Obama’s public lands policy leaves legacy of conflict

Push to control state lands at odds with locals

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell looks from Dead Horse Point, near Moab, Utah, where President Obama designated one of two national monuments Wednesday, that have become key flash points over use of public land in the U.S. West. (Associated Press)

By Valerie Richardson
The Washington Times

With two new massive set-asides in his final weeks in office, President Obama has moved aggressively to solidify a legacy on public lands that’s often put the White House at odds with state officials who want to see more local control over land use.

Mr. Obama already held the record for creating or expanding national monuments when he used the Antiquities Act last week to set aside a combined 1.65 million acres for Bears Ears in Utah and Golden Butte in Nevada.

In doing so, however, Mr. Obama also solidified his reputation for using public lands to reward his friends and enrage his enemies.

Environmentalists cheered his commitment to conservation, but Republican lawmakers, state officials and locals accused him of ignoring their input in order to score political points, lock up productive lands and expand federal control.

Rep. Rob Bishop, the Utah Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, said the hotly disputed designations represent business as usual for Mr. Obama.

“Much of the agenda, like the monuments, was done behind closed doors, in the shadows, in secret, and would otherwise be rejected under established democratic processes,” said Mr. Bishop. “They systematically abused executive powers through unilateral rules, orders and memorandums designed to make energy and resource development uneconomical.”

In the name of environmental protection, the Obama administration has tightened its hold on federal lands, adding layers of regulation on energy development, halting new coal leases, using the Endangered Species Act to restrict grazing, and taking a hard line on violations.

“Keep it in the ground, lock it up and let it burn. That’s been the policy for the last eight years,” said Montana state Sen. Jennifer Fielder, who heads the American Lands Council.

The result has been a backlash by groups such as the council, which formed in 2012 to counter the Obama administration’s expansion of federal authority by calling for transferring control of federal lands to the states.

Environmentalists have responded by doubling down with a push to stop energy development on public lands altogether with the “keep it in the ground” movement.

Mr. Obama’s final year in office has also seen a surge in unrest from protesters on public lands. In January, anger on the ground turned deadly when Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was shot and killed at an FBI roadblock during an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon.

The protest centered two ranchers sentenced to five-year prison terms after fires they set to control weeds spread to federal land.

On the other end of the political spectrum, thousands of protesters converged on federal land near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to object to the administration’s approval of the Dakota Access pipeline easement near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

Hundreds have been arrested by local authorities since Aug. 10, but the Obama administration has taken a hands-off approach to the occupation. The protesters scored a win Dec. 5 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to withdraw the easement in order to conduct another environmental review.

In the administration’s corner are those who argue that Mr. Obama has provided balance to a public-lands policy that has in the past favored industries, including energy and agriculture, at the expense of conservation.

Matt Lee-Ashley, senior fellow and director of public lands for the liberal Center for American Progress, said part of the tension has come from the changing balance of power.

“I think if you look back for decades, extractive industries have had greater power in Washington and have had a big say in the decisions about the management of public lands, and we’re seeing greater balance now from the outdoor recreation industry, for example,” said Mr. Lee-Ashley. “A lot of states are weighing in on behalf of conservation and recreation. There are more people sitting at the table making these decisions, including conservationists, recreationists and Native American leaders.”

He said he saw Mr. Obama’s approach to environmental protection on public lands changed after his 2012 reelection victory.

“We saw the pace of conservation work pick up dramatically in the second term,” Mr. Lee-Ashley said. “There was a much greater balance between development and conservation on public lands in the last two or three years of his presidency.”

Mr. Obama has countered naysayers by pointing out that oil and gas development on public lands has increased during his administration, but his critics have argued that the increase has been far greater on private land.

The average leased for energy extraction on public lands has decreased steadily since Mr. Obama took office, according to figures from the House Natural Resources Committee.

Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, blamed in part what she described as the Obama administration’s “bureaucratic stifling.”

“There’s just so many ways that they have blocked productive uses of federal land,” said Ms. Sgamma. “Making it more difficult at every step of the process, whether you’re trying to graze on an allotment that’s been in your family for over 100 years, or trying to move forward with your leases and get through the environmental analysis that the government simply won’t complete.”

Whether Mr. Obama’s latest monuments will survive is also in question. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes has vowed to file a lawsuit, while Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican, and others have called for the designations to be repealed.

“We look forward to working with President-elect Trump to follow through on his commitment to repeal midnight regulations,” Mr. Chaffetz said in a statement. “We will work to repeal this top-down decision and replace it with one that garners local support and creates a balanced, win-win solution.”

BLM bans new mining claims in protected desert land areas

By Jim Steinberg
San Bernardino Sun

The federal Bureau of Land Management wants to halt new mining claims from sprouting up on more than 1 million acres of land in the California desert.

On Wednesday the bureau will propose the temporary withdrawal of more than 1.3 million acres of the state’s National Conservation Lands from the “adverse impacts of mining.” The stoppage will take effect immediately until a thorough evaluation is completed in two years. The evaluation will decide if the ban will become permanent.

The proposal would not prohibit ongoing or future mining on valid existing claims, only new claims, according to bureau spokeswoman Martha Maciel.

The step is the first in a series to “more fully protect important areas within the California Desert Conservation Area,” Beth Ransel, the bureau’s California desert district manager, said in a statement.

The proposal targets four priority areas including 418,000 acres in the Amargosa Valley of Inyo and San Bernardino counties, the 95,000-acre Big Morongo area of San Bernardino County, the 590,000-acre Chuckwalla Bench/Dos Palmas area of Riverside County and 236,000 acres in the Eastern Sierra, Maciel said.

The proposal is to be published Wednesday in the Federal Register and initiates the temporary ban on new claims.

“This is something that is going to be welcomed by the conservation and scientific community, hunters and those areas where (desert land) tourism is important to their local economy,” said Frazier Haney, conservation manager for the Mojave Desert Land Trust in Joshua Tree.

Officials with the National Mining Association, the American Exploration and Mining Association and the Gold Prospectors Association of America could not be reached for comment.

This is the last step in the process of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, Haney said, which identified these lands as being vital to biological and cultural resources.

The plan took effect Sept. 14 and is intended to direct large-scale alternative energy projects away from sensitive lands.

Before making a final decision, the bureau will conduct studies to weigh considerations of the environment versus the impacts of taking these areas out of new mining development.

There also will be a series of meetings to consider information from the public and others on the mineral potential of the affected areas, according to the bureau.

Federal Court: One Million Acres Near Grand Canyon Protected From Mining

The Grand Canyon (Shutterstock)

by Ari Phillips
Climate Progress

In early October, an Arizona federal judge upheld the Obama Administration’s 2012 withdrawal of over one million acres of federal lands surrounding Grand Canyon National Park from uranium mining. Originally imposed by then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, the mining industry challenged the ban arguing that the 700-page Environmental Impact Statement was inadequate, failed to address “scientific controversies”, and was unconstitutional.

With the court’s decision to uphold the Department of Interior’s (DIO) decision, the lands around the Grand Canyon will be closed to the exploration and development of uranium mining claims for 20 years, thus protecting the Colorado River watershed and several sacred Native American sites. According to the government’s study, removing the ban would mean that 26 new uranium mines and 700 uranium exploration projects could be developed.

According Roger Clark, air quality and clean energy director at the Grand Canyon Trust, the ruling affirms conclusions by five federal agencies, including scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey — that uranium mining poses unacceptable risks to Grand Canyon’s water, wildlife, and people.

“Uranium mines threaten hundreds of the Grand Canyon seeps and springs that provide precious water to thousands of desert-dwelling species,” wrote Clark. “Every new mine sacrifices cultural sites and fragments wildlife habitat, polluting the park with dirt roads, dust, heavy machinery, noise, off-road drilling rigs, power lines, and relentless truck traffic.”

Due to the sheer size and remoteness of the landscape, the EIS authors adopted a “cautious and careful approach” to assessing the potential impacts of uranium mining. They ultimately found that “the risk of groundwater contamination from uranium mining was low, but that the possible consequences of such contamination were severe.”

Arizona federal district court judge David G. Campbell found this approach warranted, writing that “the Court can find no legal principle that prevents the DIO from acting in the face of uncertainty,” and that the Secretary of the Interior had the authority to “err on the side of caution in protecting a national treasure — Grand Canyon national park.”

When President Theodore Roosevelt created the Grand Canyon Preserve in 1906 he didn’t allow mining on much of the land, but mines were opened on land surrounding the canyon. Often on Native American lands, including the Havasupai and Navajo, these mines have become dangerous radioactive sites. There are over 500 abandoned uranium mines on Navajo territory and the federal government is still working with the Navajo to determine the best way to address the issue. According to the EPA, potential health effects include lung cancer from inhalation of radioactive particles, as well as bone cancer and impaired kidney function from exposure to radionuclides in drinking water.

