landusepbb
09-03-2002, 06:18 PM
http://www.off-road.com/land/four_corners_0902.html
PRIORITIES
by Brad Ullrich, Land Use Editor
As the summer draws to a close I've been thinking about some of the battles we'll be fighting over the coming months to keep our public lands open to motorized recreation and other forms of multiple use. I've picked what I perceive to be the top five issues currently pending in the arena of multiple use versus the bad guys.
By far the most dangerous issue facing us today is the Roadless Initiative. I discussed this at length last month in "The Long and Winding Road of the Roadless Rule", but in short this is the one that won't die. It started as a conspiracy between the Clinton administration and radical environmental groups in 1998, was put on hold at the last minute by the Bush administration and a Judge in Idaho, and since then has been revived TWICE, once in the House of Representatives and now again in the Senate. This initiative, proposition, amendment, or whatever form it takes has the potential to lock up almost 60 million acres of National Forest, in essence creating 60 million acres of de facto wilderness.
The issue I see as number two on the list is California Senator Barbara Boxer's California Wild Heritage Act, a loony effort to lock up a large portion of California forever from motorized recreation. This bill has yet to even make it to committee, many counties in California have failed to endorse the idea, and even her fellow Senator Diane Feinstein has not come forward to endorse the bill as yet. But, California being the home of many liberals and environmental groups, this wilderness proposition still has a reasonable chance of going forward. It bears watching, and if it ends up being passed in any form close to the original proposition it has the potential to set a trend for many other liberal states in the west such as Oregon and Washington.
Number three on the list is not quite a specific as the first two due to the scope, I see anything and everything to do with the California deserts, NECO, NEMO, Glamis and everything else you can think of as priority number three. There is so much land involved with these issues on a variety of levels that the potential impacts are mind boggling to motorized recreationists. We are talking about millions of acres being closed, all due to what most people see as frivolous lawsuits by radical environmental groups such as The Center for BioDiversity. These groups are using the Endangered Species Act in ways that Congress never intended when the Act was passed years ago, filing lawsuits to close vast tracts of desert due to obscure plants and animals.
That brings us to number four, The Endangered Species Act. When this Act was passed by Congress a number of years ago the intent was admirable and the need was obvious. But, over the years radical environmental groups have discovered ways to warp the original intent of the Act into a powerful weapon that is being wielded by the radical environmentalists in the form of lawsuits that are closing up much of our public land to various multiple uses such as logging, mining and motorized recreation. The Endangered Species Act needs very badly to be either repealed or rewritten, it has outgrown its original intent and is being used in ways never imagined by Congress years ago.
Number five on the short list is, like number three, non-specific. An old federal law that was repealed years ago, RS2477, is having an impact on multiple use throughout the west. Currently there are actions or lawsuits pending in California (Surprise Canyon), New Mexico (the Dona Ana Mountains) and various locations in Utah (the San Rafael Swell being most notable) that are testing the pre-existing rights of way that this law protects. The previous Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt came forward a number of years ago with an interpretation of RS2477 that limited its scope to something far narrower than what multiple use activists see in the law, but the current Secretary Gale Norton has taken a much more liberal view of the law. This law has the potential to help us keep many old four wheel drive and ATV roads open for future generations to enjoy, but the radical environmentalists are vigorously fighting any liberal application and interpretation of the law.
There they are, my top five for the near future. The list could actually contain dozens of priorities, there are many pressing issues such as pending Resource Management Plans throughout the country for both the BLM and the USFS that are important, along with many other issues. But, in my opinion, the above five issues have the most potential for impacting multiple use in the short term. We have our work cut out for us, to put it mildly!
PRIORITIES
by Brad Ullrich, Land Use Editor
As the summer draws to a close I've been thinking about some of the battles we'll be fighting over the coming months to keep our public lands open to motorized recreation and other forms of multiple use. I've picked what I perceive to be the top five issues currently pending in the arena of multiple use versus the bad guys.
By far the most dangerous issue facing us today is the Roadless Initiative. I discussed this at length last month in "The Long and Winding Road of the Roadless Rule", but in short this is the one that won't die. It started as a conspiracy between the Clinton administration and radical environmental groups in 1998, was put on hold at the last minute by the Bush administration and a Judge in Idaho, and since then has been revived TWICE, once in the House of Representatives and now again in the Senate. This initiative, proposition, amendment, or whatever form it takes has the potential to lock up almost 60 million acres of National Forest, in essence creating 60 million acres of de facto wilderness.
The issue I see as number two on the list is California Senator Barbara Boxer's California Wild Heritage Act, a loony effort to lock up a large portion of California forever from motorized recreation. This bill has yet to even make it to committee, many counties in California have failed to endorse the idea, and even her fellow Senator Diane Feinstein has not come forward to endorse the bill as yet. But, California being the home of many liberals and environmental groups, this wilderness proposition still has a reasonable chance of going forward. It bears watching, and if it ends up being passed in any form close to the original proposition it has the potential to set a trend for many other liberal states in the west such as Oregon and Washington.
Number three on the list is not quite a specific as the first two due to the scope, I see anything and everything to do with the California deserts, NECO, NEMO, Glamis and everything else you can think of as priority number three. There is so much land involved with these issues on a variety of levels that the potential impacts are mind boggling to motorized recreationists. We are talking about millions of acres being closed, all due to what most people see as frivolous lawsuits by radical environmental groups such as The Center for BioDiversity. These groups are using the Endangered Species Act in ways that Congress never intended when the Act was passed years ago, filing lawsuits to close vast tracts of desert due to obscure plants and animals.
That brings us to number four, The Endangered Species Act. When this Act was passed by Congress a number of years ago the intent was admirable and the need was obvious. But, over the years radical environmental groups have discovered ways to warp the original intent of the Act into a powerful weapon that is being wielded by the radical environmentalists in the form of lawsuits that are closing up much of our public land to various multiple uses such as logging, mining and motorized recreation. The Endangered Species Act needs very badly to be either repealed or rewritten, it has outgrown its original intent and is being used in ways never imagined by Congress years ago.
Number five on the short list is, like number three, non-specific. An old federal law that was repealed years ago, RS2477, is having an impact on multiple use throughout the west. Currently there are actions or lawsuits pending in California (Surprise Canyon), New Mexico (the Dona Ana Mountains) and various locations in Utah (the San Rafael Swell being most notable) that are testing the pre-existing rights of way that this law protects. The previous Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt came forward a number of years ago with an interpretation of RS2477 that limited its scope to something far narrower than what multiple use activists see in the law, but the current Secretary Gale Norton has taken a much more liberal view of the law. This law has the potential to help us keep many old four wheel drive and ATV roads open for future generations to enjoy, but the radical environmentalists are vigorously fighting any liberal application and interpretation of the law.
There they are, my top five for the near future. The list could actually contain dozens of priorities, there are many pressing issues such as pending Resource Management Plans throughout the country for both the BLM and the USFS that are important, along with many other issues. But, in my opinion, the above five issues have the most potential for impacting multiple use in the short term. We have our work cut out for us, to put it mildly!