheduled to vote on the Resolution. However, the agency withheld some 2,016 pages of additional documents directly related to potential Monument designations.

The controversy began with the discovery of an internal DOI document labeled “NOT FOR RELEASE” which details plans for 14 new or expanded national monument designations, totaling some 13 million acres of public and private land.

Rep. Hastings, who has led a bi-partisan effort to require the DOI to disclose information said: “When the federal government is discussing the lockup of 13 million acres of public lands with the stroke of the President’s pen, the American people have a right to know what their government is doing. I encourage my Democrat colleagues to help the Obama Administration adhere to their claims of openness and transparency by bringing this resolution to a vote on the floor of the full House,” said Hastings. “If this Resolution is not brought to the House floor in a timely manner, I promise this Committee will see plenty of similar Resolutions until the Department of Interior reveals what they are hiding.”

House rules provide that the Democrat Majority on the Committee had 14 legislative days to report the Resolution of Inquiry or it would have been eligible to be brought to the Floor of the House of Representatives for a vote as a Privileged Resolution. A future Floor vote on the Resolution is now entirely subject to the will of the Majority.

Meanwhile, legislation that would remove a President’s unilateral authority to designate National Monuments is moving slowly. The bill is titled the Preserve Land Freedom For Americans Act of 2010 (HR 4996) is sponsored by North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx. HR 4996 was referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources on April 13, 2010. BRC is encouraging our members to contact their Representatives and encourage them to co-sponsor HR 4996 and work for its passage into law.

Local Government Cautious – Greens Outraged

BY: GERRY MINICK

Utah has apparently gotten the attention of the Obama Administration with what is being termed “message legislation.”

Like several other states, including Wyoming, Utah lawmakers feel that the federal government is over-reaching. They passed a law in March allowing the state to use eminent domain to take federal land and secure state access to coal and other resources.

The legislative effort was spurred on by the leaked “Monument Memo,” which detailed plans by the administration to bypass local input and designate additional monuments in the Beehive State.

The Department of Interior quickly issued a statement, saying the memo was nothing more than “brainstorming.”    

Governor Gary Herbert quickly signed the bill into law, prompting typical cries of outrage among environmentalists.

Meanwhile, Herbert had been urging Secretary Salazar for months to visit the state to discuss collaboration on land use issues.

Herbert and a slate of local governments have worked for months to resolve hostilities generated at the local level by Interior’s decision to rollback oil and gas leases issued during the Bush administration.       

Salazar said he “got the message” and will work to open dialogue about access. And he promised to listen to Utahns “on the ground” before designating more national monuments; that he is willing to collaborate and find a way forward on the question of whether Utah counties or the feds have jurisdiction over roads on public lands.

Current law requires local government to prove right-of-way claims in court.  

For his part, Salazar adopted a conciliatory tone, and the response from most attendees was cautious, but hopeful, though the public comment portion of the meeting was cut short.     

Mike McKee, a Uintah County Commissioner, has had an ongoing dialogue with Interior since the decision to rescind the Utah leases. Locals say the decision has had a disastrous effect on the economy in Eastern Utah.  

He attended the meeting and news gathering on Monday and said that he is encouraged to know there is an open dialogue with regard to the ongoing problem surrounding 77 Utah energy leases suspended in early 2009.

Large turnout expected

Public invited to submit questions

By Lisa Riley Roche – Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY — U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will be in Utah Monday to meet with the Governor’s Balanced Resource Council.

“This will be the first time we’ve had the secretary of interior here at a public meeting,” Gov. Gary Herbert said in announcing the visit Thursday.
He said Salazar will talk with the council about public land issues, which are “fraught with emotion on all sides of the issue.”

The public is invited to attend the 10 a.m. meeting at the Capitol and to submit questions for the Democratic administration official. The governor initially had said attendees would be limited to “avoid confrontation and controversy” when asked if environmental activist Tim DeChristopher would be on the guest list. DeChristopher is charged with submitting false bids on federal oil leases.
“This is going to be a public meeting, so I guess those who show up will be allowed to come,” Herbert said. “There will be limited space, and we’ll have some we’ll want to make sure who are there.”

Herbert invited the secretary to Utah last November during a meeting in Washington, D.C. The governor said Salazar expressed interest in the council, which is made up of diverse environmental interests.
“It’s significant he’s willing to come here under any circumstances,” Herbert said, noting the state is at “ground zero on many of the public lands fights.

Just what the meeting will accomplish remains to be seen.
“Some of it is just better understanding. Part of the problem we’ve had in the past is just the lack of dialog and understanding,” the governor said. “We don’t talk to each other and perceive each other to be the enemy. I think everybody has good intentions on all sides of the issue with public lands.”

One issue likely to be addressed, he said, is the resource management plan for the Uintah Basin set aside by President Barack Obama’s administration.
“It’s something we ought to be able to move ahead with and not worry that somehow, for political purposes, the rug’s jerked out underneath us,” Herbert said, citing the economic importance of allowing drilling by companies that already have invested millions of dollars in the region.

The governor’s senior environmental advisor, Ted Wilson, acknowledged the meeting “is good public relations,” but said it is also key in furthering the state’s relationship with the administration on public lands issues.