“In sum, this decision supports a precautionary approach to mineral withdrawals,” wrote Hillary M. Hoffmann, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law School. “It affirms the agency’s choice, ‘when faced with uncertainty due to a lack of definitive information, and a low risk of significant environmental harm,’ to temporarily withdraw land from mineral entry before conducting a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review.”

Hoffman writes that while this may run counter to general policy underlying NEPA, in this instance the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) actions prevented the development of thousands of uranium claims until the agency could fully study the impacts of those claims and determine whether to make a full withdrawal.

“As the district court noted, if the BLM waited to act until after the NEPA review process was complete, the claims may have become vested and at that point, it would have been too late to protect the Colorado River watershed and the Havasupai sacred sites,” she writes.

When Salazar first banned this block of 633,547 acres of public lands and 360,002 acres of National Forest land from mining in 2012, a number of politicians objected, including U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John McCain (R-AZ), John Barrasso (R-WY), and Mike Lee (R-UT). Sen. Hatch said mining the land “poses no environmental threat” and that the announcement was another sign that the Obama Administration “is one of the most anti-American energy presidencies in history.”

Fast-forward two years later and there are currently 13 candidates up for election in November who want to sell or seize public lands for drilling, mining, or logging and seven senators not up for reelection, including four Arizonans: Sen. McCain, Sen. Jeff Flake, U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, and State Rep. Andy Tobin.

The uranium mining companies have 60 days to appeal Judge Campbell’s decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and are likely to do so, according to the Center For Biological Diversity.

Massive desert wildlife refuge effort nears OK

By Stephanie Tavares
Las Vegas Sun

The Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex is on the verge of becoming a reality.

The complex would consist of more than 1.6 million acres on four wildlife refuges stretching from Las Vegas to central Lincoln County.

The four are: the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, which provides habitat for at least 24 plant and animal species found nowhere else; the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, just north of Las Vegas, prime habitat for desert bighorn sheep and various native plants; the Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Clark County, home of the endangered Moapa dace; and the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, in central Lincoln County, which provides nesting, resting and feeding areas for waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds and songbirds including the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher.

The plan for the massive complex cleared the second-to-last stage of federal permitting last week with the release of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Final Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Environmental Impact Statement.

A final decision is expected some time after Sept. 21.

Under the proposed plan, the fish and wildlife agency would restore thousands of acres of desert spring, riparian and upland habitat for threatened and endangered species, migratory birds and other wildlife. It would also expand efforts to control invasive plants and animals and expand surveys and monitoring of key wildlife species. Additionally, the federal agencies plan significant improvements to visitor services, including new trails, interpretive exhibits, environmental education programs and visitor contact stations.

Existing hunting and fishing programs would be maintained with minor modifications.

For more information go to desertcomplex.fws.gov

Solving Congress

Remember the days when our elected representatives to Congress would attempt to accomplish something by actually introducing a bill, debating it, and voting on it?

By Bill Schneider
New West

I confess to having an old-fashioned view of how our senators and representatives should serve us. It goes something like this: They listen to the concerns of their constituents, decide to introduce a bill to address those concerns, have hearings and debate the issue in a fair and open forum, and then vote on it.

Think now. When is the last time you’ve seen Congress do that? You probably can’t remember any such success in recent history because, well, they don’t do that any more.

Nowadays, all Congress does earmarks and riders that often end in massive compilations like the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, both a hundred or more bills that should’ve been introduced, debated, and voted on individually in the light of day, all piled up as a thousand or more pages of head-scratching legalese that no member of Congress even reads before voting on it.

Is this the only way we can get anything done?

A lobbyist friend compared our current system to sausage making, but I’d almost rather let my grandkids watch sausages being made let their civics teachers tell them the bald truth about how laws are made.

If a senator or representative agrees with constituents that we need a new project or program, does he or she introduce a bill get it done? Hardly. Instead, our elected representatives instinctively and immediately start thinking earmark and how they can work the power structure of Congress to get their earmark tacked onto must-pass legislation.

Once passed, politicos rush to the media to brag about it, but they don’t boast about how they did it.

Instead, they say, “the omnibus bill contained funding for the museum or airport or water treatment plant.” We used to call that “bringing home the pork.” Now, we call it “earmarking,” which has insidiously become an incurable addiction.

President Obama promised repeatedly during his campaign to put an end to making law with earmarks and riders, but he praised and signed the public lands and stimulus bills, which were little more than colossal collections of riders and earmarks.

Most maddening, perhaps, is Congress tacking major legislation impacting millions of people onto must-pass bills as a rider and sneaking it into the law books with no debate or daylight, let alone a recordable vote. I’ve written extensively about my least favorite rider of them all, the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act of 2004. Thanks to the Bush administration’s engrained goal of commercializing and privatizing public lands, Congress secretly gave us a runaway escalation of recreational fees to access and use the land we own.

Another excellent recent example is the so-called “wolf kill bill.” Both its sponsors, Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Jon Tester (D-MT), are out there beating their chests about getting it “passed,” but no talk of how it magically appeared in the public lands omnibus bill--no fanfare, no local hearings, no press releases about what our senators were doing, no chance for constituents to support or oppose it. Yet, suddenly, it’s the law of the land.

The wolf bill is probably a good idea that enjoys support from both sides of the issue. In addition to providing more reliable compensation for losses livestock producers suffer from wolf depredation, it encourages ranchers to take preventive actions to reduce future losses, both livestock and wolves. And the cost is barely enough to light five cigars back in the Beltway--a mere million bucks per year for five years.

Even with such a bill, one with strong support, we can’t do it right? I talked to one lobbyist who spent years working on the public lands legislation, and he didn’t even know the wolf compensation rider was in the bill. Ditto, I suspect, for many members of Congress who voted for it.

Riders aren’t insignificant add-ons; they’re real laws that affect a lot of people and require proper procedure and visibility. Earmarks should be part of the budget process or introduced as spending bills and given fair hearings, debates and votes.

I’ve heard the counterargument. There’s so much for Congress to do and it takes so long to do it that we need the earmarks and riders to accomplish anything, but I don’t buy it. Instead, it seems politicians prefer the new way because it helps keep all but political insiders in the dark.

Clearly, Congress loves earmarks and riders, and it’s easy to see why.

• Earmarks help incumbents get re-elected by pumping pork into their states and districts.


• Packing hundreds of earmarks and riders from many congressional districts into one omnibus bill gives more senators and reps something for their constituents. As the omnibus grows, the “yea” vote count grows. Otherwise a senator in Oregon has little incentive to vote for a wilderness in Virginia or vice versa. The omnibus approach locks up both votes by designating a new wilderness in both states. Consequently, the process greases the skids to the White House.


• Our elected officials and lobbyists can partake in the earmark/rider process in the twilight without hearings, unhappy constituents, and pesky reporters asking questions and writing their own articles instead of using releases from congressional press offices. (Just in case you haven’t noticed, politicians expertly orchestrate news on their activities.)

But at least it’s our best example of bipartisanship. Both parties are equally guilty and addicted, and both on the hook for the skyrocketing deficits they’re unloading on our children and grandchildren.

But alas, there has been progress. For decades, the whole earmarking process was nearly invisible, but no more. People are noticing. It’s a common campaign issue. Congress has even approved new policy that requires senators and representatives to publicly declare earmarks they request. For decades, they didn’t even make this information public!

Dennis Rehberg (R-MT) just did this, in fact, announcing a list of 335 requested earmarks with a price tag of more than $1 billion, down from $1.5 billion he wanted last year when he didn’t have to make it public. Will this public spotlight lesson our zeal for earmarks? Perhaps. More and more politicians now condemn earmarks as the cause of wasteful spending. Witness Walt Minnick’s (D-ID) recent declaration that he wouldn’t request any earmarks, even for pet Idaho projects.

(Guess this proves earmarking is not a partisan issue. Our local “conservative” Republican wants all this pork and “liberal spending” and our local Democrat comes out against all earmarks.)

Politicos could push back and say it’s a cop-out for writers to criticize them. After all, they automatically and voluntarily become targets, deserved or not, the minute they announce their candidacy. And they might have a point. Are we the real culprits? We love our pork, don’t we? We don’t care if it’s an earmark as long as we get our new road, bridge, building, right?

So, will it ever change? I hope so. But realistically, I suppose the mess we’ve created is so huge and entrenched and popular with the power-hungry people we elect that it has become too big of a problem to solve.

