House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement in response to the White House’s memorandum on “Mitigating Impacts on Natural Resources from Development and Encouraging Related Private Investment.”

“Memorandum, executive order…call it what you will. President Obama is throwing the principle of multiple-use of our nation’s federal land out the window and blatantly disregarding our nation’s laws to do so. Economic development can coexist with environmental protection and it has for decades. The President pays lip service to this idea, but nothing in this new policy supports it. He will take what he has done to the West with his oppressive sage grouse land management plans and spread the damage as far as he can.  This dogma will drive economic investment from our nation’s federal land and hurt people that depend upon that land.”