PUBLIC LANDS: Dem bill aims to shield 9.2M acres in Utah's red rock desert
Scott Streater, E&E News reporter: Friday, April 7, 2017
House Democrats are once again attempting to protect a sweeping 9.2-million-acre swath of federal lands in southern Utah's scenic red rock desert region.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) yesterday introduced a bill titled "America's Red Rock Wilderness Act," which would protect as wilderness areas including Desolation and Labyrinth canyons, the Dirty Devil River, Bitter Creek, White Canyon and the San Rafael Swell — all currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
Lowenthal's bill is similar to legislation he spearheaded two years ago with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) (Greenwire, May 21, 2015).
That bill never gained much traction, as has been the case since legislation on the issue was introduced in 1989 by the late Rep. Wayne Owens (D-Utah) after a group of Utah residents submitted a proposed citizen's wilderness designation.
The latest version of the bill has 30 co-sponsors, all Democrats, representing 17 states from New Jersey to California, including House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Raúl Grijalva of Arizona.
But, as in recent years, it has no co-sponsors from the Beehive State.
Still, Lowenthal said yesterday that the public lands proposed for wilderness designation in his bill are, like other "national treasures" such as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone national parks, part of "our birthright as Americans."
"Our nation is blessed with a wealth of landscapes as diverse as the people who call it home," Lowenthal said in a statement. "It is incumbent upon each of us to ensure that our wild public lands remain wild and public from coast to coast, so that our children and grandchildren may enjoy them as we have."
Republican opposition
But from a political standpoint, the legislation stands almost no chance of being approved by a Republican-controlled Congress whose leaders have been pushing President Trump to eliminate or scale back national monuments designated by former President Obama and others.
That includes Obama's designation in December of the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in southeast Utah.
One of the staunchest opponents of previous versions of the red rock wilderness legislation is House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who has indicated he wants Trump to repeal the Bears Ears designation.
Bishop said last week he plans to introduce legislation this session to reform the Antiquities Act, which allows presidents to bypass Congress and designate national monuments on public land (E&E Daily, March 30).
Bishop last year introduced the "Utah Public Lands Initiative Act," co-sponsored by Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). It proposed protecting roughly 4.6 million acres in seven eastern Utah counties, including parts of the Bears Ears region (Greenwire, July 14, 2016).
Bishop's office could not be reached for comment. But he and other members of the GOP-led Utah congressional delegation are sure to oppose the latest bill in a state where 66 percent of the land is federally managed.
Guarding against 'anti-public lands attacks'
Conservation groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), strongly support Lowenthal's bill.
They note that Utah has less designated wilderness — 1.1 million acres — than any Western state except for Hawaii. Until 2006, when Congress passed a bill sponsored by Bishop designating roughly 100,000 acres of wilderness in the Cedar Mountains southwest of Salt Lake City, there was no BLM wilderness solely in Utah.
Jen Ujifusa, SUWA's legislative director, said the areas in question need to be designated as wilderness — the highest form of public lands protection — to guard them "from the extremist anti-public lands attacks that are lobbed by the Utah delegation."
"The lands in 'America's Red Rock Wilderness Act' are some of the most spectacular remaining unprotected wilderness in the United States, like the San Rafael Swell, Desolation Canyon and the Dirty Devil region," Ujifusa said. "We are thrilled and grateful for Congressman Lowenthal's leadership in working to permanently safeguard places like these while we still have the opportunity."
Kellie Lunney, E&E News reporter: Friday, April 7, 2017
Wildlife and conservation groups are urging congressional appropriators to reject adding any measures to the fiscal 2017 government funding bill that would erode protections for wolves, fish and other species.
Several provisions in the House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2017 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee spending bills would "undermine" the Endangered Species Act and "strip federal protections" for animals, including the gray wolf, Mexican gray wolf, the lesser prairie chicken and two species of meadow jumping mice, said 56 organizations in a letter yesterday to the leaders of the appropriations committees.
The groups, which include the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, fear that those provisions will end up attached as policy riders to the spending package that Congress comes up with to keep the government open when current funding expires in three weeks.
"Decisions about whether imperiled species still need important conservation measures provided under the Endangered Species Act should be based on the best available science, rather than political considerations that fall outside of the act's framework," the letter said.
The organizations are also concerned over measures that would stymie land management plans aimed at conserving the sage grouse after years of collaboration among federal, state and local partners, and override protections for salmon and other endangered fish in California's San Francisco Bay Delta estuary. Another measure that could make its way into a funding package would remove funding for a protected species when the Fish and Wildlife Service fails to complete a five-year review of its status as required by the ESA.
The letter names several Republican lawmakers who offered some of the specific provisions mentioned targeting the ESA, including Reps. Doug Lamborn of Colorado, Mark Amodei of Nevada, Kevin Yoder of Kansas, David Valadao of California, Dan Newhouse of Washington and Steve Pearce of New Mexico, and former Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia. All are Republicans.
Wildlife and conservation advocates used yesterday's letter to make the case for more overall funding for federal agencies that administer the ESA, citing a lack of species recovery plans for more than 400 U.S. listed species, as well as delays in permitting.
"Inadequate funding for the ESA permitting program has resulted in delays for American businesses and landowners seeking to carry out activities ranging from road construction to bridge repairs to housing development and other land use activity," the groups wrote.
The letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the appropriations panels came a day after several special-interest groups held a press briefing decrying any efforts to tack on "poison pill" policy riders affecting the environment and public lands to the 2017 funding package in the scramble to avoid a government shutdown (Greenwire, April 5).
Congress will have just a few legislative days after it returns from a two-week recess to send legislation to President Trump before funding expires on April 28.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters Tuesday that Republicans "are still pressing for items that they know Democrats will not agree with," adding that they cannot pass a spending bill on their own because they lack the necessary votes to do so (E&E Daily, April 5).