Lost In An Energy Wilderness

Energy Policy: The House approves a Senate-passed omnibus bill that puts 2 million more acres of energy-rich land off-limits. We need a government that leads us out of the energy wilderness and not into it.

Opinion
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed on a 285-148 vote the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S.22), which confirms our theory that no good comes from legislation labeled "comprehensive" or "omnibus."

S.22 is a smorgasbord of 160 bills totaling more than 1,300 pages and, no, we're not sure how many who voted for it actually read it. A stimulus bill it is not, for it locks up an additional 2 million acres to the 107 million acres of federally owned wilderness areas. That total is more than the area of Montana and Wyoming combined.

Speaking of Wyoming, 1.1 million of these newly restricted acres are in that state. This bill, which also provides $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California, takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in that state, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The energy resources walled off by this bill would nearly match the annual production levels of our two natural gas production states — Texas and Alaska. As Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., points out: "We are not suffering from a lack of wilderness areas in the United States. According to the Census Bureau, we have 106 million acres of developed land and 107 million acres of (officially declared) wilderness land."

Earlier this year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 Utah oil and gas leases that had gone through seven years of studies, negotiations and land-use planning. They were rejected because temporary drilling operations might be "visible" from several national parks more than a mile away. We are not making this up.

Some of these parcels are in or near the Green River Formation, an oil-rich region in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming that's been called the "Persia of the West."

This formation has the largest known oil shale deposits in the world, holding from 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of crude. The Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory indicates 800 billion of these barrels are recoverable with current technology.

In comparison with Saudi Arabia's oil resources, America's recoverable oil shale resources are nearly three times as large, according to a 2008 report by the Utah Mining Association. As the report notes, the West's oil shale provides America with the "potential to be completely energy self-sufficient with no demands on external sources."

According to the BLM, 16% of the 607 million acres of land owned by the federal government is designated as wilderness in the form of 708 National Wilderness Areas located in the U.S. This bill adds over 80 new wilderness designations or additions to federal lands.

Paul Spitler of the Wilderness Society told CNSNews this is just dandy. "There are some landscapes that are simply more important for their scenic, natural, recreational and ecological values than they are for oil and gas development," he said.

We beg to differ. You can see the sun setting on America's energy and economic future over these landscapes.

Most of the locked-up lands are in Western states where there's enough oil shale to satisfy America's needs for the next 200 years. Modern technology can extract these vast resources from the earth with a minimal footprint.

Technology for shale-oil extraction is certainly further along than getting energy from switch grass or producing cellulosic ethanol. If we're going to stimulate anything, let's stimulate shale-oil production.

It took Moses 40 years to lead his people out of their wilderness to the Promised Land. The green lobby and its friends in Congress are leading the American people in the opposite direction.

Obama to sign lands bill before 5 days of comment

Stephen Dinan
Washington Times

President Obama on Monday will sign the omnibus land conservation bill - yet again breaking his vow to allow five days for public comment before he affixes his signature to legislation.

The bill passed the House on Wednesday, but the White House didn't post the measure for comments until Friday, leaving just two weekend days and parts of Friday and Monday for the public to register comments - short of the president's five-day pledge. The bill was posted for only several hours before the White House announced that Mr. Obama would sign it, indicating the president had made up his mind well before many comments could have been submitted.

The White House said issues are still being worked out with the five-day policy and that the president's scheduled departure Tuesday to London for a meeting with world leaders makes it necessary to short-circuit things this time.

"In most cases, we have posted legislation with five days' notice. We are working to resolve a few issues with the congressional calendar, and in this instance, in light of the president's international trip, the bill will be signed before departure," said spokesman Ben LaBolt, who vowed that the administration intends to live up to the policy.

"We will continue to post legislation on our Web site for comment as it moves through Congress, and plan to have the full policy implemented in the coming weeks," he said.

The land bill has taken a convoluted path to the president's desk, and Republican critics said Mr. Obama's failure to wait is simply the latest procedurally dubious step in a Democratic effort to jam through a controversial bill.

"If there was ever a bill in need of more input and comment, it's this one - but it didn't get that in Congress and it doesn't appear the administration will allow time for that either. That's too bad, because there is a better way," said Rep. Rob Bishop, Utah Republican.

"The history of this bill in the House has been one of strained procedure, stifled debate, constitutional flaws, inclusion of measures without merit, and amendments to apparently non-amendable bills," he said. "The people and their representatives have been shut out, and we have a poor end product because of it - one that will trample rights, hurt the management of our lands and hinder the economy and energy independence."

During the campaign, Mr. Obama pledged that when there's "a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you, the public, will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it."

On his campaign Web site, he vowed that would mean he "will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."

Of the nine bills Mr. Obama has signed so far in his term, he has signed six of them less than five days after Congress sent them to him. Of the other three, only on one did he wait more than five days from the time the bill was officially presented to him, according to Thomas, the Web site of the Library of Congress that tracks legislation.

Some of those bills were emergency legislation, such as the stimulus-spending bill and a continuing resolution to keep the government funded while Congress hashed out 2009 spending. The administration said that for other bills, it sometimes posts a link to the measure and allows comments even before it is officially presented to the White House, so the tally can be misleading.

The lands bill combines dozens of parks, wilderness and conservation projects, some of which had passed individually but others that hadn't received scrutiny, into a single bill.

Republicans on Capitol Hill blocked the legislation for months as they tried to remove parts they said were wasteful or counterproductive, including items such as new national parks that the National Park Service says it doesn't even want.

Democrats were afraid of facing an open debate in the House and used parliamentary tactics, including combining the bill with another measure, to deny Republicans the ability to offer amendments on the House floor.

The bill did pass overwhelmingly, with bipartisan support, by a 285-140 vote in the House and a 77-20 vote in the Senate.

Emily Lawrimore, a spokeswoman for Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, the top Republican on the Natural Resources Committee, said Democrats "jammed this $10 billion, 1,200-page bill" through Congress and that Mr. Obama is doing the same at the White House.

"It appears that the administration's 'sunset before signing' pledge should be renamed 'sign before sundown.' This is another unfortunate example of Democrats' inability to live up to their promises of a more open and transparent government," she said.

Rep. Rob Bishop, Utah Republican, says the omnibus bill that the president is slated to sign Monday is "in need of more input and comment."

Mr. Obama's pledge to have bills available for comment does put him apart from other presidents, but voters appear ready to hold him to the higher standard he set. On Thursday, when Mr. Obama hosted a virtual town hall, one of the submitted questions that Mr. Obama didn't get to answer was why he wasn't following through on his five-day rule.

Asked at the daily White House briefing about the pledge later that day, press secretary Robert Gibbs said he thought that all except for the stimulus bill had met the five-day comment period.

"I think, in fact, on at least a couple of occasions we've not signed bills when we normally planned so that some of them could be reviewed," he said.

Asked by ABC's Jake Tapper whether the five-day rule was "a commitment the president intends to uphold from now on," Mr. Gibbs was unequivocal: "Yes, sir."

To the victors

Letters to the editor
Los Angeles Times


Re “Major wilderness bill OKd,” March 26


The Times' photo and story are so misleading. You have a Republican aide in the picture touting the victory. Although it might be true that Republican Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita supports the wilderness bill, most Republicans don't.

You got it so wrong. A Democrat should be quoted regarding the victory, or a staunch environmentalist.

Gerald Orcholski
Pasadena

Wilderness protection bill gets Congress' OK

The legislation gives maximum federal protection to more than 2 million acres in nine states, including more than 700,000 acres in California.

By Richard Simon and Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington Bettina Boxall -- Congress on Wednesday approved the largest expansion of the wilderness system in 15 years, bestowing the highest level of federal protection on 2 million acres in nine states and launching one of the most ambitious river restoration efforts in the West.

The bill, the first major conservation measure set to be signed by President Obama, would designate as wilderness almost as much land as was set aside during George W. Bush's entire presidency. It passed the House on Wednesday, 285 to 140, after clearing the Senate last week.

In California--which now has 14 million acres of wilderness (second only to Alaska, which has more than 57 million acres) -- the bill would protect about 700,000 additional acres from new roads and most commercial uses such as new mining, logging and energy development.

Included in the legislation is $88 million to help fund a project to return year-round flows and a prized salmon run to the San Joaquin River for the first time since the 1940s. The bill also would provide $61 million toward cleanup of polluted groundwater in the San Gabriel Valley.

