Proposed bill would re-open lands to off-roading and mining

More than 3 million California acres unsuitable for wilderness are still unavailable for public use

Soda Mountains Wilderness Study Area photo by John Dittli

By KAREN JONAS
Desert Dispatch

WASHINGTON, D.C. • A bill proposed by a California congressman would allow nearly three million acres of land — currently designated as being unsuitable for wilderness — within the state to be opened for multiple uses, such as off-roading and mining.

The Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act of 2011 — H.R. 1581 — was proposed by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-22) in April and seeks to put control of lands designated as being unsuitable for wilderness — which are lands that were studied for wilderness designation but never classified as wilderness areas by Congress — back in the hands of local agencies, such as the local offices of the Bureau of Land Management, according to a statement recently released by McCarthy.

The bill’s language states that the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 left BLM lands that could not be classified as wilderness, yet are not being used. McCarthy stated that 6.7 million acres of BLM land throughout the U.S. are classified as unsuitable for wilderness.

About 36 million acres of national forest lands were also never designated as wilderness, yet have restrictions on public access and use, according to McCarthy.

The bill is sponsored mainly by Republicans, including Rep. Buck McKeon, who represents Barstow as part of the 25th District. There are currently 22 cosponsors for the bill.

McCarthy stated that more than three million acres in California are unavailable for public use.

“This means many rural and outlying communities that depend on tourism and recreation cannot maximize the potential of the public lands in their area,” said McCarthy.

For local off-roader Mike McCain, the bill is a step in the right direction of opening public lands for everyone’s use.

“The land has to be multi-use; it won’t be excluding anybody,” said McCain. “If it’s open for one group, it should be open for all groups. That’s the only fair way.”

Sleeping Beauty Valley: Heart of the Mojave Desert

Sleeping Beauty Valley (David Myers)

By James M. André and Ileene Anderson
Route 66 Pulse

In the heart of California’s Mojave Desert, at a place where the western Mojave transitions into the eastern Mojave, lies the Sleeping Beauty Valley. Encircled by the Kelso Dunes Wilderness and the Bristol Mountains Wilderness on the east, and the Cady Mountains Wilderness Study Area on the west, the Sleeping Beauty Valley is one of the last remaining examples of pristine central Mojave Desert ecosystem. A place where one can still experience the scenic vista of an undeveloped valley surrounded by waves of rugged desert mountain ranges. Granted, the old Tonopah to Tidewater railroad grade is still visible as a reminder of the historic importance of this area in Mojave history – but very little else has changed in this valley for the last ten thousand years.

At the center of Sleeping Beauty Valley lies Broadwell Lake, a dry playa that is a remnant of the former extensive lake system that covered the Mojave during the Pleistocene. During the post-Pleistocene warming and drying, the valley became home to such iconic desert species as the desert tortoise which still calls the valley home. Due to recent rapid declines in desert tortoise population, these animals are considered threatened by both the state of California and the federal government. The Sleeping Beauty valley is a key linkage between the northern and southern populations of this increasingly rare animal and keeps both populations from becoming inbred.

Desert bighorn sheep traverse the valley from the rugged reaches of the Cady Mountains to the northern Bristol Mountains and beyond. Bighorn sheep depend on unimpeded access across the valley in order maintain viable herds in the adjacent mountain ranges.

The Sleeping Beauty Valley is home to more than 350 plant species, including several rare plants. Recently a post-Pleistocene relict plant species was “discovered” within the Sleeping Beauty Valley – the crucifixion thorn. This large and impressively spiny shrub is primarily leafless, as the leaves have been reduced to mere scales. It was much more common in the area that we now call the Mojave Desert during the wetter Pleistocene epoch, where its nutty berries provided food for such species and giant ground sloths and native camels. While those animal species died out or moved on with the warming and drying of the landscape, the crucifixion thorn persists along dry washes and edges of dry lake beds. The actual age of these plants is unknown because they have no “true wood” that can be cored and the rings counted. And though scientists have not studied this plant extensively, some believe it may well live up to 10,000 years.

In Spring of 2009, botanists discovered what is potentially a new species of lupine – those showy purple spring wildflowers that put up flowering stalks covered w/pea-like flowers. Specimens collected from the Sleeping Beauty Valley are different from the surrounding species, so additional scientific studies are being done to determine if it is a new species to science.

Why are all of these unique species found in the Sleeping Beauty Valley? In part, the lupine discovery underscores the fact that this region remains a biological frontier that is poorly documented. Botanists expect that additional inventory here will unearth considerable new discoveries to science. In addition, the valley lies within a fairly sharp transition zone between the western Mojave Desert, which enjoys more winter rains, but very few summer thundershowers and the eastern Mojave Desert, which counts on bimodal rainfall that includes some winter rains but consistent summer thunderstorms. Because of the differences in the rain regimes, the eastern and western Mojave deserts have some differences in the species that inhabit them. Because the Sleeping Beauty Valley lies at the crossroads of these two Mojave Desert regions, it supports plants and animals unique to the set of conditions found only at this transition zone..

In addition to its tremendous biological diversity, Sleeping Beauty Valley remains relatively unmarred by contemporary or historic human use. The T&T railroad grade is present, as is an existing powerline at the north end of the valley. The Old Dominion Mine is located on the western edge of the valley. Crucero Road, a washboard dirt road, originates in Ludlow and bisects the valley. Because the Sleeping Beauty Valley is relatively undisturbed by human activities, it is one of the few valleys in the Mojave Desert not yet colonized by invasive non-native plants that are so problematic ecologically in other areas of the Mojave Desert. Non-native plants are typically introduced with disturbance to the land caused by humans. From there, they often invade the landscape where they displace native plant species, decrease food and shelter available to animals, and have catastrophic effects on long-term natural ecological processes. For instance, weed invasions make the desert much more susceptible to large-scale fires that decimate those plant species unable to re-sprout after fire. Fortunately, the Sleeping Beauty Valley has very few non-native plants and has not been burned in recent decades. Indeed, it remains a rare example of a healthy and viable ecosystem.

