Utah’s delegation wants to change assumptions about Republicans and conservation

OREM, Utah — On a recent trip through the congressional district he represents, Rep. John Curtis and his staff stopped the car to take photos of the sunset at Forrest Gump Point in Monument Valley.

The congressman described a panorama with a double rainbow to the left, flanked by the iconic sandstone buttes, all backdropped by a blazing sunset that prompted debate as to whether it was a raging forest fire just over the horizon. While the scene was “remarkably beautiful,” Curtis said it was “not unique” to the type of beauty he encounters nearly every day while traversing Utah’s 3rd Congressional District.

“We would come upon a grove of aspen, sprinkled with green pines and the sun shining down on those aspen, glistening,” was how the Republican described a trip from Kanab to Cedar City he took just days ago. “When you see this, and you have these moments, how can anybody suggest that there’s anybody who doesn’t want to leave the earth better than we found it? That is such a core, fundamental — I think — human value.”

Curtis was speaking from the stage at Utah Valley University’s Ragan Theater on Friday as part of the third annual Conservative Climate Summit, an event he convened and described as a “frank discussion,” free from the shame and judgment he has said are too prevalent in the mainstream climate movement. Several hundred attendees gathered at the Orem campus on a torrid October day, with temperatures forecast in the high 80s.

Read the full story at KSL.com.

Related:

• Conservation groups voice opposition to unappropriated public lands lawsuit
• Department of the Interior announces funding for water conservation efforts
• John Curtis wins the GOP primary for US Senate in Utah, AP projects
• Rep. John Curtis introduces bill to help reduce salt levels in Colorado River