WI20 10.12 pm.qxp__ Spirit 1-95.q 10/14/19 10:12 AM Page 12 Black Hat Sagebrush Rebel The unassuming cowboy from southern Utah, Leland Pollock, carries a western wallop that has altered political landscapes from rural Utah to the halls of Congress. By Marjorie Haun ooking out over blonde alluvial fields Although Clinton’s for fighting militant pressure groups, Garfield lying between gunmetal-gray proclamation assured County commissioner and rancher Leland L igneous peaks in Garfield County, Pollock led the way. one can’t help but think that God designed that existing ranches this place for grazing. Settled by Mormon and grazing rights Taking a Stand (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) would not be impact- Garfield County is known to outsiders for its pioneers in the mid-1860s, this small county eye-popping Bryce Canyon National Park. in the heart of southern Utah has been home ed, slowly the tens of Blessed with the reddest dirt anywhere and to loggers, farmers, miners and ranchers for a thousands of cows that eroded earthen towers that puncture a century and a half. But since 1996, this turf once grazed this vast cerulean sky, this destination brings in visitors has been ground zero in the battle over the from all over the world. In harmony with log- Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monu- tract of sagebrush and ging, ranching, and extraction industries, ment (GSE), created by President Clinton stone were purged tourism has been a staple of local economies with no input from local stakeholders. from the land. for decades. Ironically, Clinton’s guerilla des- Although Clinton’s proclamation assured that ignation of the GSE would sound the death existing ranches and grazing rights would not knell for thousands of jobs, and plunge be impacted, slowly the tens of thousands of with the election of Donald Trump. In Garfield County into an economic abyss. As cows that once grazed this vast tract of sage- December of 2017, Trump eased the federal bad as the loss of timber and mining were in brush and stone were purged from the land. stranglehold of the monument by reducing the early days of the monument, it would get With environmentalist lawsuits and its size and redefining its management. None worse during the Obama years. “There’s a lot oppressive federal policies rupturing the local of that would have happened without the 21st of war we’ve fought in,” Leland says, “but economy, bankrupting public schools, and century sagebrush rebels who arose out of the Obama, with his radical overreach, pushed it threatening to erase an entire way of life, in red dirt and took a stand for freedom. With to the limit. He backed a bunch of us into a 2016 Garfield County got a welcome break doggedness, a mind on overdrive, and a knack corner, and that’s all we could take.” Growing up within the boundaries of Bryce Canyon as the son of a National Park Service employee, Leland has always been involved in range and resource management. © MARJORIE HAUN It was the unprecedented management model of GSE that made it particularly onerous. National monuments are ordinarily managed by NPS, but inexplicably, the GSE was unloaded on the Bureau of Land Manage- ment. “The BLM was created to manage graz- ing, not monuments,” Leland explains. “Several BLM officials told me off the record they had no idea how to manage a monu- ment.” He continues: “When they made this a monument it was for all the wrong reasons. Clinton did it to reward liberal-left special interests, and he did it to stop the Analex Coal Mine. He met with the environmentalists, drew a map of this incredible swath of land in southern Utah, and threw it in the lap of the BLM. That’s why it’s been so dysfunctional.” Running for county commissioner in 2008, Leland was swept along with a wave of Leland’s wife, Michele, and the “golden pup” grandson, Kaison, help run the multigenerational ranch rural candidates from across Utah who felt near Bryce Canyon National Park. they needed to step up. “There were a lot of county commissioners from southern Utah 12 • RANGE MAGAZINE • WINTER 2019/2020 WI20 10.12 pm.qxp__ Spirit 1-95.q 10/14/19 10:12 AM Page 13 Leland pushes cows while riding his paint, Blackie, near a solar array that powers the well system he built with the help of Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative. With Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins (left) and rancher Dell LeFevre (right), Leland speaks about public lands’ issues. PHOTOS COURTESY LELAND POLLOCK who had never been involved in politics. It stand the impact the monument has had on the two-thirds. In the spring of 2015, the school was that time that several of us elected offi- lives of