New West Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
After strong opposition from several Western states and a pending lawsuit, Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is backing down from his controversial “Wild Lands” policy.
The announcement comes on the heels of a law suit proposed by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, which was also supported by governors from Wyoming and Alaska, as well as the recent budget deal which prevented the Interior Department from funding the plan.
“I am confirming today that the Bureau of Land Management will not designate land as ‘Wild Lands,’” Salazar said in a memo to Bob Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management.
Instead, Salazar said he would work with locally supported efforts to preserve wilderness.
“We will focus our effort on building consensus around locally supported initiatives and working with members of Congress, states, tribes and local communites to advance their priorities for wilderness designations in their states and districts,” he said in a release this week. “Together, we can advance America’s proud wilderness legacy for future generations.”
But considering Salazar aide Scott Black told the Casper Star-Tribune in Feburary, “I don’t think you should expect material delay or change in the direction of the (Wild Lands policy),” it leaves one wondering: What made Salazar change his mind?
Last month, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert introduced a lawsuit attempting to void the the “Wild Lands” policy. At a press conference introducing the legislation, Herbert described the order as “being created out of thin air” — a reference to the fact that the secretarial order was introduced when Congress was adjourned for the holidays.
In describing the bill, Herbert pointed to the fact that the Wild Lands policy would override state processes for development of public land.
“It puts a wet blanket on the processes we have in place already here in Utah to determine wilderness,” Herbert said. “Our concern is that this does not help us find out what areas are wilderness, this just gets in the way of a process we’ve already utilized. This jeopardizes the multiple use of our public lands.”
Almost immediately after Utah filed the suit, Alaska was ready to support the legal proceedings, and last week Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead and the state of Wyoming filed papers to join the litigation.
After Salazar’s announcement that he would be reversing the plan, Herbert was quick to issue a statement declaring victory.
“This is a win for Utah’s county by county process, which has proven successful in identifying wilderness,” he said in a statement. “I have defended Utah’s process in my multiple conversations with Secretary Salazar and Deputy (Interior Secretar David) Hayes, so I am pleased they are listening.”
“This may be a step in the right direction, but Utah will remain vigilant and engaged on this critical front,” Herbert added.
The lawsuit, coupled with the budget bill that defunded the plan, may have finally doomed the “Wild Lands” policy, but since its introduction in late December, the policy has been heavily contested in many Western states rich with public lands.
The vague language of the order and the the unknown effects the proposed order would have on a number of people who use public land for work or play were main reasons the secretarial order was so heavily criticized, said Michelle Subbotin, communications director for Utah Rep. Rob Bishop.
“The Wild Lands policy would not have allowed public lands users “to be included in an open and public process,” she said. “At the end of the day, people want their voices to be heard.”
The secretarial order most simply moved determining wilderness areas from Congress, as designated by the Wilderness Act of 1964, to the BLM, but left many questions about how and which lands would be designated.
“We’re pleased that (the Obama Administration) intends to uphold the intentions of the Wilderness Act of 1964,” Subbotin said.
Environmental groups criticized Salazar’s announcement Wednesday. In a blog post, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance Executive Director Scott Groene called the Obama administration “a steady and enormous disappointment on public lands.”
I am simply against designating Wilderness that doesn’t meet the guidelines. Vast dead lodgepole forests have been impacted by overcrowding and drought, and are not suitable as Wilderness. Additionally, those dead forests aren’t suitable as “wildlife corridors”, either. “Re-wilding” is the ultimate goal for some people, believing that only Wilderness Designation will “protect” lands from “destruction” by greed. Some people also believe that all wildfires are “natural and beneficial”, while watching homes and infrastructure burn. Some people embrace dead and dying forests, providing firewood for heating our planet. Some people are not worried about the loss of tourist dollars, due to the environmental degradation of forest “unstewardship”.
Federal Wilderness (with a capital ‘W’) designation is not – nor should it be – the answer to all our land preservation issues.
The land land that should be wilderness is already wilderness .
The rest is just political gain for leftists .
Many of us aren’t opposed to Wilderness. We would simply rather not have it forced upon us by the Federal Government.
This story does not in any way explain why Salazar first took such a bold step in issuing the wilderness policy memo, knowing it would anger the Western states, then backed down so quickly when the anticipated reaction surfaced. He should have saved himself the trouble and simply not issued the memo in the first place. Was he really that clueless?
It’s problematic when states, and even counties can tell the Federal Government how to ,manage Federal lands belonging to all the people of the nation.