The legislation passed Wednesday is an amalgam of about 160 bills, including measures to strengthen the protection of Oregon's Mt. Hood; designate President Clinton's boyhood home in Hope, Ark., a national historic site; create a commission to plan for the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, Fla.; and designating the River Raisin battlefield in Monroe, Mich. -- site of a bloody battle in the War of 1812 -- as a unit of the national park system.

Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said at a news conference after the vote that the bill is the "most important piece of conservation legislation Congress has considered in many years."

California land to be designated as wilderness includes about 40,000 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County. The bill would create the Magic Mountain Wilderness -- named for a mountain northeast of Santa Clarita, not the Six Flags amusement park -- and the Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness, west of Angeles Crest Highway.

About 428,000 acres in the Eastern Sierra would be protected, as would about 147,000 acres in Riverside County (including parts of Joshua Tree National Park) and about 85,000 acres in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks -- including the Mineral King Valley area that was the site of an environmental battle in the 1960s when the Disney company tried to build a ski resort there.

The legislation also would strengthen protections of scenic rivers, including eight in California that stretch from the upper Owens River in the eastern Sierra to Piru Creek in Los Angeles County.

In addition, the bill would add about 8,400 acres to the 272,000-acre Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument near Palm Springs, and order a study on whether the World War II Japanese American internment camp at Tule Lake should be part of the national park system.

"We're ecstatic," said Sam Goldman, California wilderness coordinator at the Wilderness Society.

The bill brought together members of opposing parties who were eager to trumpet their conservation efforts and water projects.

Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita, a conservative Republican who worked with liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to push for the wilderness designation in the Eastern Sierra and San Gabriel Mountains, alluded to his unusual situation.

"We have some people who used to be my friends who are not happy with me, and we have some people who used to hate me who now think I'm great," he said. Showing pictures of mountains and rivers in his district, he added: "Places like this are treasures that we should try to preserve."

But the measure drew opposition from a number of congressional Republicans and business and property-rights groups, who attacked it as a land grab that would close off public land to energy production.

"If Congress and the administration are serious about jump-starting our economy, they cannot limit responsible American energy production of any kind, including oil and natural gas," said Barry Russell, president and chief executive of the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America.

The $88 million for the San Joaquin River is aimed at ending one of California's legendary water fights.

So much of the river is diverted to irrigate farmland on the east side of the agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley that about 60 miles of it has turned into a bed of dust. Its lower reach is so polluted with runoff and agricultural drainage that it is known as "the lower colon of California."

A chinook salmon run that once was one of the West Coast's most bountiful was wiped out after Friant Dam was built in the 1940s and most of the river's Sierra-fed flow was sent into two giant irrigation canals.

Environmentalists went to court two decades ago to get back some of the San Joaquin's water and won a court settlement in 2006. The legislation authorizes the federal government to carry out the settlement and spend $88 million on restoration efforts.

"It's going to initiate one of the largest river restoration projects in the nation. It's a great day," said Monty Schmitt of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has been involved in the river fight since its inception.

Under the settlement, farmers will give up some of their irrigation supplies. Altogether, more than $400 million in state and federal funds and environmental fees will be spent on restoration and water management projects to help farmers offset their irrigation losses.

Schmitt said the goal was to have spring chinook salmon swimming up the San Joaquin within three years.

During Wednesday's debate, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) contended that the settlement would hurt farmers. "If this Congress isn't capable of delivering water to people, perhaps we can ask the United Nations for help," he said. "Maybe they would be willing to deliver water, distribute humanitarian aid and rebuild the San Joaquin Valley."

But Rep. George Radanovich, a fellow Central Valley Republican, said that the settlement would resolve a years-long legal battle that threatened farmers' water supply, and that it "gives the agricultural community some control over their water future."

The new wilderness designations will be the latest additions to the 107-million acre National Wilderness Preservation System, created when President Johnson signed the Wilderness Act in 1964.

The measure's passage has emboldened environmentalists to push for even more wilderness designation.

Boxer is working to protect an additional 1.4 million acres of wilderness in California, including areas in the Angeles, Klamath, Lassen and Los Padres national forests.

All of California's Democratic representatives supported the bill. (As House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco usually doesn't vote, but she said she backed the bill.)

All of the state's Republicans voted against it except for Rep. Mary Bono Mack of Palm Springs and McKeon, who also sponsored bills to create wilderness areas in their districts. Rep. Gary G. Miller of Diamond Bar did not vote.

Feinstein wants desert swath off-limits to solar, wind

In a move that could pit environmentalists and alternative energy industries against each other, the senator wants hundreds of thousands of acres in California designated as a national monument.

By Richard Simon
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington -- While President Obama has made development of cleaner energy sources a priority, an effort is underway to close off a large swath of the Southern California desert to solar and wind energy projects.

In a move that could pit usual allies -- environmentalists and the solar and wind industries -- against each other, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is preparing legislation that would permanently put hundreds of thousands of acres of desert land off limits to energy projects. The territory would be designated California's newest national monument.

The move has triggered cries of NIMBY-ism on Capitol Hill.

"If there is such strong support for renewable energy, then why are they moving to block renewable energy production in their own state?" said Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington state, the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Myron Ebell, an energy expert with the pro-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, called Feinstein's effort "just the first example of how hard it is going to be to realize President Obama's dream of a green-energy economy."

Feinstein disputed that she is engaged in a not-in-my-backyard campaign. "I'm a strong supporter of renewable energy and clean technology -- but it is critical that these projects are built on suitable lands," she said.

The area of concern to Feinstein is between the Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park, off old Route 66 between Ludlow and Needles. The area includes desert tortoise habitat, wildlife corridors, cactus gardens and the Amboy Crater -- an inactive volcanic crater where portions of the 1959 movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth" were filmed.

"That section of the road is as pristine as it was when travelers came across it in the 1920s and '30s," said James Conkle, chairman of the Route 66 Alliance.

Boundaries for the proposed monument have yet to be drawn up. But David Myers, executive director the Wildlands Conservancy, said it probably would be in excess of 800,000 acres. Feinstein said in a Capitol Hill interview Tuesday that she was sending her staff to the desert -- and would probably visit the area herself next month -- to consider what areas should be made off limits to green-energy projects and where they should be permitted.

Feinstein, who regards the 1994 California Desert Protection Act as one of her proudest achievements, noted that the Wildlands Conservancy spent more than $40 million buying the former railroad land in the desert and turning it over to the government in one of the largest land purchases in California history, with the intent of protecting it. "I feel very strongly that the federal government must honor that commitment," she said.

The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing 130 applications for solar and wind energy development in the California desert, covering more than 1 million acres of public land, according to Feinstein, who recently discussed her concerns with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. At least 19 projects have been suggested in the area where the monument has been proposed, Myers said.

Salazar said in a letter to Feinstein that projects in the desert would be "carefully considered" before any decisions were made and that "every effort will be made to avoid the most environmentally sensitive and valuable areas." But he also noted that developing cleaner energy sources was a priority.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a speech last year at a Yale University climate-change conference: "If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it."

In November, Schwarzenegger signed an executive order decreeing that a third of the state's electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. A major boost in solar and wind power is an essential component of the state's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions under its landmark global warming law. About 12% now comes from renewable sources, excluding large hydropower plants.

His administration, however, has signaled that it will work with Feinstein to "craft legislation that jump-starts renewable energy development, provides for vital transmission infrastructure in the right places and protects the Mojave Preserve for all time," according to a statement from Karen Douglas, chairwoman of the California Energy Commission.

A number of companies pursuing solar or energy projects said they hoped to work with Feinstein to fashion legislation that would satisfy her, environmentalists and the industry.

"It's frustrating. We really do have competing national priorities here," said Paul Whitworth, whose San Diego-based LightSource Renewables hopes to put in a solar project on about 6,000 acres near Amboy. "We spent a lot of time researching the desert, and consulting with the BLM to make sure we didn't apply on top of an area of critical environmental concern, or area with other issues. . . . Now, there's uncertainty on whether these projects will go ahead."

"What we all know about Sen. Feinstein is that she's long been a champion for both environmental issues and renewable energy issues," said Shannon Eddy, executive director of the Large-scale Solar Assn. "I'm certainly hoping that there's some pathway that we can find here to meet the mutual goals we all have."

A representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who has fought congressional actions to close off areas to oil and gas drilling questioned where energy projects would be built, if not in the remote desert.

"If you're going to take the desert away from us, where are you going to allow it -- Los Angeles?," said Bill Kovacs, the chamber's vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs.

Feinstein is in a strong position to influence any decisions. She chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee that writes the Interior Department's budget.

Lands bill displays Senate egoism over common sense

Senate defeats five Coburn amendments, accepts one

Press Release
Senator Tom Coburn M.D. (R-OK)

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) released the following statement today after the Senate’s passage of the Public Lands Act.

