Your March 1 editorial, "Why the West is uneasy over Interior selections," begs a fundamental question: Just whom do you mean by "the West"? I, for one, was born and raised and have lived all my life in the West, and I am delighted with the new Interior Department appointments. So are many of my fellow Westerners. Americans, including majorities in many Western states, voted for change in November, and we're getting it.
It is ironic that your editorial expresses reservations about some of the changes, such as an increase in public land grazing fees, proposed by President Clinton. Many who are proposing these changes are Westerners.Interior Secretary Babbitt himself was born into a ranching family and raised on the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona. The Bureau of Land Management director-designate, Jim Baca, is a native New Mexican. Interior solicitor John Leshy is from Arizona. You can't get much more Western than that.
Also, please stop repeating Farm Bureau propaganda about how much more expensive it is to run livestock on public lands. It just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Public land ranchers are indeed subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, as are miners, who pay not one penny to the federal treasury for the privilege of taking valuable minerals from the public lands.
Perhaps your editorial should rather have been titled, "Why some in the West are uneasy . . . " Because I assure you, many in the West see the new administration as a breath of fresh air.
Lawson LeGate
Salt Lake City