Welcome to Home of the Braif. I'm Scott Carrier. The next few stories are going to be about the battle over public land in southern Utah, specifically an area called the Bearsiers where President Obama at the request of five native tribes created a new national monument the size of the state of Delaware and then President Trump shrunk it by 85 percent, cutting it into

two small islands with new names.

Now there's a bill in Congress, H.R. 4532, that would give management of the new monuments to state representatives

rather than federal.

It's part of a larger movement throughout the West for states to gain control over federal land.

It's a long and complicated story and I wanted to begin by finding a context that will make it easier to understand.

So I went to an expert, Terry Tempest Williams, who's been writing and speaking out on the

subject for close to 40 years.

She grew up in Salt Lake and a Mormon family.

I think this story about Bearsiers, and Bearsiers National Monument is a story about power.

The power of the land, the power of the federal government,

the power of the Mormon Church,

the power of the fossil fuel industry and the power of native people.

We may think it's about rural people versus urban. We may think it's about tribal sovereignty or

environmental protection or multiple use on our public lands, but I think it ultimately is about power.

So what type of power are you talking about?

For me, I think it's spiritual power.

And in Utah we don't talk about that because there's one dominant spiritual power and that's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and it's hidden

But we all feel it we've been raised with it we fought it and we have been undone by it. We see racism, we see sexism, we see greed.

You know I was raised to believe in the Book of Mormon and that is a story of Native people in Mormon culture

Mormon religion. Okay so could you explain the story in the Book of Mormon?

Could you condense it?

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