What a huge disappointment. The states involved, Utah in particular, cannot be trusted to manage PUBLIC lands — they belong to all of us, not to just Utah residents (and its one-party political system). Once drilled and mined, they cannot be reclaimed in our lifetimes. Will we leave anything resembling the landscape of 100 years ago to our children?
Salazar conceded just about nothing in his new memo. He’s just withdrawing it to comply with the stop-work implicit in the Continuing Resolution. It may very well come back if Wild Lands are not defunded in FY 2012.
Never mind that Wild Lands was just another do over of Babbitt’s do over. Never mind that only 23 million of 264 million even met initial criteria as outstanding enough to even be studied (starting in 1976, never mind all the alleged pillage since) and only 9.6 million acres were ever recommended in the first place.
Doesn’t matter. The people who know what is going on get the idea. They’ll fight it out soon enough.
Matthew: This is absolutely wrong:
“The secretarial order most simply moved determining wilderness areas from Congress, as designated by the Wilderness Act of 1964, to the BLM…”
The secretarial order did no such thing. The “Wild Lands” designation is not synonymous with “Wilderness,” the latter which only Congress can designate. The BLM’s public affairs office did a piss-poor job explaining this order from the get-go. Had they been more competent, this entire mess would have been avoided.
Mr. Davis:
Pronghorn is correct in pointing out the error of your assertion that BLM would be deciding wilderness designations under the Wild Lands policy. If you had read the policy written by the BLM, you would have seen that not one acre of Wild Lands would have been designated without public input. Management regulations were far less conservative than in designated wilderness — even less conservative than in Wilderness Study Areas. And most important of all, while wilderness designations can only be undone by a subsequent act of Congress, Wild Lands designations could have been undone by a simple land use plan amendment — the Wild Lands designations were to be temporary, not permanent.
We can expect disinformation to be spread by liars like Bishop. We expect better from a New West reporter.
“… Wild Lands designations could have been undone by a simple land use plan amendment”
And 10 years of successful litigation defense!
Yes, the Wildland designations were, indeed, intended to be temporary, until either Congress acts to make them full Wilderness, or until rules change, allowing lands to be managed as Wilderness. Clearly it was a failed “end run”, and Congress does not want to relinquish any of their powers on this issue. To me, it’s a rather Bush-like maneuver, hoping to sneak this partisan issue by.
Foto — Look at FLPMA, Sections 201 and 202. Wild Lands was no end run. It was Norton who pulled off the end-run in 2003 by deciding that, where the wilderness resource is concerned, the BLM was going to ignore these sections of law. Congress is free to amend FLPMA any time it wants.
Are you saying only elected politicians should decide land uses, and the voices of the owners of the lands — the ordinary citizens — should be limited to elections once every two years?
Well, guess what, kids? FLPMA is poorly written. 201 and 202 sections on wilderness inventories need to be repealed. There’s no reason to keep inventorying something over and over again if it already has had specific review (1976-1991) — unless you are a staffer for some wilderness group that doesn’t want to go have to get another job in this terrible economy.
The BLM has always operated as if the public wasn’t monitoring them. They choose the vision that only they can pick the future of their lands, as they see fit. It is unfortunate that both sides will support their own partisan land management issues, at the expense of the public lands. Remember, too, that profits from BLM projects don’t go where they go in the Forest Service. They are linked to the Bureau of Reclamation in funneling profits, instead of schools and roads, where some USFS profits go.
Hmmmm, and some people want to combine the Forest Service with the BLM?!?!?
Geezer, if you were working for BLM and thought some areas were missed, then what the heck were you doing? Clocking toward vested status?
And let me ask this….let’s presume that BLM had done an “honest” job and all 23 million acres studied had made the grade, and by gosh Congress agreed. Do you think this fight would be over, or would we still be doing the do over over again?
There should have been date-certain language in FLPMA that said Vote by This Date or Extend The Deadline Otherwise Back to Multiple Use. FLPMA could have been written that way, with an option to act or not act, but wasn’t.
Too bad we can’t ask Lee Metcalf or HHH why not.
Mr. Skinner — the point of Sections 201 and 202 of FLPMA is that conditions on the ground change, as do societal needs. There are 50% more people in this country than when the Wilderness Act passed, and the needs for both wild lands and oil fields is greater now than then. The country needs to keep its inventory of ALL its resources current, and make decisions accordingly.