“Parochialism and short-term political expediency have once again trumped common sense in the United States Senate. The public lands bill handicaps future generations with additional debt and new barriers to both renewable and traditional energy resources in our own country,” Dr. Coburn said.

“Today, we rejected transparency and the ability to know the size and cost of federal property so we can better manage our resources. We rejected transparency because we prefer darkness and a lack of accountability. We rejected eliminating earmarks because we want to look good back home even if we undermine our future. We rejected the ability to access energy both renewable and traditional. We rejected prioritizing the needs of our national parks, which are deteriorating in the face of at least a $10 billion maintenance backlog because we prefer new ribbon cutting ceremonies to the hard work of upkeep and oversight,” Dr. Coburn said.

“The American people also should be disappointed that in a time of economic turmoil the United States Senate has devoted seven weeks to a bill that could have been done in two weeks. Seventy of the bills in this package, which I supported, could have passed by voice vote. Had the majority agreed to a simple and open amendment process months ago we could have been focusing on more important issues. The fact that one-third of the Senate supported some of my amendments demonstrated that this bill was too complex and controversial to pass essentially in secret with no debate, no amendments and no recorded votes,” Dr. Coburn said.

Background on Coburn amendments:

• The Senate voted 79 to 19 to table, or kill, Coburn Amendment 680, which would have barred new construction projects for national parks until all current sites are fully operational and pose no health or safety threat to the public. The National Park Service is currently facing a $10 billion maintenance backlog.


• The Senate voted 65 to 33 to table, or kill, Coburn Amendment 679, which would have nullified the provisions within the lands bill prohibiting renewable energy development on public lands.


• The Senate voted 63 to 35 to table, or kill, Coburn Amendment 675, which would have prohibited the use of eminent domain for any provision authorized in the bill.


• The Senate voted 58 to 39 to table, or kill, Coburn amendment 677, which would have required annual report detailing total size and cost of federal property.


• By voice vote, the Senate accepted Coburn amendment 682, that will protect park visitors and scientists from criminal penalties for taking stones that may contain insignificant fossils.


• The Senate voted 70 to 27 to table, or kill, Coburn amendment 683, which would have eliminated frivolous waste in the bill, including federal funding for a birthday party for St. Augustine, Florida, botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida, a salmon restoration project in California, a study of Alexander Hamilton’s boyhood estate in the Virgin Islands, and historic shipwreck exploration.

Feinstein Seeks to Preserve Former Catellus Lands

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office
Press Release

Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the author of the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, today announced her intention to introduce new legislation to establish a national monument to preserve hundreds of thousands of acres in the Mojave Desert. The former Catellus lands were previously donated to or by purchased by the Department of the Interior for conservation.

"The former Catellus lands between the Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park were purchased by or donated to the federal government so they would be protected forever. I feel very strongly that the federal government must honor that commitment," Senator Feinstein said.

"That's why I am very concerned about wind and solar development proposals intended for these lands. I'm a strong supporter of renewable energy and clean technology -- but it is critical that these projects are built on suitable lands. The former Catellus lands shouldn't be eligible for development.

So, I intend to introduce new legislation to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of these former railroad lands through a national monument designation. This would provide lasting protection for these lands and prevent development, while allowing existing uses to continue. I also intend to work with local stakeholders to determine whether other local desert lands may be suitable for federal protection at this time.

These former Catellus land acquisitions were financed by $40 million in private donations from The Wildlands Conservancy, $18 million in Land and Water Conservation Fund appropriations and approximately $5 million in a price reduction from Catellus, a real estate subsidiary of the former Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroad. The private parties contributed this large sum of money in the belief that this land will be protected and conserved. Building huge solar facilities on these lands is untenable and unacceptable. Bottom line: the former Catellus lands must be protected from development."

Senator Feinstein recently expressed her concerns about development proposals intended for the former Catellus lands in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, which is available below.

Protecting the Former Catellus Lands

The national monument designation would ensure that hundreds of thousands of acres between Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve are protected in perpetuity. Large-scale development would be prohibited within the monument in order to protect the biological and aesthetic integrity of the region and guarantee public access for hunting, hiking, camping and exploring scenic back roads.

The 600,000 acre Catellus agreement was one the largest nonprofit land acquisition donations to the United States in history. Most of the Catellus lands were acquired and donated to the federal government between 1999 and 2004. It included nearly 100,000 acres of land to the National Park Service, over 210,000 acres in 20 wilderness areas to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and hundreds of thousands of acres of important habitat for threatened and endangered species.

The BLM is currently reviewing 130 applications for solar and wind energy development in the California desert, covering more than 1 million acres of public land. Several of these applications are located in the eastern Mojave Desert on or near property previously owned by Catellus. The California Energy Commission has estimated that approximately 100,000 to 160,000 acres of desert lands would be needed for the state to meet its 33 percent renewable energy goal by 2020.

Senator Feinstein was the lead sponsor of the 1994 Desert Protection Act, which provided lasting federal protection for nearly 9 million acres of pristine desert land in Southern California. It established Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve. It remains the largest parks and wilderness bill to impact the lower 48 states.

Letter from Senator Feinstein to Secretary Salazar

March 3, 2009

Honorable Ken Salazar
Secretary
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20240

Dear Secretary Salazar:

As the author of the California Desert Protection Act, I am writing to express my strong opposition to the leasing of former railroad lands in the eastern Mojave Desert by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). I also want to make you aware that I am currently preparing legislation to ensure the permanent protection of these lands, which were donated to the federal government for conservation.

As you may know, hundreds of lease applications have been submitted to the BLM for the development of renewable energy projects in the California desert. While I strongly support renewable energy, it is critical that these projects move forward on public and private lands well suited for that purpose. Unfortunately, many of the sites now being considered for leases are completely inappropriate and will lead to the wholesale destruction of some of the most pristine areas in the desert.

Following the passage of the Desert Protection Act, I worked closely with the Department of the Interior, the Wildlands Conservancy and Catellus (the real estate arm of the Union Pacific Railroad) to develop a plan to conserve hundreds of thousands acres of privately held land that checker-boarded much of the eastern Mojave. As part of that agreement, Catellus reduced the selling price of its land, the Wildlands Conservancy contributed $40 million in private donations, and the federal government provided $18 million in Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars to acquire and donate approximately 600,000 acres to the Department of the Interior. As you can see in the attached map, these lands generally cover the area between the Mojave Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park.

The significance of the Wildlands Conservancy-Catellus agreement cannot be overstated. It represents the largest nonprofit land acquisition donated to the American people in United States history. This included the donation of nearly 100,000 acres of land to the National Park Service, over 210,000 acres in 20 BLM wilderness areas, and hundreds of thousands of acres of important habitat for threatened and endangered species. Beyond protecting national parks and wilderness from development, the conservation of these lands has helped to ensure the sustainability of the entire desert ecosystem by preserving the vital wildlife corridors.

Though the Wildlands Conservancy-Catellus agreement and the use of federal conservation funds demonstrated the clear intent of all parties to preserve these lands in perpetuity, I have been informed that the BLM now considers these areas open for all types of use except mining. This is unacceptable! This policy has also led the State of California to include large swaths of former Catellus lands as potential renewable energy zones as a part of its Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative draft proposal. It is important the Department of the Interior act as soon as possible to rectify the situation before more time, effort and money is wasted by government agencies and private industry pursuing projects on these lands that will never come to fruition.

I urge you to direct the BLM to suspend any further consideration of leases to develop these former railroad lands for renewable energy or for any other purposes. Furthermore, I would welcome the opportunity to work with the Department of the Interior on legislation to protect these areas and encourage energy development on more suitable lands within the California desert.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my request. I look forward to working with you on these issues.


Sincerely,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

Senate poised to move quickly on Omnibus

Procedural maneuver designed to nullify House vote

By Noelle Straub and Eric Bontrager
Environment & Energy Daily

The Senate today will vote on six amendments to the public lands, water and natural resources omnibus bill and may vote on the final version as soon as tonight.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) yesterday reached an agreement to allow Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) votes on the amendments in return for dropping his objections to the bill. The deal allows for 60 minutes of debate on each of Coburn's amendments and requires 60 votes for final passage. The Senate first passed the omnibus bill in January, 74-21, and a cloture vote Monday was approved, 73-21.

During floor debate yesterday, Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) described Coburn's amendments as largely minor, noncontroversial measures intended as assurances against unintended consequences of the omnibus. He encouraged Republicans to vote for them, saying they "simply improve the bill."

