‘Wild Lands 2.0': Defeated Salazar Policy Resurrected in Back-Door BLM Move

Western lawmakers are crying foul over new Interior Department guidelines that resurrect the controversial Wild Lands policy that was killed by Congress in April 2011.

Bureau of Land Management manuals uncovered by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) include language nearly identical to the draft proposal put forth by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in December 2010. The “Wild Lands” policy was intended to identify and manage wilderness areas while circumventing the normal — and transparent — congressional process.

Pulling manuals from the BLM site on July 31, the lawmakers compared the policies and found the new language to be even “harsher” than Wild Lands in the “carte blanche authority” granted to the agency.

“In some circumstances conditions relating to wilderness characteristics may have changed over time, and an area that was once determined to lack wilderness characteristic many now possess them,” states one section of the BLM text. Both manuals include a provision that gives BLM the authority to identify any “roadless island of the public lands” as possessing wilderness characteristics, even under 5,000 acres in defiance of the Wilderness Act.

Bishop said that the new land management practices essentially create de-facto wilderness areas and would unfairly stack the deck against multiple-use management.

“This is clearly an effort to establish ‘Wild Lands 2.0’ and abandons all previous commitments Secretary Salazar made to me and many other western members to work openly and collaboratively on new land management practices,” Bishop said. “Excerpts within these handbooks clearly depict a thinly veiled effort on behalf of this administration to further limit access to our nation’s public lands.“

“Once again, the Obama administration shows its ‘Washington knows best’ mentality,” Hatch said. “Even though these proposals have already been overwhelmingly rejected, the administration is attempting to administratively put these policies in place. This proposal will give Washington bureaucrats more control over the lands in Utah and across the West.“

The Senate Western Caucus reacted angrily to the revelation, with 18 members of the caucus including Bishop and Hatch firing off a letter to Salazar about the backdoor policy move.

“You have stated on more than one occasion that it is important that both you and the Department work with Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle,” wrote the lawmakers, led by caucus chairman Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). “This sentiment was reaffirmed when you met with many of us following the fallout of the Wildlands Secretarial Order. The Department’s recent actions greatly undermine both your commitment to working with us, your duty to follow both the letter and spirit of the Congressional mandate to withhold funding for the Wildlands policy, and the Obama Administration’s commitment towards being the ‘most transparent’ in history.”

They asked Salazar to pull the BLM manuals out of use immediately and move forward with a public process to craft new directives.

“To that end, we request a briefing with you to discuss when Manuals 6310 and 6320 were posted on the internet, the extent to which Manuals 6300-1 and 6300-2 were used in crafting Manuals 6310 and 6320, and the Department’s plan to withdraw and reissue new manuals in an open and transparent process,” the letter states.

The caucus members stressed that the fact that the manuals were developed and released with no public notice raised “deep skepticism for the motives behind the underlying directives” — particularly considering how unpopular the original Wild Lands proposal was.

For example, the section on wilderness inventory procedures in the Wild Lands manual reads, “The wilderness inventory process directive does not mean that the BLM must conduct a completely new inventory and disregard the inventory information that it already has for a particular area. Rather, the BLM must ensure that its current inventory is updated with appropriate information to conform to Secretary’s Order 3310 and this policy.”

The new BLM manual reads, “The wilderness inventory process directive does not mean that the BLM must conduct a completely new inventory and disregard the inventory information that it already has for a particular area. Rather, the BLM must ensure that its inventory is maintained.”

“I am troubled and angered by similarities found between the contents of the handbooks and the defunct Wild Lands proposal,” Bishop said.

“It’s wrong, and the Interior Department needs to stop trying to keep the public off public lands,” Hatch said.

On April 5, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested that the Army Corps of Engineers expand the environmental review and conduct a “broadly scoped cumulative impacts analysis” for an export facility at the Port of Morrow, Ore.

“We believe that the National Environmental Policy Act does not require these steps and that taking them would set a dangerous precedent for American exports,” the senators wrote Salazar and Army Secretary John McHugh.

They noted that coal producers could export their product through Canada, but protested against ceding the jobs that the Pacific Northwest ports would bring.

In its request, the EPA cited coal dust and diesel pollution as “primary concerns,” in addition to wildlife, aquatic resources, and cultural resources.

“While these concerns are not insignificant, they are routinely addressed under existing environmental review processes,” Barrasso and Enzi wrote. “In no way do any of these concerns warrant significantly expanding the scope of or delaying the environmental review process for new port facilities. To the contrary, expanding the scope of or delaying the environmental review process for new port facilities would create uncertainty for ongoing and future exports of coal from the Powder River Basin as well as Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, and West Virginia.”

“…We find it deeply troubling that EPA is attempting to impose what is effectively a climate change litmus test on American exports.”

The senators asked that the requests for the expanded environmental review be denied.