You and Foto argue that FLPMA should have said something other than what it says. So get Congress to amend it. (Funny, the idea of a time limit on WSAs has been proposed several times over the past 20 years, but never gets very far — no doubt due, in part, to being carried by liars. Well, they were carried by members of Congress, so perhaps that’s redundant.) In the meantime, don’t call out Salazar or the BLM for following the law for once.
Of course, amending FLPMA isn’t necessary. Congress can designate — or release — any parcel of ground any time it wants to. That Congress has refused to act on the vast majority of WSAs isn’t the fault of the Executive branch. If you’re looking for permanent release, well, you’ll go to your grave disappointed — Congress may restrain the Executive branch, but it won’t (can’t, actually) constrain itself. And it keeps doing things like designating additional wilderness in areas that were passed over before — Ventana has been added to 3 or 4 times — so to think wilderness designation is a one time deal shows a lack of understanding of both history and human nature.
Joey’s statement from 6/2 that all areas worthy of being a wilderness already have been designated is, I imagine, the result of someone either not knowing what has actually been designated or actually not having much experience on the land. Geezer’s assertion that the inventory missed some valuable areas is abundantly clear to anyone who has looked at the old files, and I have seen instances where impacts were actually made up (including in one instance a fictitious road) order to disqualify an area from further study.
So why not do an inventory? The BLM policy called for public input from ALL concerned before any allocations would be made, and provided for mechanisms by which ANY member of the public could submit information about that inventory — whether they wanted to preserve the land or extract from the land. That liars like Bishop would try to stop that is just more proof that people like him only want people like him to control everyone’s land.
Part of the problem is the BLM’s contention that they can “create” conditions that meet the specific guidelines of the Wilderness Act. It would be a very rare event, indeed, where lands not deemed suitable for Wilderness in the past would magically qualify today. There will always be smaller parcels of appropriate lands that will be annexed by Wilderness Areas, in the future. I’m not against that. I am against locking out benign or beneficial projects. Yes, lands CAN be protected without strict preservation.
@Dave Skinner: My supervisor raised the issue directly with the BLM Director in 1980 before the final decision was issued. The Director said he would not intervene because he had delegated the authority to the BLM state director in Utah. He was being consistent, as the state directors made all the final inventory decisions.
Geezer, that is interesting. 1980 implies the Carter era for delegation of responsibility to state directors. Not like now. Hmmmm.
And I agree with Foto….I just got back from Washington where the game has switched to “wildernizing” areas formerly mined, logged, roaded….but because Congress can, Congress designates wilderness.
For so long we have been hearing keep it pristine as God made it, but I guess we don’t need God any more?
Too bad Bob Marshall died rich.
Just a few more cents –
Foto — It might not be so rare for lands found not suitable 30 years ago to qualify today (aside from changes in the land itself, which have been documented occasionally.) In addition to the made up impacts to disqualify areas, some managers were told by their State Directors “you will find no more than x% of your area as suitable.” Areas were found not suitable for all sorts of reasons, the most common being some other resource value that was held in higher esteem at the time — not becausee they were lacking in wilderness characteristics.
Mr. Skinner — the “game” “switched,” as you put it, by designating an area that had been mined, logged, or roaded in…let’s see — try 1968, with the first non-Forest Service wilderness and which had a county road (now rehabilitated) going through it. Or maybe you want to consider that minor area from the original ’64 Act, the Boundary Waters, where all three activites took place prior to “wildernizing” in the ’70s.
The Wilderness Act doesn’t use the word “pristine,” and clearly Congress never meant to designate only areas that had never having been logged, mined or roaded. They’ve done otherwise hundreds of times.
Gee, GV,
Then how about if we mine, road, log, graze, ride — if doing so doesn’t really disqualify it from wilderness some time in the future, then what the heck is wrong with multiple-use today?
Two faced, indeed.
Remember, folks, that the forests burning in Arizona and New Mexico are burning in GREEN forests, and not the dead lodgepoles so common elsewhere in the Rockies. the MSM always paints these wildfires as caused by “climate change”, never mentioning how far the fuels loadings are from “natural”. It’s the fuels that cause the fire intensities and damages. The fire triangle says that if you remove air, heat or fuel, the fire will go out. Man can only control one of those three things but, people will sue to stop efforts to sensibly and economically address the problem. New fire suppression strategies tend to steer wildfires into higher terrain and wilderness areas. “Preserve the wildfires” seems to be the battle cry of wildland firefighters, these days.