"Why would we want to preserve the right to use eminent domain if we don't have any intention to use it?" - Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

He noted one of the Coburn amendments would prohibit the use of eminent domain to acquire any of the millions of acres that would be protected under the omnibus. Supporters of the package have repeatedly refuted Coburn's claims that eminent domain would be used for any of the lands in the omnibus. "If it is true ... that none of this land needs to be acquired by eminent domain, there is no harm in including the language" of the amendment, Kyl said. "Why would we want to preserve the right to use eminent domain if we don't have any intention to use it?"

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who has a measure in the omnibus that would designate more than 517,000 acres as wilderness in the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands of southwestern Idaho, said he understood the concerns of Coburn and some other members have but does not share their fears that the package represent "a haphazard attempt to extend the reach of the federal government."

"This is a well thought through management approach," Crapo said. "I don't believe there is a single piece of legislation in this bill that does not have the support of the senator of the state those lands are in."

Crapo said he hopes the Senate will move "expeditiously" on the amendments so that it can pass the omnibus and send it over the House.

Two of Coburn's amendments would strike all provisions that could restrict renewable energy development on public lands and sections that Coburn deems frivolous, such as the $3.5 million to celebrate the 450th Anniversary of St. Augustine, Fla., in 2015. Noting the National Park Service's $9 billion maintenance backlog, one amendment would bar new construction until all current park sites are certified as fully operational, ensuring full access by the public, and posing no health or safety threat.

Other amendments would require an annual report detailing the total size and cost of federal property, prohibit the use of eminent domain for any provision authorized in the bill, and clarify the bill to protect park visitors and scientists from criminal penalties for taking stones that may contain fossils.

Last week, the House fell two votes shy of passing the bill under suspension of the rules, a maneuver that shields legislation from amendment or a motion to recommit but requires a two-thirds majority for passage. Senate leaders then devised a strategy to use a bill that had already passed the House -- H.R. 146, a proposal to protect Revolutionary War battlefields -- and strip its contents, replacing it with the omnibus lands bill. Because H.R. 146 has already passed the House, the House Rules Committee can approve a closed rule that would block a motion to recommit, eliminating the GOP's best procedural chance to stymie the bill.

House Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) yesterday said he had not seen Coburn's amendments but doubted that any would jeopardize the omnibus's final passage in the House. He noted that because the House already passed H.R. 146, all it would need is a simple majority vote to concur with the Senate amendment.

Even if the Senate passes the omnibus this week, Rahall said the House would likely not take it up until next week.

Because the omnibus may only require a simple majority, Natural Resources Committee ranking member Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) admitted that the bill is all but assured to pass. While pleased that the Reid-Coburn agreement will allow some amendments on the Senate side, he reiterated that House Republicans have never had the same opportunity.

The omnibus would designate more than 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states and would establish three new national park units, a new national monument, three new national conservation areas, more than 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers and four new national trails. It would enlarge the boundaries of more than a dozen existing national park units and establish 10 new national heritage areas.

It would also authorize numerous land exchanges and conveyances to help local Western communities address water resource and supply issues and includes provisions to improve land management.

The revised omnibus bill will also include language from Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) meant to ensure that the omnibus would not close off lands that are already open to hunting and fishing.

Alliance proposes establishing Route 66 national monument

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

Preservationists worried about military expansion and renewable energy development in the California desert are pitching a plan to create a vast national monument east of Twentynine Palms and protect 70 miles of historic Route 66.

The groups have been meeting with government leaders in recent weeks to enlist support for their far-reaching plan, which would:

Designate "Mother Road National Monument," which could be twice as big as Joshua Tree National Park.

Preserve an off-road vehicle area southeast of Barstow that has been threatened by expansion of a military training base.

Protect more than a half-million acres of scattered desert land donated to the federal government as open space but now subject to energy development.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., signaled this week through an aide that she will craft legislation to protect the donated property.

Large-scale solar and wind energy projects are proposed on thousands of those acres.

The monument would encompass as much as 2.4 million acres in southeastern San Bernardino County, said Elden Hughes, a member of the Sierra Club California/Nevada Desert Committee.

The region is defined by desert valleys, stark mountain ranges and forgotten towns along the old Route 66, a major east-west route until interstates replaced it.

The Wildlands Conservancy, based in Oak Glen, raised about $45 million to buy Mojave Desert land from the Catellus Development Corp., a former arm of the Santa Fe Railway.

By donating land and cash, the group helped the federal government acquire nearly 600,000 acres to add to public land in the desert.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management controls most of it.

Feinstein has not endorsed the Mother Road National Monument concept and other specific provisions sought by The Wildlands Conservancy, Sierra Club California/Nevada Desert Committee and Route 66 preservationists, said Feinstein spokeswoman Laura Wilkinson.

However, the senator plans to ensure the former Catellus land is protected, Wilkinson said.

"Senator Feinstein expects to introduce new legislation to protect additional desert lands in California, which would include a monument designation for the former Catellus lands," Wilkinson said in an e-mail.

Feinstein's office is evaluating what other desert lands may be suitable for protection, Wilkinson wrote.

David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy, said he is encouraged by Feinstein's interest.

"This legislation could keep the Mojave Desert, the largest desert in California, intact for perpetuity," he said.

The monument idea drew a cautious response from the county supervisor who represents the area.

Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt said he is worried about haphazard energy development and supports Route 66 preservation efforts.

"The idea of protecting Route 66 tourism and history is something I totally support," Mitzelfelt said. "Whether this is the way to do it, I am not sure."

History And Nature

The Mother Road National Monument would be named after John Steinbeck's description of Route 66 in his 1939 novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," which portrayed 1930s Dust Bowl refugees entering California to seek farm labor jobs.

The monument would contain about 70 miles of the route from Needles through the desert outposts of Goffs, Essex, Amboy and Ludlow.

It would be a tribute to American workers, Myers said.

Jim Conkle, chairman of the Route 66 Alliance, said the monument could become a destination for tourists wanting to experience Route 66's heyday -- the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

Crumbling buildings that housed midcentury gas stations, diners and motels could be renovated for those seeking retro kicks, he said.

Such an opportunity has been lost on other stretches of the route, where original roadside amenities have been torn down.

"We are trying to protect what's left," said Conkle, a retired AAA employee who lives in Phelan, west of the Cajon Pass. "We want people to get out and enjoy it."

The monument, however, would preserve much more than motoring history.

It also would take in a vast area between Twentynine Palms and the Colorado River, and the Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park.

The designation would bring protection to patches of open desert surrounding 10 wilderness areas, created in the Desert Protection Act of 1994, said Hughes, of the Sierra Club. It would allow wildlife free movement.

Diverse Interests

The monument designation could block development in about a dozen areas where the BLM is processing applications for wind or solar projects at a time when the Obama administration and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are pushing for such projects to cut greenhouse gases and create jobs.

A new monument also could limit options for proposed expansion of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms.

The coalition of environmentalists and history buffs have been working hard to overcome such obstacles through negotiation

"Right now we are going through vetting with user groups," Myers said. "There are a lot of moving pieces."

The proposal the groups are working on would preserve all existing uses on the affected federal lands and leave room for military expansion and solar and wind projects, he said.

Conkle said a key provision would keep the 189,000- acre Johnson Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Area permanently open to off-roaders.

Hundreds of off-roaders crammed public meetings last fall after the Marine Corps announced an expansion plan that could take in Johnson Valley.

Hughes said the monument proposal would include military expansion into the Bristol Dry Lake area.

San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has plans for an 800-megawatt solar generation plant on 5,120 acres along Route 66 east of Amboy, a development Conkle said would spoil the view for motorists.

A monument designation could force the company to build elsewhere, he said.

Jonathan Marshall, a utility spokesman, said in an e-mail that alternative-energy projects "can be responsibly sited and developed in a manner that does not interfere with these conservation efforts."

Jim Conkle, chairman of the Route 66 Alliance, holds photos of the Mojave Desert near Amboy. The left photo shows the desert as it is, the right one as it would look if a proposed array of solar panels is built. The alliance is one of several history and environmental groups seeking to preserve the desert along historic Route 66 by establishing Mother Road National Monument, comprising about 2.4 million acres of the Mojave Desert. Stan Lim/The Press-Enterprise

Wilderness preservation bill narrowly defeated

Washington Post
March 12, 2009

Washington -- A bill to designate 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness was narrowly defeated in the House on Wednesday when it failed to garner the necessary two-thirds vote.

The measure -- which has passed the Senate -- received 282 yes and 144 no votes, leaving it two votes short. It came to a vote under special rules requiring the super-majority.

