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<br />, <br /> <br />" <br />4 <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />From Grand Staircase to Grand Canyon Parashant: <br />Is There a Monumental Future for the BLM? <br />Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt <br />Transcript of remarks at the University of Denver Law School <br />10:30 am Thursday, February 17, 2000 <br /> <br />Introduction by Dean Nell Newton: <br /> <br />I want to thank you all for coming this morning. I especially would like to thank the Natural <br />ResourceslEnvironmental Law Program and the Carver Chair, which is held and ably managed <br />by Jan Laitos, for sponsoring this wonderful event and welcoming the Secretary of Interior to the <br />University of Denver College of Law. And it is my great pleasure to introduce Bruce Babbitt, the <br />Secretary of Interior. Secretary Babbitt was appointed by President Clinton in 1993. He has had <br />one of the longest tenures of any Secretary of the 20111 Century, ranking with other great <br />Secretaries of the Interior, Stuart Udall, and Harold Ickies in length of service. <br /> <br />Among his many legacies is the preservation and restoration of a great deal of land to the public <br />for multiple uses, including recreation. Secretary of Interior Babbitt is also charged, I would be <br />remiss in not bringing this up, with supervision ofIndian Affairs. And he has been one of the <br />most open and fair-minded Secretaries of the Interior dealing with this nation's Indian tribes. He <br />certainly will be regarded as one of the great Secretaries of the 20th Century, and I want to thank <br />him again for coming and turn the podium over to Bruce Babbitt, the Secretary of the Interior. <br /> <br />(Applause) <br /> <br />Thank you. <br /> <br />Okay. <br /> <br />Dean, thank you very much. I appreciate the introduction. I was just refreshing my memory <br />about asking the Dean whether or not it would be absolutely necessary for me to subject myself <br />to questions. (LAUGHTER). She said, "Yes, that is a condition of appearing at the University of <br />Denver Law School." <br /> <br />I wanted to come here, and I accepted this invitation from the Dean and the faculty with great <br />enthusiasm because, I'm on my way to Grand Junction, and I have been coming west to the <br />Grand Junction for the last seven years, I must say to mixed responses out in western Colorado, <br />varying from lynch mobs (LAUGHTER) to pretty productive discussions over time. But, this <br />time I think there's something in the wind - not only in Grand Junction, but in Colorado and <br />throughout the West that I would like to talk about. <br /> <br />The West is once again quickening to the issues of how we live on this landscape and what kind <br />of open space we want, and how it is we're going to strike a more sensitive balance on the <br />landscape in terms of development, the use of natural resources, and our long-term presence on <br />this landscape. <br /> <br />Colorado got offto a good start on these issues at the tum ofthe century. With a lot of action in <br />terms of the creation of national parks, monuments, forests. It was an extraordinary legacy. But <br />in recent decades, it's been quiescent. In fact, it's been kind of quiescent all over the West. And <br />the fact that has changed is that the West is filling up. That the open spaces are now beginning to <br />