In announcing their fight against the environmental red tape, the senators quipped that the EPA is turning into the “Export Prevention Agency.”

Barrasso and his Wyoming counterpart in the Senate, Mike Enzi (R), yesterday accused Salazar of throwing up more red tape to the construction of new port facilities in Oregon and Washington, which would export Powder River Basin coal to Asia. On April 5, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested that the Army Corps of Engineers expand the environmental review and conduct a “broadly scoped cumulative impacts analysis” for an export facility at the Port of Morrow, Ore.
“We believe that the National Environmental Policy Act does not require these steps and that taking them would set a dangerous precedent for American exports,” the senators wrote Salazar and Army Secretary John McHugh.
They noted that coal producers could export their product through Canada, but protested against ceding the jobs that the Pacific Northwest ports would bring.
In its request, the EPA cited coal dust and diesel pollution as “primary concerns,” in addition to wildlife, aquatic resources, and cultural resources.
“While these concerns are not insignificant, they are routinely addressed under existing environmental review processes,” Barrasso and Enzi wrote. “In no way do any of these concerns warrant significantly expanding the scope of or delaying the environmental review process for new port facilities. To the contrary, expanding the scope of or delaying the environmental review process for new port facilities would create uncertainty for ongoing and future exports of coal from the Powder River Basin as well as Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, and West Virginia.”

What is pathetic is the attempt by these two western Senators to push these coal ports on rural areas of WA and Oregon, where the people do not want a coal port and all the environmental degradation that would accompany a coal port. These idiots are trying to paint the opposition to the Powder River Basin Coal ports as a global warming battle. It has little to do with global warming. It has to do with the local impact of coal trains and huge coal ports that foul the water, the air and degrade the quality of life, mostly in rural areas. Would you want a coal port in your back yard? No, of course not. The problem is that there is a declining market for this sub bituminous coal anyway. China has warned that China will not be interested in buying the coal in another couple of years because they are producing their own coal while at the same time reducing their dependency on coal (huge LNG port being built) The Powder River Basin Coal is an Obama crony capitalist project. While Obama wages a war against coal on the East Coast, on private lands, he is facilitating the mining of coal on public leased lands that is mostly owned by Indian tribes in the Powder River Basin. Recently the Crowe made a deal with a large mining company to directly partner in the Powder River Basin, avoiding the federal leasing. There was another Indian tribe in WA that wanted to construct a coal port in Tacoma, WA, but the city nixed it. Enter Goldman Sachs and Warren Buffet, and the idea of building the port in rural Whatcom County, where the growth management act denies any local governing authority over development and crony capitalism reigns supreme. What the producers of this coal and their political supporters want to do is to turn our rural coastline into a major coal train route, that will destroy our health and well being as well as our property values. It will clog and pollute our waterways and basically destroy any chance for any real commercial development that would provide more jobs and some local benefit. There is nothing in the export of coal to benefit WA and Oregon. We don't want it in our back yards. The only people who support the coal are those who will not be impacted by it and are fooled into thinking that it will provide jobs. The fight over these terminals has become so divisive that some of the local Republicans who support the terminal have been working WITH the local lefty regulators and storm water advisory boards, AGAINST the private property owners to benefit the developers. Gateways are what the Agenda 21 people call their multi-modal transportation corridors, ports and hubs that connect urban ports around the world for the purpose of moving people and cargo through rural areas, limiting human incursion into rural areas. The coal port that they want to build in Whatcom County is called the GATEWAY Pacific Terminal. Patty Murray wrote a bill to fund Gateways all around the country that was included in the transportation bill that was signed this summer. Goldman Sach is a partner in several of these projects. Goldman Sachs does not need our tax dollars and neither does Warren Buffet, but they are getting them.

n its request, the EPA cited coal dust and diesel pollution as “primary concerns,” in addition to wildlife, aquatic resources, and cultural resources. “While these concerns are not insignificant, they are routinely addressed under existing environmental review processes,” Barrasso and Enzi wrote. “In no way do any of these concerns warrant significantly expanding the scope of or delaying the environmental review process for new port facilities. To the contrary, expanding the scope of or delaying the environmental review process for new port facilities would create uncertainty for ongoing and future exports of coal from the Powder River Basin as well as Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, and West Virginia.” NO, these concerns are NOT adequately addressed in the routine review process, partially because the routine review process is designed to ignore the broader scope of the impact of the development. First of all the EPA is charged with regulating the coal dust, but the EPA doesn't regulate coal dust, never has regulated coal dust. The EPA only monitor coal ASH, from smoke stacks, not coal dust from the transport and shipping of the coal. The coal dust will be allowed to foul our air and waterways with absolutely no governmental over sight and absolutely not attempt to protect our local environment from the coal dust because there is no local or federal governing authority. We don't want federal lands closed, but we don't want our local land to be despoiled and exploited by corporate coal interests, Goldman Sachs and Warren Buffet, either.

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