Conservation groups and many lawmakers said the package, which combined more than 170 separate bills, would preserve some of the nation's remaining pristine landscapes, but several Republicans argued that it would cost too much and would stand in the way of energy development.

Despite the defeat, Mike Matz, executive director of the advocacy group Campaign for America's Wilderness, said the proposal had significant support and would move forward. "It's a question of timing; that's the big issue," Matz said.

The bipartisan bill would apply to areas including Oregon's Mt. Hood and part of Virginia's Jefferson National Forest. Other affected states are California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah and West Virginia.

Public Lands Bill Defeated in House

By Kate Phillips
New York Times

For now, the mega-public lands bill that would have greatly expanded public wilderness areas, parks and miles and miles of public trails, is stalled. House Republicans managed to maintain enough opposition to the omnibus measure to defeat it earlier today in a vote requiring two-thirds of the House members, by 282-144.

House Democratic leaders had brought the bill to the floor under suspension of the rules, as a way to keep the opposition from altering the legislation through amendments. But getting two-thirds remained dicey. Democrats tried to persuade Republicans (and conservative Democrats) that the bills were gun-friendly by the insertion of an amendment that would have prohibited any effort to close lands in the omnibus to hunting and fishing, but many Republicans still believed the legislation did not include enough gun rights protections.

Three Democrats voted no; 34 Republicans voted with Democrats; and six did not vote. It fell two votes short of passage.

Beyond guns, the House Republican leadership had complained all along that the total size of the bill was extraordinary, and would cost billions of dollars. It also opposed the legislation on the grounds that many pieces of the omnibus, totaling more than 150 bills that would have created new national parks, expanded the boundaries of existing ones, created monuments or “heritage areas” and nationalized trails, had never been thoroughly examined in the House.

The Senate had already passed the bill, S. 22, after Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, scheduled votes on a Sunday in early January for consideration of the omnibus bill.

Republicans also objected to the Democrats’ decision to pursue the vote through a suspension of the rules, contending that the procedure should be used mainly for renaming post offices or ceremonial items as opposed to something as massive as this bill. In addition, private land rights came into play as well as concerns that closing off so much land would affect energy resources.

Representative John Boehner, the minority leader in the House, said today: “The legislation Democrats attempted to force through the House today would have made matters even worse by blocking environmentally safe energy production, increasing gasoline and other energy costs, and costing American jobs we cannot afford to lose.”

A senior Democratic aide in the House said the best option under consideration would be to have the Senate shoehorn it onto another bill and ship it back. House Democratic leaders have not definitively ruled out a floor vote using a simpler rule, needing only a majority for passage, but that move would leave the measure wide open for amendments.

As for the ever-present gun lobby, an amendment by Democrat Jason Altmire, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was meant to assuage those concerned about hunting and fishing rights. And Democrats’ pointed to the N.R.A.’s satisfaction with that amendment. But Gun Owners of America sent out a letter this week objecting to the overall omnibus on many grounds, and urged House members to vote against it.

Extensive lands protection bill could thwart new energy development

By SCOTT STREATER
New York Times

The 111th Congress is poised to usher in the largest expansion of the nation's wilderness in a generation, with 2.1 million acres of public land in line for the strictest environmental protections allowed under federal law.

An omnibus lands bill that could receive final congressional approval this month would create new wilderness areas in nine states -- from the San Gabriel Mountains of California to Michigan's Lake Superior shoreline to a portion of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia -- covering almost as much land as the 2.4 million acres designated during the entire eight years of the Bush presidency.

Meanwhile, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) last month introduced the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, which would designate 24 million acres of mostly Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land in five states as wilderness area.

The wilderness proposals carry significant implications, particularly for BLM and the Forest Service, which must manage public lands for multiple uses, including oil and gas drilling, minerals mining, timber harvesting and a variety of recreational uses.

By contrast, wilderness areas are by their very definition sanctuaries of quiet solitude, or as the 1964 law states, areas "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." In practical terms, that means wilderness is off limits to all human activities except hiking, canoeing and some hunting and fishing.

The surge in congressional interest in wilderness designations, particularly by Democrats but also some Republicans, is a tonic to many conservation groups who are still angered by Bush administration policies that they say favored natural resource extraction priorities like mining and drilling over land preservation.

"If you've ever gone out and taken a look at areas intensively drilled for oil and gas, you're talking about lands that look like a moonscape. They're ecologically devastated," said Paul Spitler, national wilderness campaigns associate director for the Wilderness Society. "These designations are significant because people don't realize that public lands are open to a wide variety of uses that can be just as damaging as putting up a bunch of condos."

There are, however, potential drawbacks to expanding wilderness designations, especially when it comes to energy production.

Roughly a third of the country's domestic energy is produced on lands managed by the Interior Department, officials say, and those numbers are expected to grow as more wind and solar energy projects are approved on public lands.

But wind farms, solar arrays and geothermal plants are forbidden in wilderness areas, said Mike Olsen, a former Interior senior administrator now with the environmental strategies group at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.

That is a huge concern, Olsen said, because the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes billions of dollars in incentives and tax breaks to encourage the development of renewable energy.

"You are in effect closing these lands off to domestic energy development," Olsen said. "In this world, where domestic energy production is so important, what does this mean to have additional public land taken off the table for energy development? I'm not placing value on one over the other. But we need to consider these impacts."

Spitler acknowledged the wilderness designations could affect some alternative energy development. He also is sensitive to the concerns of those who worry the wilderness designations could lessen their enjoyment of public land. Motorized vehicles such as snowmobiles are forbidden in wilderness areas.

But he and other conservationists say the increased protections are necessary.

"Between energy production and off-road vehicles we're losing land at a rapid pace," Spitler said. "We need these areas to receive permanent protection before they're lost."

A new vision

At issue is the National Wilderness Preservation System and attempts to add to the 107 million acres of public land already designated as wilderness.

The centerpiece of the latest effort to expand wilderness designations is the "Omnibus Public Land Management Act," which the Senate approved in January. The bill consolidates dozens of individual wilderness bills, from designating 37,000 acres within the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia to 700,000 acres and 105 miles of rivers and streams in California.

If Congress approves the measure, it will be the single largest wilderness designation since the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, which extended the highest federal protection to 3.5 million acres of BLM lands in the Mojave Desert.

The new push for wilderness represents a stark change from the Bush administration and 12 years of the Republican-controlled Congresses, which tended to view public lands as resources that should be tapped for their abundant fossil fuels, timber and minerals, said Myke Bybee, a public lands representative for the Sierra Club.

"The wilderness designations in the omnibus bill will add a level of protection that's far more extensive than what they are now, and I think it's necessary," said Bill Wade, executive council chairman of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, which was critical of the Bush administration's conservation policies.

Some of the wilderness designations in the bill, such as expanding the 14,000-acre Little River Canyon National Preserve in northeast Alabama, would have tremendous environmental value. Little River, atop Lookout Mountain, is one of the nation's longest mountaintop rivers and proponents want to ensure it stays pristine.

Other designations, like the expansion of the Fort Davis National Historic Site in west Texas, are vulnerable but have cultural significance as well. The fort, built in 1854, housed the Army's all-black regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

Most of the proposed wilderness areas in the bill are the result of lengthy negotiations between interest groups, and in some cases the new designations involve trade-offs between preservation and development interests.

For example, Zion National Park in southwest Utah is in the fastest-growing county in the state, and large developments have been proposed to the east and north of the park that could hamper the quality of the natural resource, said David Nimkin, director of the southwest region for the National Parks Conservation Association.

The omnibus lands bill would designate 123,743 acres -- more than 90 percent of the park -- as wilderness. In exchange, lawmakers agreed to sell 9,300 acres of public land to developers and use the money to purchase private parcels within the park boundaries, Nimkin said.

"Getting this thing done is a big deal," he said. "It codifies the protections for the national park into law. There are different administrations, different land managers, and various degrees of local pressure. This takes the administrative decisionmaking and discretion out of the hands of the public land manager."

Planning for global warming

One reason environmentalists are pushing to expand wilderness areas is to protect plants and animals from the damaging effects of climate change.

Scientists have calculated that for every increase in temperature of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the vegetation belt shifts 60 miles north or 550 feet higher in elevation. As vegetation shifts, so too will thousands of species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. Those species whose habitat is not obstructed by highways, subdivisions and other development should be able to migrate to more hospitable climates; those that cannot will die.

The Interior Department and Forest Service have worked the past several years with a conservation effort know as the Wildlands Network to develop and maintain carefully plotted corridors connecting already preserved lands to one another. The network's goal is to create a 5,000-mile-long wildlife corridor stretching from Mexico to Alaska -- an effort that would take decades.

