Largest outdoor gear show abandons Salt Lake City after 20 years to protest Utah Republicans conser

The twice-a-year Outdoor Retailer show is the world’s largest trade exhibition for one of the world’s fastest-growing industries. It’s where companies such as Patagonia, the North Face, REI, Black Diamond and Polartec hawk their coolest winter and summer sports gear to retailers across the globe. It attracts some 50,000 visitors and an estimated $45 million a year to Salt Lake City, where it has been a fixture at the city’s Salt Palace Convention Center for two decades.

For months now, however, some of the manufacturers that exhibit at the show have been threatening to take it elsewhere in protest of efforts by Utah Republicans, including the governor and leaders of the state’s congressional delegation, to end federal control over millions of acres of public lands in the state, and to overturn President Barack Obama’s designation of some 1.35 million acres in southeastern Utah sacred to Native American tribes as the Bears Ears National monument.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch and several other key Utah congressional Republicans, including House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, have argued for months that Obama should not have invoked his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect the site, as The Post’s Juliet Eilperin reported recently, with Hatch claiming support from President Trump for undoing Obama’s decision.

Thursday, after negotiations with Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R) proved fruitless, the primary sponsor of the show announced that it would be moved out of Utah.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/17/largest-outdoor-gear-show-abandons-salt-lake-city-after-20-years-to-protest-utah-republicans-conservation-stance/?tid=pm_national_pop&utm_term=.54ab92c09a14