The Sleeping Beauty Valley has immediate threats to its integrity. Applications for industrial scale solar and wind energy installations are rapidly moving forward, and will destroy tens of thousands of acres of rich desert habitat there. While the switch to renewable energy needs to happen to minimize global climate change, better places for industrial solar installations exist on disturbed lands close to the source of consumption, on roof-tops and over parking lots. Pristine desert lands at the heart of the Mojave Desert, like the Sleeping Beauty Valley need to be recognized for all their unique values and preserved.

James M. André is the Director of the Granite Mountains Desert Research Center, UC Riverside

Ileene Anderson is a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity

Obama Plans to Overturn Bush Executive Orders

Environment News Service



Dirty Devil proposed wilderness in southern Utah (Photo © Ray Bloxham courtesy SUWA)


WASHINGTON, DC, - President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team are already reviewing all of President Bush's executive orders, considering which will be allowed to stand and which will be overturned, the head of his transition team, John Podesta said on Sunday. Obama's decisions could invalidate environmentally damaging orders issued by the current president.

"As a candidate, Senator Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders reviewed, and decide which ones should be kept, and which ones should be repealed, and which ones should be amended," said Podesta, who served as White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton.

"Across the board, whether it's national security, the economy, the senior leadership that will manage health care, energy and the environment, I think he intends to move very quickly," Podesta told Chris Wallace on Fox News.

"They want to have oil and gas drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah that they're going to try to do right as they - walking out the door. I think that's a mistake," Podesta said.

On election day, the Bush administration announced that it will open up about 360,000 acres of Utah public lands to oil and gas drilling in its December lease sale.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management did not publish details of the 241 proposed oil and gas parcels, but some are believed to be near national parks and monuments such as Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah.

Preliminary site lists show the leases for sale in December would include large areas considered worthy of wilderness status.

BLM Utah State Director Selma Sierra said Thursday that the parcels "have been set aside for a number of years pending completion of resource management plans for six field offices." Five of those plans were signed by the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Stephen Allred last week in Washington, triggering the leasing decisions contained in the plans.

"These decisions represent far more stringent environmental protections than existed in old plans or that have ever been imposed by any BLM Utah plan. In other words, these new environmental restrictions provide many layers of safeguards to prevent environmental damage to sensitive natural resources. So lands previously set aside are now available for leasing, but with stricter-than-ever controls," said Sierra.

But environmentalists are opposed to any further oil and gas development in the Red Rock country of southern Utah.

"The election of Barack Obama represents a new day for environmentalists..."
Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which has fought to keep oil and gas development out of wilderness areas, views the Obama presidency as "the best opportunity for wilderness protection in SUWA's 25 year history."

"We will encourage the new Secretary of Interior and staff at the Bureau of Land Management to protect southern Utah's wilderness, including such places as Labyrinth Canyon, the Dirty Devil, the San Rafael Swell and Cedar Mesa," said Groene.

Groene wants review of what he terms, "disastrous last minute Bush administration decisions for legal violations, including the six awful land use plans the administration just approved, which open millions of acres of redrock wilderness to oil and gas leasing and ORVs."

He wants the Obama administration to give "meaningful protection to the redrock, by re-instating the process, born under President Clinton and killed by the Bush administration, that gives Wilderness Study Area protection to lands identified by the BLM as having wilderness character."

His wish list includes reform of the BLM, which Groene says "manages more of our most spectacular western public lands than any other agency and which folded like a house of cards in a tornado to anti-wilderness interests under pressure from Bush appointees."

Podesta said a president can do a great deal using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action. "I think we'll see the president do that to try to restore a sense that the country is working on behalf of the common good," he said.

Environmental advocates are looking to the incoming administration with hope. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said November 4, 'The election of Barack Obama represents a new day for environmentalists. His election brings an end to eight years of unrelenting assaults on the environment."

"Our staff and members are ready to work with President-elect Obama and the new Congress to advance his 'New Energy for America Plan,' which includes creating five million clean technology jobs, putting a million hybrid cars on the road, and capping carbon emissions," said Beinecke.

Podesta was one of several members of the Obama's top leaders who appeared on Sunday TV talk shows across the broadcast band.

Today President-elect Obama and Michelle Obama are meeting with President George W. and Laura Bush at the White House.

Congress Should Shelve Public Lands Bill Due to Enviro Lobbying Scandal

NewsBlaze

A coalition of Western business leaders is urging Congress not to reward "scandalous and potentially illegal behavior" by enacting legislation to establish the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The "National Landscape Conservation System Act" (S. 1139) is a bill to statutorily establish the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It is one of over 90 bills contained in a omnibus lands package (S. 3213) being prepared for Senate Floor consideration by Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee Chair Jeff Bingaman.

General at the U.S. Department of the Interior has initiated an investigation for possible violations of anti-lobbying law by federal employees at the NLCS. Emails and other documents obtained by the House Resources Committee Minority staff raise serious questions about the degree and extent of communications and coordination between top officials of the NLCS and environmental lobbyists.

In a letter sent to Senator Bingaman today, the Roundtable urged the Senator and his colleagues to postpone consideration of language relating to NLCS that would statutorily establish the NLCS within the BLM.

"As you undoubtedly know, federal law prohibits federal employees from using appropriated funds or their official positions to lobby Congress. If these accusations prove to be accurate, federal employees at NLCS actively supported and participated in efforts designed (directly or indirectly) to encourage government officials to favor the NLCS legislation. This would be in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1913," noted Jim Sims, President and CEO of the Roundtable.

The NLCS was first concocted in 2000, by then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, through administrative mandate. The NLCS covers a vast amount of territory of various types and quality, consisting of tens of millions of acres of federal lands administered by the BLM including National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas, Wild and Scenic Rivers, and National Scenic and Historic Trails. The vast majority of these lands are located in 12 Western states.

"If the Inspector General finds that public officials were indeed using their time, office, and influence to lobby for NLCS legislation, what kind of message does Congress send to the American public if it turns around and enacts the very legislation these federal employees were illegally promoting?" said Sims.

"The least we can do is wait until the Inspector General and/or the Justice Department have adequate time to investigate these charges. It would be a shame to allow rogue government employees to benefit from inappropriate and illegal behavior," Sims added.

For more information on the details of S. 1139, see the Roundtable letter to Bingaman.

Greens can enter case over roads in Juab

State and county are suing U.S. government over ownership of roads in wilderness study area

By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune

Three conservation organizations will be allowed to intervene in a case in which Juab County and the state sued the federal government over who owns three roads in western Utah's Deep Creek Mountains.

