This was just posted on the LA Times website...not sure if her proposal is going to include Johnson Valley but it sure would be nice! Hopefully something good comes out of this!

LA Times Article...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mojave21-2009dec21,0,7093884.story

For those of you to lazy to click! :D



http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-12/51190995.jpg

By Louis Sahagun
December 21, 2009


Reporting from Barstow - Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says she plans to introduce legislation today to establish two national monuments on roughly 1 million acres of Mojave Desert outback that is home to bighorn sheep and desert tortoises, extinct volcanoes, sand dunes and ancient petroglyphs.

Its centerpiece, Mojave Trails National Monument, would prohibit development on 941,000 acres of federal land and former railroad company property along a 105-mile stretch of old Route 66, between Ludlow and Needles.

The smaller Sand to Snow National Monument, about 45 miles east of Riverside, would cover about 134,000 acres of federal land between Joshua Tree National Park and the San Bernardino National Forest in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Its diverse habitats range from desert scrub to yellow pine forests 9,000 feet above sea level.

The legislation, which had been delayed by efforts to resolve conflicts among environmentalists, off-roaders and renewable energy interests, would also designate 250,000 acres of public land near the Army's training center at Ft. Irwin as wilderness; add 41,000 acres to the southern boundary of Death Valley National Park and add 2,900 acres to northern portions of Joshua Tree National Park.

In addition, it would designate as permanent five existing off-highway vehicle areas in San Bernardino County covering 314,000 acres.

Feinstein, author of the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, vowed to make the legislation a priority. "In the best-case scenario, this legislation could be approved by late 2010," she said in an interview.

"This magnificent land and its lonely beauty are a significant part of our history, and we shouldn't give it up," Feinstein said, adding that private donors helped acquire the former railroad parcels "with the belief they would be protected from development. We have an obligation to keep them that way."

The railroad land was purchased between 1999 and 2003 with $45 million in private donations collected by the nonprofit Wildlands Conservancy and $18 million in federal funds, then donated to the Department of the Interior.

The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing 130 applications for solar and wind-energy development in the California desert, covering more than 1 million acres of public land.

At least 19 renewable-energy projects have been suggested within the boundaries of the proposed Mojave Trails monument, according to Feinstein, who has discussed her concerns with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Feinstein's legislation would assist companies with projects currently proposed inside monument boundaries in relocating to federal energy zones being developed elsewhere. It would also permit construction of transmission lines within existing utility rights of way to facilitate the transfer of renewable energy generated in the Southern California desert and adjacent states.

Some congressional Republicans accused Feinstein of engaging in a not-in-my-back-yard campaign when her plans for legislation restricting renewable energy projects in California deserts surfaced earlier this year.

The senator countered that she "strongly" supports such projects, but only if they are built on "suitable" lands.

In an effort to avoid conflicts, BrightSource Energy Inc. and Stirling Energy Systems recently scrapped plans to build massive solar and wind farms on a panoramic stretch of the proposed Mojave Trails monument known as Sleeping Beauty Valley.

"We had a project within what we understand to be the boundaries of the monument, but we recently decided to withdraw it," said Sean Gallagher, Stirling's vice president of marketing strategies and regulatory issues. "We're trying to be respectful of what Sen. Feinstein has been doing in that area of the desert."

Environmentalists, hunters and off-road vehicle enthusiasts expressed support for Feinstein's legislation.

Elden Hughes, an honorary vice president of the Sierra Club, described it as "good news -- and darned important because it means this land would never be built on or fenced off."

James Conkle, founder of the Route 66 Alliance, which seeks to protect the historic route linking Chicago with Southern California, said the bill would "open up the desert to more travelers, sparking interest in fascinating, out-of-the-way places like Ludlow, Amboy and Essex."

Megan Grossglass, spokeswoman for the Off-Road Business Assn., was more cautious in her appraisal. Her group "has not had a chance to fully analyze the bill," she said, "so we cannot give it our endorsement, but we are supportive of the balanced approach it seems to take."

Mojave Trail, a four-hour drive from Los Angeles, includes such environmentally sensitive areas as Afton Canyon, a four-mile ribbon of green wetlands wedged between weathered rock walls, and Amboy Crater, a dormant volcano.

Then there is Sleeping Beauty Valley, a 150-square-mile expanse roughly 60 miles east of Barstow. It contains bighorn sheep, a newly discovered species of lupine that features showy purple blossoms in the spring, and unusually dark lizards that appear to have genetically adapted to the volcanic terrain.

