“[A]s a member and chair of the Senate Committee on Public Lands and Surveys (often called the public lands committee) he played a key role in the passage of a number of laws and policies to protect our public lands. Smoot supported or sponsored measures that (1) strengthened the hand of the United States president and Forest Service director in protecting national forest lands; (2) established the National Park Service; (3) designated Zion and Bryce as national parks and Cedar Breaks as a national monument; and (4) required those who mined public lands or used river sites for the generation of electricity to pay royalties. For the most part, Utahns supported his efforts . . . He lined up with John Muir and other preservationists to oppose the Hetch-Hetchy Dam, which would flood the HetchHetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park in order to generate electricity and provide water for San Francisco. Smoot had two reasons for opposing the dam. The first was aesthetic, a value that he sincerely believed in. In a speech before the Senate, Smoot defended Muir's philosophy of preservation. But the conservative Smoot also was opposed to having governments operate utility projects. Despite opposition, Congress passed the Hetch-Hetchy Act. Smoot began as early as 1912 to propose laws to establish the National Park Service. Until 1916, each of the country's national parks had its own management, but no government agency provided overall direction. Although Smoot argued that the national parks needed some central administration, his bills failed . . . Concerned about the destruction of mountain watersheds from overgrazing and damaging logging practices, Smoot and like-minded senators supported the efforts of the Forest Service to regulate grazing and logging. In opposition, however, Weldon Heyburn and his supporters pushed through Congress a measure that prohibited the president from setting aside national forests in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado without congressional approval. Smoot, however, believed that the president should have the authority to protect the public lands from abuse. He and his supporters insisted that the law allow the president to continue to designate national forests in Utah, California, Washington, and Nevada. In an effort to publicize the need for conservation, President Theodore Roosevelt invited the nation's governors and conservation leaders to a conference in Washington, DC, in December 1908. Recognizing Smoot's solid support for the Forest Service, Roosevelt invited him to chair the Committee on Forest Reservations at the conference. In Smoot's keynote address to the committee he emphasized the need for the careful management of forest land and watersheds in order to protect land, cities, and businesses from damage . . . In addition, he continued to work for the designation of new national parks and the expansion of others, for the management of national forests, and for the reclamation of arid lands. He successfully secured legislation establishing Zion and Bryce National Parks and Cedar Breaks National Monument in southern Utah. He also supported legislation for the enlargement of Mount McKinley (now Denali) National Park in Alaska and Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas and for the preservation of sites on the Mormon Trail in Nebraska. He helped create the presidential forest reserve in the Kaibab National Forest near Grand Canyon. And he promoted the exchange of privately owned properties within national forests.”