U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell this week granted the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society the right to be defendants in the lawsuit in which the state and county seek ownership of the roads.

Campbell agreed with the conservationists' arguments that they cannot rely on federal land agencies to adequately represent their defense of wilderness in cases involving a Civil War-era law known as Revised Statute 2477.

"Conservationists now will have a seat at the table on these RS2477 claims," SUWA conservation director Heidi McIntosh said Thursday. "We will be in the courthouse instead of standing on the steps with the doors locked."

But the state doesn't believe the organizations should be allowed to intervene since they had no claim of ownership at all.

"We're disappointed in the ruling," said Assistant Utah Attorney General Roger Fairbanks.

Bureau of Land Management state office spokeswoman Mary Wilson declined to comment because the lawsuit remains active.

At issue is how federally designated wilderness-study areas ought to be managed so as to preserve the special qualities of beauty and remoteness that led the BLM to list them in the first place. Roads that cross wilderness or wilderness-quality lands have become flash points in an increasingly polarized dispute.

Key to wilderness status is whether the land is roadless, which does not mean literally unmarked. Rather, the BLM in its survey of potential wilderness tracts limited study areas to those where there were no "substantially noticeable" roads.

McIntosh said the BLM wouldn't have included Tom's Creek, Granite Canyon and Trout Creek canyon roads in wilderness-study areas had they been well-established. Further, she said, they are not part of the state's transportation highway network.

Fairbanks said SUWA was assigning a modern definition to a 19th-century highway statute. Back in 1866, he said, there were no paved roads.

"Highways were wagon trails," Fairbanks said. "These roads are part of Juab County's highway system."

The roads, he added, are definitely noticeable.

Utah doesn't want to pave them, Fairbanks said.

But they should remain open to Snake Valley residents who have used them for generations to reach favorite camping or picnicking areas.

What is RS2477?

Revised Statute 2477, part of an 1866 mining law, granted rights of way across public land until it was repealed by Congress in 1976. When that happened, existing rights of way were grandfathered in. The definition of "existing" was at the heart of a 2005 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management must defer to state law when assessing counties' road-ownership claims. Under Utah law, existing roads are those that had 10 years of continuous use and county maintenance before 1976. Continuous-use claims now must be decided road by road in federal court.

Death Valley roads kept shut

Judge throws out Inyo County's suit

Jason Pesick, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun


Environmentalists are celebrating a lawsuit's dismissal, which they say will result in the protection of swaths of Death Valley National Park.

On Friday, a federal judge dismissed much of a lawsuit filed by Inyo County against the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service.

"It is a good day for Death Valley National Park," said Ted Zukoski, a lawyer for Earthjustice. The nonprofit environmental law firm represented six environmental groups that intervened on the federal government's behalf.

The county wanted possession of roads in the park, but the environmentalists want the pristine areas free of motorized vehicles. Most of those roads were included in wilderness study areas created by the federal government in 1979. On Friday, a federal judge said the county waited too long to file the suit.

The county never planned to pave the roads, said Randy Keller, assistant counsel for Inyo County.

The county wanted to remove blocks the federal government set up to stop motorized vehicles. The federal government closed the roads without the authority to do so, Keller said.

"It's partly the principle of the thing," he added.

The Inyo County Board of Supervisors will decide what to do next, but the ruling put an end to the suit, Keller said.

"It pretty much terminates it, I think," he said.

Those intervening were the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, California Wilderness Coalition, National Parks Conservation Association, Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Inyo.

According to those groups, Greenwater Canyon, Greenwater Valley and Last Chance Canyon will be preserved. Those areas are home to prehistoric sites, desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, cougars, deer, coyotes, badgers, various plants and scenic landscape.

Environmentalists, including Paul McFarland of the Bishop-based Friends of the Inyo, were pleased with the ruling.

"I'll bet the horned lizards and chuckwallas are dancing in the desert washes right now," he said in a news release.

San Bernardino County is trying to obtain rights of way to existing roads on federal land in Lucerne Valley and the Mojave National Preserve.

Pro: BLM Utah Resource Management Plans

Opinion



by Selma Sierra
BLM Utah State Director




Selma Sierra, BLM Utah State Director


The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) mandates that BLM manage public lands for multiple use such as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, energy exploration and production, conservation, and timber production. Additionally, the Act establishes that BLM sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. In making decisions about land use, FLPMA requires the BLM develop Resource Management Plans (RMP) and update the RMPs when circumstances change and significant new information becomes available. These important land use decision documents require public input and participation.

Here in Utah, the BLM has nearly completed the task of revising six RMPs for the Moab, Richfield, Price, Vernal, Monticello, and Kanab planning areas. It has been nearly eight years since we began the planning process, which has been one of the longest and most intensive land use planning efforts the BLM Utah has undertaken. Revisions are necessary since some of the planning areas have not updated their RMPs in 25 years. Hundreds of thousands of public comments were considered during the planning process; dozens of meetings with our partners at the county and state levels have taken place to bring us to this point.

The BLM will continue releasing Proposed RMPs and Final Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for each of the six planning areas in the coming weeks. The BLM has balanced multiple interests and priorities, creating a management framework to guide public land decisions.

Today the public debate is dominated by the need to identify opportunities for domestic energy supplies. Domestic sources of oil, natural gas and renewable energy play an important role in our nation’s security and stability. While the proposed plans envision maintaining areas open to oil and gas leasing, they would also institute protective measures during development, such as timing limitations, best management practices and advanced technology to minimize the footprint of developing those important resources.

In addition to proposing to accommodate our pressing national needs for energy development the plans also propose protecting public lands within the six planning areas where there are sensitive natural resources, making these lands off limits to surface disturbing activities, unavailable to oil and gas leasing or other restrictions. This type of protection would extend to almost one million acres of public land, in addition to nearly two million acres of existing wilderness study areas.

Regarding outdoor recreation, the plans consider opportunities for primitive recreation and managing certain lands in Utah to maintain, protect and enhance public land natural areas. In addition, BLM Utah proposes focusing off-highway vehicle (OHV) use to designated roads and trails. Social changes, chiefly the growing popularity of OHVs and population growth, have created a need to more closely manage this type of recreation.

