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SALT LAKE CITY — Former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke stopped by the Utah Senate on Friday, where he said he was discussing national issues with state leaders.
He told reporters he's visiting Utah for the Western Hunting Expo, which takes place through Sunday at the Salt Palace.
"That, and I have a lot of friends in Utah. And I think it's important sometimes to remind us that it's the states that gave the federal government the power, and not the other way around," Zinke said.
"And everyone knows our country's in trouble, and so we're putting together a plan how to fix it," he added.
He called Utah leadership "great."
When asked for details of issues he and others are discussing with Zinke, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, pointed to inflation.
"One of the things that we're seeing, we're seeing a lot of inflationary pressures right now," Adams said, adding that this week the national inflation rate was about 7%.
"I think Utah might be 8% or 9%. Those are challenging things, and I think as a nation, we need to be looking at those," Adams said. "We can't always be looking to Washington, D.C. for the answers. States are, I think, where the answers need to be really derived, and we need to focus on the states."
Zinke served under President Donald Trump between 2017 and 2019, when he resigned due to investigations into his time in the role.
During his tenure, Zinke was thrust into the middle of the long, contentious fight over the Bears Ears region's destiny. In 2017, the Trump administration directed Zinke to conduct a 45-day review of the Bears Ears monument designation and come up with recommendations as part of a larger probe of monument designations going back to 1996.