real people in southern Utah. As a coun- district asked the commission to declare a cials banded together and fought back.” ty commissioner I must speak up for those for- local “state of economic emergency.” Leland Utah representative and former BLM gotten families, forgotten stewards of the land, says: “Our number one export is our children, employee Mike Noel was a powerful and forgotten hunters, ranchers, and tourists, those and that’s because 93 percent of the landmass important ally of the cowboy commissioners who are clinging to a life they once knew and in Garfield County is federal land. They took and helped them grab the attention of Utah’s that could be restored if those people had a voice 500 jobs with one whack when they closed governor and U.S. senators and representa- that was heard in Washington, D.C.” the Kaibab and Escalante sawmills. They’ve tives. This headstrong band of cowboys gave a Between 1996 and 2015, enrollment in shut down all the mines. They’ve reduced the voice to the rural folks who had been crushed Garfield County’s public schools dropped by amount of cattle we can run by half. Garfield by executive proclamations and radical County is the size of Connecticut and 93 per- activists, and Leland, with his depth of knowl- cent of it is ‘the land of no use.’ There’s no way edge and simple eloquence, would magnify The Demise of Dan Love we can grow, and that’s by design.” that voice on the stage of national politics on A practical and honest man, Leland doesn’t It was also in 2015 that environmentalists Capitol Hill. automatically see employees of the BLM started pressing President Obama to create and Forest Service as adversaries. But back the Bears Ears National Monument in south- Black Hat Triggered in 2009, the feds ignited a firestorm in eastern Utah. Foreseeing another immense During the waning years of the Obama nearby San Juan County with militaristic landgrab in the works, Leland and others in administration, the House Natural Resources antiquities’ raids that led to the suicide his homegrown posse began to lobby Wash- Committee was chaired by Republican Rob deaths of several men. The aftermath of ington. Nevertheless, three weeks before Bishop, a representative from Utah and long- the BLM’s “Operation Cerberus,” led by Obama left office, while on vacation in time friend of Leland. Sporting his “cowboy disgraced officer Dan Love, hypercharged Hawaii, he delivered the 1.3-million-acre formal” black hat, Leland’s first appearance in Leland’s fighting spirit. He says, “You fight monument to his left-wing base. front of Congress in 2014 was to sound the back when you have folks like the Redd Hope was not lost, however. During the alarm bell for the region’s dying communities. family who look you in the eye and tell prior year, Leland and the Utah posse were He said, in part: you, ‘Dan Love killed our dad.’” able to capture the ear of Donald Trump Jr., “Public lands, monuments and parks are a Leland’s leverage with local and nation- an ardent outdoorsman who often travels to wonderful thing.... Unfortunately, over the past al leaders has not always been open to pub- Utah to hunt. Astonishingly, following Presi- few decades, enjoyment of public land and park lic scrutiny, but there’s no doubt he had a dent Trump’s election, it became clear that the resources by current generations has suffered at role in purging and relocating some of the businessman from Queens understood rural the hands of those who believe federal lands worst players from the BLM. Dan Love Utahns better than any prior recent president. should be managed to lock people out and pro- himself appears to have given Leland credit Loaded for bear, eyes peering under the rim hibit reasonable visitation and access. It has suf- for his ouster. On the day he was fired from of his black hat, Leland again appeared before fered due to a misguided notion that the best his post as regional BLM law enforcement the Natural Resources Committee in Decem- management comes from agency heads who are director, Dan Love texted the following to ber of 2017, just days after President Trump significantly influenced by special interests and Leland: scaled down the GSE and Bears Ears monu- political lobbying. For the past 21 years, Garfield “I owe you a message. Today I accepted ments. Stung by the political loss, Democrats County has been forgotten by federal managers another opportunity. Tip a beer, your on the committee were apparently so flum- thousands of miles away who do not under- assignment is complete.” moxed by the sight of Leland’s black hat that WINTER 2019/2020 • RANGE MAGAZINE • 13 WI20 10.12 pm.qxp__ Spirit 1-95.q 10/14/19 10:13 AM Page 14 they insisted he remove it.