BLM recognizes the value public lands hold for local communities and their economies. We have maintained a focus on supporting communities, their growth and diverse needs while maintaining national priorities and objectives, all within the context of BLM’s multiple use mandate. As State Director, I will continue to honor the integral role that the BLM and the land we manage plays in the livelihood and economies of local communities as we move forward to complete these vital planning proposals.

Court rejects SUWA appeal on wilderness deal

By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune


The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance seeks to have about 9.5 million acres in Utah protected. Ray Bloxham/SUWA


For the second time, a federal appeals court has rejected a conservation organization's attempts to challenge a 2003 backroom deal limiting wilderness in Utah.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance must wait until it can cite U.S. Bureau of Land Management actions that show the agency is behaving illegally.

At issue is the "no more wilderness" deal signed by former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and former Interior Secretary Gale Norton that froze the state's wilderness study areas at 3.2 million acres.

The Leavitt-Norton settlement sought to end a lawsuit the state filed in 1996 challenging wilderness areas inventoried after 1991, the final year of the Wilderness Study Area survey ordered by Congress.

The agreement, concluded without public knowledge or participation, removed from consideration nearly 6 million acres of potential wilderness inventoried during the Clinton administration.

SUWA and 10 other conservation organizations in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and California argued that allowing the Leavitt-Norton deal to stand would mean future harm to wilderness-quality lands because the BLM likely would allow oil and gas development and motorized travel in the inventoried areas. If that happened, they alleged, the lands could end up too damaged to gain wilderness designation.

The 10th Circuit said that argument was too abstract to uphold.

Dissenting Views on H.R. 2016 - NLCSA

National Landscape Conservation System Act

Author: Congressman Bill Sali (R-ID)

We strongly oppose H.R. 2016. The true purpose of H.R. 2016 is to prevent many locally popular, wholesome family recreational opportunities and almost all economic activities from taking place on 26 million acres of BLM land. H.R. 2016 will create a two-tiered system within the BLM under which some BLM land can be carefully managed for multiple use while other vast tracts would be walled off from almost all human use and managed for "preservation" or in layman's terms, no use. While well-meaning, few supporters of this bill live in the areas most affected by the legislation and fewer still ever truly get know first hand the rural communities of farmers, ranchers, and others whose ability to provide for their families can be devastated by decisions we so cavalierly make from afar. More that one third of the land in the United States is federally managed, but in much of the West, that ratio is reversed and doubled. To those of us who live in the public land states, multiple use means having the opportunity to practice conservation as it was defined by Teddy Roosevelt's mentor, Gifford Pinchot, "conservation means the wise use of natural resources." It means having the opportunity to obtain the many compatible esthetic and economic benefits well managed resources can provide. Properly managed, public lands can simultaneously contribute to energy independence, timber for affordable housing, needed food and fiber, wildlife conservation, outdoor recreation and the advancement of science and technology. We can choose to remove land from multiple use, but that choice is not cost-free; indeed, it will be impossible to meet any of these vital needs domestically if more and more public land is locked up every year.

Rep. Grijalva has contended both during the hearing that took place in June of 2007 and during the March 12, 2008 markup session of H.R. 2016 that this legislation just codifies the existence of a division within the BLM that has already been administratively created. Putting aside for a moment our objections to "just," the language in H.R. 2016 goes well beyond a codification of what already exists. Section 3(c)(2) states the Secretary (of the Interior) shall manage the system (NLCS) "in a manner that protects the values for which the components of the system were designated". The term "values" is a wholly new concept to the BLM and this would be the first time legislation directing the management and operation of BLM interjects this nebulous, malleable term. This is not an accidental or trivial insertion of verbiage in the legislation; it was specifically plucked from the National Park Service's organic act in order to purposefully mandate broad and vague new management practices. What are some "values" to the National Park Service that allow the iron-fisted "no-impairment standard" of enforcement to protect them? They include such things as "viewscapes," "soundscapes," and "smellscapes." It happens that many times these wonderfully indefinable concepts are enforced laxly within the park but used with draconian severity against the park's neighbors. This is a particularly poor model for BLM lands which, unlike National Parks, are more often part of a mixed checkerboard of private, state and federal land.

When asked how the term "values" is defined, proponents point to the assortment of declarations made when the units were added to the NLCS system. What happens when it is unclear if the Secretary is managing the system in a manner that protects the values for which a component was designated? Many of the designations of units within the NLCS consist of wonderful prose and lofty platitudes but have very little in the way of management direction or substance. The Secretaries of the Interior who make these declarations range from Bruce Babbitt to James Watt and it may be noted that their values and the language they used to describe the ideal use of federal land have not always coincided exactly. Are we in Congress not then abdicating our responsibility as the policy setting branch of government if we simply punt this issue to whatever team is currently at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue? NLCS Director Elena Daly testified that today ninety percent of NLCS lands are potentially open to grazing with much currently taking place. How does grazing fit into the concept of "smellscapes"? Not too well we suspect, based on our observations of city folks experiencing their first encounter with the grand smellscape provided by cattle. How do shooting ranges and hunting activities, which are currently part of several NLCS units, fit into the concept of "soundscapes"? How does OHV use, mining, oil exploration, horseback riding, camping, and numerous other activities that are currently part of most NLCS units square with the new concept of "values"? The fact that this is even debatable shows that the ultimate arbiter will be the Courts. Far-fetched? Not hardly. Take for example one of the strongest advocates of this bill, The Wilderness Society, who testified in support of H.R. 2016 and has a history of using litigation to stop activities on federal lands. The Wilderness Society in its 18 page packet in support of the NLCS lists road building, energy exploration and mining, recreational use, off road vehicle use and boundary adjustments as "immediate threats to the units of the NLCS" that must be stopped. The Wilderness Society and their contingent of special interest allies, who are disdainful of people who work outdoors, and have sued federal land management agencies several times before to stop such activities on federal lands and this vague new management directive of "values" is a perfect entree for more lawsuits. Not to just single out The Wilderness Society, numerous other supporters of H.R. 2016 such as the Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association and the Defenders of Wildlife have used the courts to drive off ranchers and destroy the livelihood of timber workers in the United States. We also view the inclusion of Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) in H.R. 2016 as a way to congressionally lock in the administratively created and released WSA, turning them into de facto wilderness areas. This is especially problematic given the fact that over half of BLM's WSA's do not meet even the minimum acreage requirement and should be released immediately.

