WILDERNESS: Dems propose protection of 9.2M acres in Utah
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter: Greenwire
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Democrats this week reintroduced legislation to protect as wilderness 9.2 million acres of Utah's scenic red rock desert, canyons and hoodoos.
The legislation introduced by Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) would protect areas including Desolation and Labyrinth canyons, the Dirty Devil River, Bitter Creek, White Canyon and the San Rafael Swell, according to sponsors. The lands are managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
The bill, known as "America's Red Rock Wilderness Act," was first introduced in 1989 by the late Rep. Wayne Owens (D-Utah) but in recent years has failed to attract any sponsors from the Beehive State. This year's bill is no exception. The House version carries 77 co-sponsors and the Senate bill has 14 -- all Democrats.
While passage is a political long shot, particularly in a Republican-controlled Congress, the bill has served as a "model and yardstick against which to compare other BLM wilderness proposals in Utah," according to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), which backs the bill along with the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Wilderness Society.
Support for the red rocks bill has helped defeat or improve what SUWA argued were deficient wilderness proposals for Utah's Washington County, West Desert and San Rafael Swell.
"These wild and precious lands are our birthright as Americans, and an essential part of who we are as a people," Lowenthal said in a statement this morning. "My bill will safeguard these special lands, and the waters, flora, and fauna within them."
Bill supporters say Utah has a relative dearth of wilderness compared with other Western states, especially on BLM lands.
Utah is the only Western state that had no land designated under the 1964 Wilderness Act. It has less designated wilderness -- 1.1 million acres -- than any Western state except for Hawaii. Even Florida has more wilderness.
Until 2006, when Congress passed a bill by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) designating roughly 100,000 acres of wilderness in the Cedar Mountains southwest of Salt Lake City -- in part to help block a proposed nuclear waste dump -- there was no BLM wilderness solely in Utah.
Bishop has strongly opposed the red rocks bill and is pursuing his own public lands initiative in several Utah counties in collaboration with the state, county officials, energy developers, motorized recreation advocates and conservationists.
His bill, which is expected to be released soon, could contain well over a million acres of wilderness but will likely fall well short of what's in the red rocks bill. It is also expected to promote state-federal land swaps and set-asides for motorized recreation and energy development.
SUWA is participating in the Bishop lands initiative and will likely measure whatever he introduces against the red rocks bill.
