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Gehrke: Moving a big piece of the Interior Department to Utah isn’t a terrible idea, but don’t expect it to change how the lands are managed

Last week, Susan Combs, a top adviser to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, was in Utah to meet with state officials, including Gov. Gary Herbert and Rep. Rob Bishop about the department’s ongoing efforts to decentralize the agency, pushing people out of Washington and into the states.

Zinke was unable to make it, since a journey on horseback, his preferred mode of travel, was impractical.

The restructuring is music to the ears of people like Herbert and Bishop, who have long complained that decisions that impact Utahns shouldn’t be made by pencil-pushing eggheads in Washington, D.