H.R. 2016 at best would codify a division of BLM (NLCS) that performs work that can better be performed by other agency officials and creates a duplicative agency without a clear mission or structure. H.R. 2016 would also bestow Congressional recognition on over a dozen BLM monuments that we still cannot identify as having met the three criteria that must be met in the Antiquities Act. We remain unsatisfied and troubled with the Administration's answers when asked about the scope, structure and powers of the NLCS and specifically its Washington, D.C. office. It is even fair to say that something mischievous is afoot when one compares what has been said before the Committee with what has been reported in the press and proclaimed in BLM's own documents. In testifying before the Committee (in two separate hearings) NLCS Director Daly and Deputy Director (BLM) Henri Bisson gave the impression that the NLCS had no binding authority, no ability to supersede or interfere with the longstanding BLM organizational structure at any level, and had no real way to implement policy or management changes or recommendations and ability to appoint staff. "The NLCS is more or less a policy office, is what it is. It doesn't exactly manage the system," is what Deputy Director Bison stated during a budget hearing. Yet according to the BLM's own organizational structure chart located on their website the NLCS office is one of four departments directly underneath the Director and above the state offices.

Former Secretary of the Interior Babbitt was forthright from the beginning when he by fiat created the NLCS and set forth what he envisioned it to be: a new way of managing BLM lands (he estimated up to 100 million acres someday) through the NLCS system so that "the old bureaucratic mule will awaken to a new future as an environmental steward right up there with the National Park Service and the National Wildlife Refuge System. The day is coming, I believe, when the BLM so often stereotyped and dismissed as the Bureau of Livestock and Mining will be better known as the Bureau of Landscape and Monuments." Rep. Grijalva, when asked if H.R. 2016 would lead to NLCS lands receiving more regulation stated candidly, ''You've got to establish the system...and then you go to step 2." NLCS Director Daly, not exactly invoking images of a policy shop, was quoted in the Arizona Republic stating, "This is like being part of a birthing. I think we are all about to witness the next major conservation system in the United States." BLM's 2007 "National Landscape Conservation System Science Strategy" clearly sets up a system for the NLCS apart from the rest of the BLM. Despite assurances that the field offices (overseen by BLM State Directors) will continue to operate freely and will only get guidance from the NLCS, the Science Strategy document directs the NLCS to develop and implement (using "leverage" i.e. the millions in subactivity budget accounts the Administration is proposing the NLCS control). NLCS official Jeff Jarvis outlined very clearly in a report titled "National Landscape Conservation System: A New Approach to Conservation" that the purpose behind the NLCS is to shed the old, burdensome role of "developing commodities" that Congress gave the BLM and to move into conservation, assuming the two concepts were incompatible. We find this troublesome given how much and how irreplaceably BLM lands contribute to our nation's economy and security. Many of us have districts whose viability is dependent on ongoing multiple uses of BLM land. And the country as a whole has a continuing vital need to ensure that our local and national economies grow stronger, more resilient and have access to vital resources from secure domestic sources, One thing is certain: there are no more zealous and knowledgeable guardians of environmental and recreational "values" of these lands than the local people who hunt, fish, ride, hike, camp, raise their kids and, yes, try to earn a living on and around these lands.

Many and imperfect are the federal laws that set the course for the management of our public land. But they are duly enacted laws passed by Congress and signed by a President and they can be changed the same way they were adopted. For us to pass legislation delegating to the Secretary of the Interior of the moment and unelected bureaucrats within a federal land management agency a mandate to create a management regime to enforce legislatively undefined "values" on a vast, resource rich part of the country is an unacceptable abdication of our responsibility as the policy setting branch of the government.

(signed)

DON YOUNG. ROB BISHOP. STEVE PEARCE. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS. HENRY BROWN. BILL SALI. JEFF FLAKE. DOUG LAMBORN. LOUIE GOHMERT. JIMMY DUNCAN. ADRIAN SMITH. TOM TANCREDO. CHRIS CANNON. MARY FALLIN. TOM COLE. LUIS FORTUNA. ELTON GALLEGLY. BILL SHUSTER.

Congresswoman blasts conservation measure

By Noah Brenner
Jackson Hole Daily

U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., criticized a bill that would formally recognize and protect wilderness study areas and historic and scenic trails on BLM lands in Wyoming.

The National Landscape Conservation System Act would make permanent the National Landscape Conservation System, which officially recognizes national monuments, conservation areas, wilderness areas, wilderness study areas, wild and scenic rivers, and national scenic and historic trails. The National Landscape Conservation System is in the Bureau of Land Management.

House Resolution 2016 would solidify the National Landscape Conservation System, which was established administratively in 2000 “in order to conserve, protect and restore nationally significant landscapes that have outstanding cultural, ecological and scientific values for the benefit of current and future generations.”

The U.S. House passed the bill Wednesday night. The Senate still must consider the measure.

In Wyoming, the system includes 42 wilderness study areas and five historic or scenic trails, including the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, which runs along the Wind River and Absaroka ranges near Jackson Hole and into Yellowstone National Park. In addition, the Snake Headwaters Legacy Act under consideration in the U.S. Senate would protect about 400 miles of the Snake River and its tributaries under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

Cubin took issue with what she perceived as vague language in the bill because it does not specify exactly what “values” the government is trying to protect, according to Cubin spokeswoman Rachael Seidenschnur.

“Unfortunately, this bill contains no clear definition as to what those values are,” Cubin said in a news release. “This stark omission allows federal land managers to interpret current law rather than basing decisions on sound science. It also gives an additional tool to any environmental trial lawyers unhappy with current land-management decisions in the West.”

BLM spokeswoman Cindy Wertz said her organization has already formulated and implemented management plans for NLCS areas in Wyoming and the legislation would not change those management plans.

Group kicks off campaign against Landscape Act

www.arra-access.com

Americans for Responsible Recreational Access (ARRA) have launched a campaign urging opposition so the National Landscape Conservation System Act (NLCSA) now pending before the House Natural Resources Committee.

"We must stay diligent to protect responsible access to our public lands," says a press release on ARRA's website.

