Salazar speaks in Salt Lake City

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was in Salt Lake City Friday to emphasize the importance of Utah's public lands, the Obama administration's commitment to a multi-energy source platform and to touch on highlights of stimulus funding aimed at the state's national parks, monuments and water projects.

Speaking at the Bureau of Land Management's offices, Salazar addressed an audience that included land managers, ranchers, environmentalists, and oil and gas producers.

The trip to Utah was made to highlight key milestones in the first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency as it relates to environmental issues and the work Salazar has done to carry out that mission.

"The beauty of Utah is only matched by the beauty of Colorado," quipped the fourth-generation rancher and former senator from Colorado.

Salazar lauded the state's unique scenic "treasures," adding that the "great outdoors of Utah is very important to your state and very important to this nation."

So far, the Department of the Interior has sent more than $107 million to the state, including more than $40 million for the Central Utah Water Project and $24.1 million for Utah's parks and monuments, including money to rehabilitate the closed visitors center at Dinosaur National Monument's quarry.

Salazar also praised passage of a massive set of land bills that, in part, expanded Utah's wilderness areas and designated a section of the Virgin River as "wild and scenic," the state's first such designation.

In a casual Q & A with audience members, Salazar defended his rescission of 77 parcels of BLM land that had been bid on and sold or leased at a December auction, saying they lacked adequate environmental review and were too close to national parks and monuments.

In that same auction, university student Tim DeChristopher deliberately bid on and won parcels he said he never intended to pay for as a matter of protest over the public offering of land for gas and oil development.

DeChristopher has since been charged in federal court with two felonies and could face up to 10 years in prison. Salazar, so far, had refused to weigh in publicly on DeChristopher's actions, but he did say Friday that he believes "no man is above the law," no matter how passionate the cause.

On Friday he emphasized that a review of those parcels will be expedited, but he also warned that this administration will not take the approach to "explore and drill everywhere," as in the past.