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Sen. Ray Scott will run for governor in 2018 to bring down the expenses of government to invest in such priorities as transportation, higher education and rural broadband Internet, the Mesa County Republican said Saturday. If elected, he would be the first Western Slope candidate to win the governor’s office in 64 years.

To pay for his agenda Scott, a fiscal conservative, points to “a lot of fat” in state spending, citing the growing costs of Medicaid to a state budget that needs to be managed more conservatively, he said. Scott also would boost the state’s economy by supporting responsible energy development. He said he has middle-of-the-road positions on the divisive issues of abortion and state access to federal public lands.

“We’ve had a lot of governors from the Front Range 1-25 corridor, maybe people are ready for something different,” Scott said.

Indeed the last governor from west of the Continental Divide was of Glenwood Springs, who ascended to the office in 1971 after serving as lieutenant governor until Gov. John Love resigned to take a job in the Nixon administration. Vanderhoof was defeated by Richard Lamm in 1972. The last person from the Western Slope to be elected governor was Republican Daniel Thornton in 1951.

Scott becomes the first person to announce plans to run for governor in two years. Term limits block Gov. John Hickenlooper from seeking a third term. Charles Ashby of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Thursday.

Scott runs three businesses — Gas Products Corp., Skyline Sports Center and Scott Land Investments. The experience will serve him well with Colorado’s budget, he said.

“I don’t know of any good businessman who can’t find places to cut,” Scott said.

Scott said he had considered running for U.S. Senate, but the field was too crowded with a to unseat Democrat Michael Bennet this year.

A major issue for Colorado is public lands, Scott said. He’s not in the camp that thinks the state should try to take ownership and foot untenable expenses to manage and protect the property that accounts for 38 percent of Colorado’s land mass. He supports stronger local, state and federal partnerships, because the federal government does a poor job managing its holdings in Colorado, Scott said. He cited the government’s slow response to the pine beetle infestation that has destroyed or heavily damaged trees on more than 5,300 square miles since 1996.

“It’s one thing to talk about public lands — we also support them,” he said. “But it’s another thing to actually do something about it, to actually help protect the land every one of us value so much here in Colorado.”

On abortion, an issue that , Scott said he has always been pro-life, but thinks the ultimate decision belongs with a woman and her doctor.

“The government needs to stay out of it,” he said.

Two of the so far in this legislative session were co-sponsored by Democrats. He is sponsoring a Republican bill with Sens. John Cooke of Greeley and Randy Baumgardner of Hot Sulphur Springs to ensure severance taxes paid on subsurface natural resources extraction in the state is by the work.

In 2015 he was listed as a of legislation, including 10 that had Democratic co-sponsors. His voting record, however, has . The National Rifle Association gave him a score of 93 percent last year. The American Conservative Union gave him a 100 percent grade in 2015. He has lifetime score of 97 percent with the organization. Scott previously has been endorsed by the Colorado National Federation of Independent Business.

Scott was elected to the state Senate in 2014, of the vote, after serving two terms as a state representative. He is the chairman of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, vice-chairman of the Transportation Commmittee and a member of the Legal Services Committee and the Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Committee.