Background information provided by the group states that the bill, H.R. 2016, will statutorily create a bureaucracy to manage specially designated BLM lands. If enacted, this legislation will almost certainly mean a loss of recreational opportunities on public lands.

This bureaucracy would be tasked to "restore" the over 106 million acres of wilderness that is already off-limits to OHV, mountain bike and other forms of recreation as well as areas that currently can allow all types of recreational uses, scch as wilderness study areas. "Restoration" of these areas would be accomplished by limiting access and acquisition of additional lands to "manage" by excluding legitimate forms of recreation.

The National Landscape Conservation System Act will statutorily create a bureaucracy to manage specially designated BLM lands. If enacted, this legislation will almost certainly mean a loss of recreational opportunities on public lands.

This bureaucracy would be tasked to "restore" the over 106 million acres of wilderness that is already off-limits to OHV, mountain bike and other forms of recreation as well as areas that currently allow all types of recreational uses like wilderness study areas.

The group urges its members to voice their opposition to the NLCSA by using the following sample letter;

Subject: Please Oppose H.R. 2016
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

As a member of Americans for Responsible Recreational Access I write to urge you to oppose H.R. 2016, the National Landscape Conservation System Act, when the House Natural Resources Committee considers the bill on March 12th.

H.R. 2016 would statutorily establish a bureaucracy to manage specially designated BLM lands in restrictive fashion that runs counter to the multiple-use manner in which the BLM has traditionally managed its lands. The bill would eschew existing management requirements in favor of management objectives designed to deny access for many recreational uses.

In addition, the legislation would require that specially designated BLM lands be managed in accordance with any law or regulation "relating to" that unit. This is troublesome as the language is vague and would invite lawsuits to establish which laws "relate" to the management of particular lands.

Also, the legislation would legally place Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) in the National Landscape Conservation System with the same management goals as other specially designated lands. As it currently stands motorized and mechanized recreation can be provided for on WSAs, as they are not officially designated as Wilderness Areas.

If enacted, this legislation would likely make WSAs de facto Wilderness areas as the NLCS would have a mandate to manage WSAs in the same fashion as other specially designated lands.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Groups, feds join to push law aimed at saving lands

The Arizona Republic

IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT - This place 30 miles from Tucson, with its dramatic vistas, archaeological heritage and unique ecology, is just one of more than 800 properties in the federal Bureau of Land Management's National Landscape Conservation System being touted for a new American preservation network.

Elena Daley, a BLM administrator and the conservation-system director, was here last week to join forces with environmental groups in support of a congressional act that would permanently designate 26 million acres of Western lands for conservation.
"This is like being part of a birthing," she said. "I think we are all about to witness the next major conservation system in the United States."

The Ironwood Forest monument is one of many "crown jewels" in the patchwork of iconic BLM lands spread over 13 states. Among the destinations: Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona, Lewis and Clark Trail in Idaho and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.

All told, the system includes 15 national monuments, 14 national conservation areas, 161 wilderness areas, 10 historic trails and 38 wild and scenic rivers.

With congressional approval, these would become part of a permanent package comparable to the national park system. The bill before Congress awaits a floor vote in the Senate; a parallel House measure, with 65 co-sponsors, is scheduled for subcommittee hearings in two weeks.

The law would provide no new money or regulations, nor would it automatically change recreational use, grazing rights or mining in the target areas. But proponents say its adoption would serve as a launching pad for protective steps.

"It'll come, but it's delicate," says John Shepard, deputy director at the Sonoran Institute, a land-conservation group that sponsored Daley's visit to Arizona. "What it does is, it puts the system on a level playing field with the national parks and the national forests."

The Sonoran Institute is part of the Conservation System Alliance, a coalition of 74 recreational, environmental, religious and other groups pushing the measure with support from the Bush administration.

Off-road riders raising funds to fight BLM's wilderness study area use policies

OHVs in southern Utah

By Mark Havnes
The Salt Lake Tribune

KANAB - Off-highway-vehicle riders have raised $25,000 to help one of their own fight a $300 fine.

Back on May 28, 2006, a federal ranger cited Dan M. Jessop for leading a group of nine OHVs on a road closed by the Bureau of Land Management in a wilderness study area.

Jessop refuses to pay the fine. The 54-year-old Apple Valley resident doesn't deny driving an OHV on Canaan Mountain's Sawmill Road near the boundary between Kane and Washington counties. But he and his off-roading pals do dispute the BLM's ownership of the route, its authority to close it and its ability to create "de facto" wilderness areas.

And they plan to make those arguments in federal court. A hearing is set for today before U.S. Magistrate Robert T. Braithwaite in St. George. If the OHV groups prevail - and the judge tosses Jessop's criminal misdemeanor charge - they figure they will have ammunition against other off-roading tickets and what they see as an escalating crackdown against all-terrain vehicles on federal lands.

In short, the ATV crowd is drawing a line in the dirt with Jessop's case, hoping to gain the upper hand in the continuing road war between government officials and backcountry enthusiasts.

Jessop argues Sawmill Road is a Washington County route and that the BLM had no right to close it.

"I've been driving on that road for 35 years and [no one] is going to tell me not to drive there," Jessop said. "I'm fighting it on the principle of the thing."

But that principle will require some principal. That's why OHV groups have kicked in $25,000 to aid Jessop's defense.

"It can take significant money to take a position," said Jessop's St. George attorney, Michael Shaw. "Like the big civil cases, we're fighting the same fight, which is why it is so expensive."

Most cited OHV riders face civil fines and would rather cough the cash than fight the ticket in court.

One of Shaw's arguments in Jessop's case is that only Congress can create a wilderness area. So when the BLM starts treating places as wilderness in study areas, he said, the agency has overstepped its authority and created a "de facto wilderness area."

Shaw also insists Sawmill Road should remain open because it was in use well before 1976, when Congress repealed Revised Statute 2477.

That old mining law granted rights of way across public lands. Lawmakers grandfathered in existing routes, leading to numerous road ownership disputes in Utah.

Shaw said he has affidavits from at least 10 people testifying to the historical use of Sawmill Road that he plans to introduce in court.

"We are saying the BLM has no authority to close it," he said. "There is good case law to back us up."

But the government points to a precedent backing its case.

Jim Crisp, manager of the BLM field office in St. George, said Braithwaite ruled several years ago against a group of riders cited on Sawmill Road, closed since 1980. He said the judge found the agency acted within its authority.

