Posted on 05/07/2003 10:24:08 PM PDT by optimistically_conservative
Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton recently decided that 250 million acres of public land will not be considered for wilderness preservation. There's only one problem: She forgot to ask the landowners -- the American people -- about it. In fact, Norton notified only a few select U.S. senators when she decided to reverse four decades of established environmental policy on Bureau of Land Management lands.
Here's how that policy had worked: Under the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the interior secretary is to identify and manage potential wilderness areas in order to keep their pristine characteristics intact-- free of roads or commercial exploitation-- until Congress decides whether to designate them permanently as part of the national wilderness system. Only Congress has that power, which requires legislation.
Here's how the Bush administration, on behalf of the energy industry, wants it to work: The interior secretary refuses to use her authority to protect potential wilderness lands from being spoiled. Once they are, they won't qualify for wilderness designation in the future. President Bush's oil and gas buddies are interested in any resources that may lie underneath public lands.
Using a flawed interpretation of the 1976 law, Norton claims her authority to manage the wild lands has "expired." But she didn't have the guts to call public attention to her new interpretation. She hid it in correspondence to the Utah congressional delegation, noting that she had entered into a settlement reversing the protection of 2.6 million acres in Utah.
Norton's stealth approach to undermining established environmental laws is part of a pattern by the Bush administration. Environmental interests are challenging the administration's industry-friendly decisions in court, but only full public scrutiny can halt the shameful exploitation of public wild lands that Bush officials are quietly encouraging.
EQUAL TIME Six U.S. senators, including Orrin Hatch of Utah and Ted Stevens of Alaska, last month wrote Interior Secretary Gale Norton, urging her to suspend any new reviews of public lands for wilderness designation. Here are excerpts:
Actions taken in the waning days of the previous administration to institute a new wilderness review effort are a contravention of congressional intent. All public lands have been subjected to at least one wilderness review, and these reviews have sufficiently satisifed the congressional requirements for inventory and identification of lands possessing wilderness values. Congress has been unable to act on many of the recommendations already submited for consideration and there is a need to examine the current status of our national system, ascertain how well we have met the needs of our nation and establish priorities for new designations, creating a National Wilderness policy more in tune with the needs of the 21st century. Further wilderness review serves no beneficial purpose and frustrates current efforts to identify and open key areas on public lands for energy production and resolve access problems or the legitimate use of public lands for other than wilderness purposes, including recreation uses. During the 107th Congress, more than 50 pieces of legislation were introduced concerning wilderness. The legislative history makes clear than when debating the Wilderness Act of 1964, Congress and the advocates for a National Wilderness Preservation System envisioned a system of approximately 60 million acres. Unfortunately, Congress failed to legislate any limits, and to date it has established more than 107 million acres of wilderness. If the nation's wilderness lands were made into one state, it would become the third largest in the nation, larger than California. In addition, there are more than 50 million acres of wilderness recommendations yet to be acted upon. Efforts of the previous administration to implement a roadless rule are nothing short of an attempt to bypass Congress and add an additional 60 million acres as de facto wilderness. In total, these efforts would amass more than 220 million acres, one third of the nation's federal lands, well beyond any system ever envisioned by Congress. The designation of certain federal lands as wilderness has been beneficial to the American people. But millions of Americans who visit national parks, forests and other public lands also benefit from areas that provide environmentally sound and safe uses other than wilderness.
No need for Congress to find more lands that would receive wilderness designation
"An article in Monday's Washington Times quoted Secretary Babbitt as having said the following: Quote, 'We switched the rules on the game. We are not trying to do anything legislatively.'"Yet, now it's a bad thing.
Why is it that the big city liberal editorial boards are the ones who want to require all the non-urban dwellers to live like luddites among the wolves?
To quote from David Horsey's Red and Blue Americans:
"In Blue America, folks go to sleep content that wilderness a THOUSAND miles away has been set aside by the federal government..."
"In Red America, folks lie awake incensed that wilderness FIVE miles away has been set aside by the federal government."
Here's how that policy had worked: Under the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act...
Nothing like putting a little deception into the editorial. First, the writer of the editorial makes it sound like this law was enacted during the Kennedy Administration, then we find out the law was actually enacted in the mid-70's. Technically, the law has existed in four decades, but it is not 40-years old, as the writer of the editorial would have you think.
If they can't be honest with even a minute detail such as this, why in the world should we pay attention to the media at all?
Oh yeah? Well, nobody bothered asking us Alaskans about locking up most of the state, nor did anyone ask us about locking up ANWR and halting oil exploration. I'm tired of Yankees 5000 miles away trying to tell us how to live up here. We can manage quite well without Washington's interference in our lives and in our state.
That is the areas of 3 Colorados.
Question for the AJC: don't youse guys ever do any homework before you write this drivel?
Sorry. I added your name yesterday to ping to a related Montana thread.
Not trying to show off my list here. Just thought Norton's decision was big news, so I broke up for extra bumps!
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