To succeed, the program must connect protected parcels that would allow for northward migration of at-risk species, said John Kostyack, executive director of wildlife conservation and global warming for the National Wildlife Federation.

"Global warming is leading to a complete transformation of how we look at conservation," Kostyack said.

Congress acknowledged that fact last year in the failed Climate Security Act of 2008 sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and John Warner (R-Va.). The bill, which would have been the first to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, included a provision to allocate as much as $7.2 billion a year to BLM, the Park Service, Forest Service and other agencies to purchase conservation easements and restore degraded habitats.

President Obama pledged support for the creation of such a fund during the 2008 campaign. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has listed the creation of such a fund as a priority in any future greenhouse gas legislation.

"All the science tells us that we'll need to have connected landscapes for animals and plants to move as the climate warms, and we've already seen in some cases massive shifts of vegetative communities northward," Kostyack said. "It's certainly a key rationale for expanded wildlife designations."

OHV destruction

Another reason cited by environmental groups for expanding U.S. wilderness areas is to protect wildlife and habitat from damage caused by off-highway vehicles like dirt bikes, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles, which have surged in popularity in recent years.

Snowmobiles in Yosemite National Park, for example, have sparked controversy and court battles, with park managers ultimately setting a daily cap on the number of snowmobiles allowed in the park because their engines scare away wildlife. And in Southern California's Mojave Desert, use of off-highway vehicles on BLM land have crushed hundreds of endangered desert tortoises.

"On the fragile ecosystem in the deserts in the West, where we don't get a lot of rain, the vegetation is already making a living in a very harsh environment," said Ileene Anderson, staff biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity in Los Angeles. "So having somebody come riding their motorcycle or [all-terrain vehicle] through a pristine desert and running over everything, it has a cascading effect on the plants, insects and animals. These fragile lands can't take this continuous assault."

While acknowledging "there are a few knuckleheads" who cause damage to natural resources, Bill Dart, director of land use for the Bakersfield, Calif.-based Off-Road Business Association, a national trade group, said such incidents do not justify a federal prohibition on OHV use by law-abiding citizens on public lands.

"The impacts of off-road vehicles on wildlife have been overblown," Dart said.

Still, Dart said he is encouraged by the fact that federal officials and some advocacy groups have been willing to work with his group when developing wilderness area proposals.

For example, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) consulted the Off-Road Business Association when developing a proposed 27,000-acre wilderness designation in the San Gabriel Mountains in Northern California. The proposed Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness Area is one of the projects in the omnibus lands bill.

"They were willing to take out all the [off-road trails] that were of interest to us," Dart said. "Wildlife designations are appropriate as long as they don't get carried away. There is a way to do this that's a win-win situation for everyone."

A sign of things to come

While larger than anything proposed under the last several Congresses, the 2009 wilderness proposals are just a glimpse of things to come, congressional watchdogs and conservation leaders say.

Once the omnibus lands bill is approved, the floodgates will open and lawmakers will introduce dozens of wilderness proposals covering potentially millions of acres, experts say.

"There's a whole suite of bills ready to go," said Spitler of the Wilderness Society.

Many of the proposals will come as reintroduced bills from the past six years "that just never got their day in their sun," said Bybee, the Sierra Club official.

Many of the proposals will be modest and noncontroversial, such as a bill by Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) to add about 22,000 acres to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area in Washington.

Others are huge proposals covering vast expanses of public land. They include:

• California Wild Heritage: Sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the bill seeks to designate 2.5 million acres of wilderness, and an additional 400 miles of national wild and scenic rivers across the state. Originally introduced in 2002, Boxer is expected to revive the bill this spring.


• America's Red Rock Wilderness: By far the largest proposal, this bill would designate 9 million acres across Utah as wilderness. The proposal has been introduced in every Congress since 1989 but has never won support from a majority of of Utah's congressional delegation. Nevertheless, plans are under way to reintroduce the bill this session.


• Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness: Proposed by Rep. Mike Simpson, (R-Idaho), the bill would extend wilderness protection to roughly 315,000 acres in the Sawtooth and Salmon-Challis national forests in east-central Idaho.

"Up until recently you had a Congress that wasn't very receptive to wilderness designations, particularly on the House side," Spitler said. "We're finally starting to unclog the pipeline on wilderness designations."

Public Lands Bill Threatens Energy, Economy

Written by William F. Jasper
New American

With our economy already staggering under an avalanche of debt, taxes, regulations, and the high costs of energy, Democrats in the Senate have decided to pile on a real economy killer: the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S. 22). Incredibly, nearly 20 Republicans in the Senate joined with them in support of this destructive bill.

S. 22 is a mammoth piece of legislation combining over 160 bills and running to more than 1,300 pages. It is loaded with pork-barrel spending and harmful provisions, but the most objectionable features of the bill are those that would lock up millions of acres of our most promising areas for badly needed oil, natural gas, and mineral production.

Sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and originally introduced in the 110th Congress, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 passed the Senate on January 15 and is now awaiting action in the House of Representatives. The lopsided 73-21 vote (with four not voting) saw 19 Republicans join with the liberal-left Reid-Boxer-Schumer Democrats in favor of the lock-up. Those Republican senators are: Alexander (Tenn.), Barrasso (Wyo.), Bennett (Utah), Bond (Mo.), Cochran (Miss.), Collins (Maine), Corker (Tenn.), Crapo (Idaho), Enzi (Wy.), Gregg (N.H.), Hatch (Utah), Lugar (Ind.), Martinez (Fla.), Murkowski (Alaska), Risch (Idaho), Snow (Maine), Specter (Pa.), Voinovich (Ohio), and Wicker (Miss.).

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the principal opponents of the legislation, outlined some of the many egregious features of the legislation in a press release on his Senate website.

• A provision that takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in Wyoming, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The energy resources walled off by this bill would nearly match the annual production levels of our two largest natural gas production states — Alaska and Texas.


• $3 million for a “road to nowhere” through a wildlife refuge in Alaska.


• $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California. At this price, each salmon would be worth far more than its weight in gold.


• $3.5 million to help celebrate the 450th birthday of St. Augustine Florida, in 2015....


• $5 million on botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida.

“If the Senate wants to debate lands legislation once we’ve helped stabilize the economy we should begin by better managing the land we already oversee,” says Dr. Coburn. “We have a $9 billion maintenance back log within the national park service because Congress prefers to create new pet projects rather than responsibly oversee the parks we’ve already created. Moreover, we are not suffering from a lack of wilderness areas in the United States. According to the Census Bureau, we have 106 million acres of developed land and 107 million acres of wilderness land. What we are suffering from, however, is a lack of common sense in Washington.”

Other critical analyses of the bill by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Republican Study Committee (RSC) point out many ways S. 22 threatens our nation’s economic viability. Those provisions include:

• Blocking millions of acres from new oil and gas leasing, logging, mining, and all other business activity in these areas.


• Eliminating 1.2 million acres from mineral leasing and energy exploration in Wyoming alone — withdrawing 331 million barrels of recoverable oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from domestic energy supply.


• Designating more than two million acres of land as wilderness areas and permanently eliminating human access to these areas for energy exploration or recreational opportunities.


• Eliminating a proposed terminal site for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Massachusetts by designating a river that runs through a city as “wild and scenic."


• Authorizing $5.5 billion of new discretionary spending and $915 million of direct spending.


• Codifying the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), creating a duplicative agency that will tend to greatly restrict or eliminate ranching, mining, logging, hunting, fishing, and recreation on BLM’s massive land holdings.


• Adding over 80 new wilderness designations or additions to federal lands.

The Republican Study Committee's critique of S. 22 notes:

The federal government already owns nearly 650 million acres of land, which amounts to 30 percent of the total land area of the United States. The District of Columbia, established by the Constitution as the federal city, has only 24.7% of its total acreage owned by the federal government. Twelve states rank above DC in federal land ownership. 85% of Nevada is federally owned and the federal government occupies more than 45% of the land in California.

Pew and other public opinion polls have shown repeatedly that Americans favor more offshore drilling for gas and oil and favor opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling, along with other public lands that have been put off limits. With the likelihood that gasoline prices could again shoot up into the $4 range (or higher), it not only makes good economic sense, but also makes good national security sense, since greater domestic production would mean less dependence on foreign suppliers and less transfer of our wealth to regimes that may mean us ill. Instead of yielding to these common sense proposals supported by the public, Senate Democrats and some Senate Republicans have joined hands to tighten the energy stranglehold on America’s energy jugular. Now the fight has moved to the House, and it will take an outpouring of public outrage to stop this legislation and the harm that it would do.