"It is clear the road had been closed," said Crisp, who disputes even defining the road as such. "It was an old pack trail not authorized for vehicles."

Crisp said OHV users have driven all over the mountaintop, scarring the landscape. People also have ripped out barricades and knocked down signs.

Still, Don Black, president of the Canyon Country 4x4 Club of Kanab, is eager for a showdown in court. His group has been looking for a case to challenge similar citations.

"If we win," he said, "it will affirm our rights to use [county] roads."

But Liz Thomas, an attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, counters that federal land mangers have the authority to create wilderness study areas, including road closures.

"Until congressional action [on wilderness], the BLM is responsible and has the authority to manage public lands," Thomas said. "The BLM does all it can to make clear an area is not open for use."

She said Kane and Washington counties are laced with legal roads and that to intentionally go on closed paths is "criminal."

While Thomas had not heard of Jessop's case, she found it similar to one SUWA is fighting in federal court with Kane County.

For OHV groups, she said, the issue has become "ground zero for fighting the federal government."

NLCS Legislation to Move BLM Toward More "National Park-Like" Management

BlueRibbon Magazine

Legislation that would codify the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), a Clinton-era initiative the Bureau of Land Management uses to manage "protective designations" such as National Monuments, is moving quickly through the 110th Congress.

The Bureau of Land Management established national guidelines through the NLCS for the management of National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, Wilderness Study Areas and other protective designations.

The legislation was formally introduced in both the House and Senate this last April. The bill's champion in the Senate, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), expects it to move quickly, saying, "Given the broad public support for these areas, I expect this bill to be non-controversial and it is my hope that it will be able to move quickly through the Congress and enactment into law." Bingaman chairs the Senate Energy Committee.

The Bush administration is supporting the bill, and BLM's Acting Director, James Hughes, said in Congressional testimony that the NLCS is "a significant part of the BLM's conservation efforts and is integral to the agency's overall multiple use mission."

But a look at some of the new management plans developed under the NLCS show quite a different story. Recent management plans for National Monuments in Utah, Arizona and Idaho focus on preservation far more than conservation. Recreational access, even non-motorized access, has been significantly reduced in these new plans.

Most stakeholders, including motorized advocacy groups, believe the NLCS is a fait accompli and see little change in future plans should the President sign the bill. "The agency has been moving away from multiple-use/sustained yield management for many years now. The NLCS legislation probably won't have any affect on future management one way or another," said Brian Hawthorne, BRC's Public Lands Policy Director.

Bush Administration Formalizes Anti-Wilderness Policy

Issues Directive to Halt Future Wilderness Consideration on BLM Land

Press Release
Wilderness Society

On September 29, 2003, the Bush administration issued a national policy guidance preventing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from inventorying or protecting wilderness-quality lands. This decision formalizes a court settlement between the Bush Administration and Utah Governor Mike Leavitt. The new directive by the Department of the Interior for its land managers reverses decades of wilderness policy and puts the interests of drilling, mining, logging and road construction ahead of the public interest. This directive is the latest of a number of steps the Bush Administration has taken to weaken protection for America's wilderness areas.

The new directive, in the form of an instruction memorandum, specifically prevents land managers from inventorying and recommending BLM land for wilderness study and designation. The 80,000-acre Sand Tank Mountains in Arizona, recently acquired from the Department of Defense, and the spectacular 38,000-acre Roan Plateau in Colorado (transferred to BLM in 1997) are among the first casualties of this policy change and now officially lose any opportunity for wilderness consideration and protection. BLM's abandonment of protection for wilderness lands outside the Reagan-era wilderness reviews revokes a policy followed by every president since Jimmy Carter.

For nearly three decades, on-the-ground BLM management experts considered the values of wilderness on the same level as other possible land uses -- including development -- and provided the American public an opportunity to have a voice in the use decision.

The guidelines suggest that BLM will have the authority to protect "scenic values," "unfragmented habitat," and restrict ORV use, but the steps the agency must go through essentially preclude any true protection of wilderness-quality lands as wilderness study areas.

The Bush Administration often touts the 22 million acres of wilderness areas and wilderness study areas (WSAs) on its lands as evidence that no more protection of these areas is needed. But that 22 million acres is less than 10 percent of all public lands managed by BLM. In addition, the Interior Department has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that permits citizens to hold the Department accountable when it fails to protect wilderness character. The Administration also touts alternate designations such as "Areas of Critical Environmental Concern" or ACECs, as suitable replacements for wilderness. But these areas are often open to destructive uses such as oil and gas drilling, logging or mining. For example, one-third of all ACECs in Colorado have already been leased for drilling.

This formal policy has an immediate effect on wildlands in several states including Colorado where 600,000 acres of public land in the state are withdrawn from future consideration as wilderness. Places like Vermillion Basin are stripped of potential protections by this top-down policy.

Background

In April 2003, the Department of Interior settled a lawsuit with the state of Utah that impacted tens of millions of acres of land in the West managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The backroom deal rescinded interim protections for millions of acres of wilderness-quality lands and reversed the department's long-standing policy to inventory and recommend lands for wilderness designation. Land managers, tasked with planning the use of public land by the BLM, have been without formal guidance on how to implement the profound policy changes resulting from this backdoor deal. In addition, many local BLM staff first learned of the administration's actions through media reports. As part of the settlement, the Bush administration threw out the Wilderness Inventory Handbook, which guided land managers in fairly inventorying wilderness-quality lands and protecting them during BLM land use planning -- as required by the Federal Land Policy Management Act.

Wilderness takes a massive hit

The door closes on new BLM wilderness proposals

by Matt Jenkins
High Country News

For years, wilderness groups have been hounding the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to continue to identify lands worthy of formal protection as wilderness. An initial round of wilderness inventories, completed in 1991, led to protection of 6.5 million acres of BLM wilderness. But citizens' wilderness groups argued that substantial areas of potential wilderness were overlooked. In Utah, for instance, the original BLM inventory identified 3.2 million acres which met Wilderness Act criteria - areas larger than 5,000 acres with "outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation." But the Utah Wilderness Coalition argued that the true number was closer to 9 million acres and - under the direction of Clinton-era Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt - the BLM re-inventoried its Utah lands, ultimately identifying an additional 2.6 million acres eligible for protection.

But on April 11, the BLM stepped back in time. The Department of the Interior settled a lawsuit with the state of Utah, eliminating the 2.6 million acres of potential wilderness identified during the 1990s. Not only that, but Interior also agreed to prohibit the BLM from conducting further wilderness inventories or designating new "wilderness study areas" without explicit congressional direction - a policy the Interior Department intends to extend across the West.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton outlined the new policy in letters sent the same day to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. It effectively knocks tens of millions of acres out of the running for wilderness protection - and it will likely open up wildlands to development just as the BLM implements a new industry-friendly policy for oil and gas drilling on its lands.

"You have to understand just how radical a proposition this is," says Jim Angell, an attorney for Earthjustice, the nonprofit law firm that represents several wilderness groups. "What they're saying is: Those wilderness inventories that got done, for the most part, under Reagan - and were deeply flawed and highly political back then - are what we're stuck with. BLM can't even re-inventory its own lands to see if they're eligible for wilderness. They have to turn a blind eye to those lands and continue to develop them."

A long battle

The 1964 Wilderness Act directed the U.S. Forest Service to identify forestlands that might qualify for protection as wilderness. But it wasn't until 1976, with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), that the same mandate was extended to the BLM. FLPMA required BLM to complete a one-shot, nationwide inventory of eligible wilderness by 1991. As a result, Congress formally protected 6.5 million acres of BLM land as wilderness, while another 15.5 million acres were protected as wilderness study areas for future consideration.

But the BLM's responsibility didn't end there. Federal law requires the agency to maintain an ongoing inventory of potential wilderness. That opened a window of opportunity to wilderness groups, which argued the agency's initial surveys were far from complete. After years of on-the-ground surveys by citizens, the groups took their findings to the BLM and urged the agency to consider more areas for protection.

"It's been very common practice for the BLM to recognize that the first inventories that were done in the mid- to late-'80s, were not entirely accurate," says Heidi McIntosh of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Interior Secretary Babbitt recognized this and in 1996, he called for the re-inventory of BLM land in Utah, which ultimately identified 2.6 million more acres of potential wilderness.

The agency did a similar thing in Colorado. In 1996, the Colorado Environmental Coalition pushed the BLM to re-evaluate the Vermillion Basin, an oil-and-gas hotspot in the far northwest corner of the state that was being eyed for development by the Marathon Oil Company (HCN, 8/5/02: Land plan attracts an anti-grazing gorilla).

"We were making the case that BLM shouldn't allow any wilderness-damaging activities until (it) has a chance to take a second look," says Jeff Widen of the Colorado Environmental Coalition. And the BLM agreed, identifying some 600,000 acres of land - not only in the Vermillion Basin, but around the state - to protect as wilderness study areas until Congress could consider them for formal wilderness designation.

These re-evaluations were not without controversy. In 1996, the state of Utah sued Interior to invalidate Babbitt's new survey. The state abandoned the suit after an appeals court upheld the BLM's authority to re-inventory wilderness. But this March, Utah refiled, and just two weeks later - on April 11 - the state and the Interior Department announced that they had reached a settlement.

"The timing of the suit is incredible," says Widen. "A number of state-based wilderness groups tried to intervene, and before the judge ever even ruled, Interior just came out of the blue and settled this thing." The settlement follows a Bush administration pattern of inviting lawsuits that could weaken environmental protection and then settling them out of court (HCN, 10/14/02: Wildlife Service bows to home builders).

The end of wilderness?

The new policy could demolish efforts for more wilderness protection - and it is likely to spread quickly region-wide.

The Utah settlement came on the heels of two March letters to Norton from Republican senators and congressmen in Utah, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, California and Montana, asking that "the Bureau of Land Management immediately suspend any new wilderness reviews of public lands other than reviews specifically directed by an Act of Congress." In her April 11 letters to Senators Bennett and Domenici, Secretary Norton made it clear that the invalidation of wilderness proposed after 1991 would extend across the West.

"It's pretty clear that what we're going to see BLM start doing pretty quick is start leasing lands (for oil and gas development) that are in citizens' wilderness inventories," says Ken Rait of the Campaign for America's Wilderness. In Colorado, the first land on the block could be the Vermillion Basin and the energy-rich Roan Plateau near Rifle. In Utah, it's the area around Moab as well as the Book Cliffs outside of Green River, which have long been eyed by oil and gas companies.

The Arizona Wilderness Coalition's just-released, million-acre wilderness proposal for the remote Arizona Strip, north of the Grand Canyon, is also on the rocks, and the new policy affects wilderness efforts in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho, as well.

Wilderness groups are still pondering their response to the move, but a lawsuit seems likely. Says Widen, "BLM didn't say to the oil and gas industry, 'You applied for drilling permits back in 1980-whatever, so you had your chance.' "

"This is a major issue for the future of the BLM and how it will manage its lands in the 21st century," says The Wilderness Society's Dave Alberswerth. "It's wrong for the administration to say, 'We're never going to do wilderness again.' "

Matt Jenkins is an assistant editor for High Country News.

• U.S. Department of the Interior, John Wright, 202/208-6416,www.doi.gov;

• The Wilderness Society, Dave Alberswerth, 202/833-2300, www.wilderness.org;

• Campaign for America's Wilderness, Doug Scott, 206/342-9212, www.leaveitwild.org.

Wilderness Protections Rolled Back

In settling Utah lawsuit, White House reverses Clinton policy. New approach may alter how millions of acres are treated across the West.

Elizabeth Shogren
Los Angeles Times

Utah charged that the BLM had illegally been managing those areas as if they had already been wilderness study areas, stalling or killing many mineral development projects. It argued that until Congress designated these areas as wilderness, the BLM should permit mining, drilling, use by off-road vehicles and other development.

The struggle over the fate of federal lands in Utah -- especially the red rock canyon country of southern Utah -- has long been heated. The state has less land designated as wilderness than any other in the West -- 801,000 acres, the vast majority of it on national forest land. Only about 20,000 acres of southern Utah's red rock canyon country, which draws tourists from around the globe, are protected as wilderness.

In the BLM's first wilderness review of its land in Utah, the agency found 3.2 million acres that met the criteria, and most of those areas are designated as wilderness study areas. (Abstract)