During a tour of the area Sunday, David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, scrambled up a rocky hill at the base of a row of snaggletoothed mountains freckled with clumps of brittlebush.

"Heroic country, isn't it?" he said. "Just a few months ago, there were plans to cover this entire landscape with solar and wind farms. Instead, with this legislation, we are striking a balance with the insatiable demands of population growth."

Is that guy trying to moonwalk:homer:

Someone beat you to it this morning:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?p=10761096#post10761096

Be careful who you sleep with, you might catch something

bob

and that proposed area would put OFF-LIMITS, more land .

another 'land grab'-- by the 'eco's'. Land that is put aside for the future generations, such as the Mojave Trail, prohibits off-road vehicles !!!!!!

an eco-friendly of saying -- NO TREPASSING and you loose !!!!!

do you think that 'they' would allow off-road vehicles where a new kind of flower was found !!????

It always sounds like it's about money. Why aren't we offering to pay like we do to go into the National Forest. I'll pay $5 a day or $30 a year to keep JV open for off roading. That would be a small price to pay for use.

It always sounds like it's about money. Why aren't we offering to pay like we do to go into the National Forest. I'll pay $5 a day or $30 a year to keep JV open for off roading. That would be a small price to pay for use.

We already pay taxes.

That said, though, with the budget problems that governments get themselves into, it's (sadly) usually the only way to maintain access.

We already pay taxes.

That said, though, with the budget problems that governments get themselves into, it's (sadly) usually the only way to maintain access.

Very true.

It’s Feinstein v Everyone

Here is something to think about

Senator Feinstein’s bill will stop all renewable energy development and the proposed 29 Palms Marine Base expansion into a “not that remarkable” and mostly vacant desert from the eastern boundary of the Marine Base, all the way to the Colorado River, 70 miles away.

And it will block any new mining in a mineral rich portion of the desert that has been actively exploited by sizable Borax and Salt mine operations for decades, gold too. And, there is even a limited amount of agri-business in the Cadiz valley east of Amboy, south of a busy railroad.

If Feinstein gets this through, all of the green energy projects, the Marine Base expansion needed to prepare our forces for fighting in the Middle East and every other concern in need of desert land will, by necessity, look to the other side of the Base for accommodation… at huge public expense.

It will devastate the communities of Johnson Valley, Landers and Yucca Mesa (collectively known as Homestead Valley). The near by Town of Lucerne will be similarly impacted.

The diverse wealth of recreational opportunities we now enjoy in Homestead Valley will be lost.

Supporting businesses, Gas Stations, Restraints and Grocery Stores will be adversely affected as will the more specialized suppliers of all that recreational equipment, a huge industry.

Rural Homestead Valley offers OHV access to businesses and residences via privately maintained (dirt) roads from a grand assortment of exciting “LEGAL” BLM trails surrounding these communities. Those trails would undoubtedly be sacrificed to the aforementioned energy conglomerates and related infrastructure if Feinstein denies them the less encumbered land east of the base.

That would be bad enough but there’s more… …namely the proposed, and problematic, Marine Base expansion. Virtually every off-roader in the Nation and all the Global Rock Crawling organizations are aware and concerned about the Military’s expansion needs and the interest they have shown in our open recreation area as one of their proposals.


Passage of Feinstein’s bill would totally eliminate any possibility of the Pentagon expanding the 29 Palms Marine Base into the Afghanistan like badlands that are the Sheep Hole Mountains east of the Base. That would virtually guarantee the loss of the Johnson Valley Open Recreation area.

The Johnson Valley Open Recreation Area, west of the Base, managed by the BLM, is used extensively by the public and offers a broad range of recreational opportunity but of particular note is that it purports to be the largest OPEN OHV area in the nation!

A lot of good Folks, from concerned citizens and various organizations, to the Marines and their liaisons, have worked very hard, for a very long time, to find a workable solution. One possibility the Marines were considering was expanding the base eastward in order to avoid conflict in the Homestead Valley. Feinstein’s Bill completely removes that possibility from the table!

Additionally, her Bill identifies other places in Southern California for designations that will make them, basically impossible to use as well. And she wants all that included in this massive and discriminatory (MAD) regulation plan.

We need more land locked away from intelligent productive use like we need this economic crisis to continue. That’s exactly what would happen too. Has anyone noticed, we can’t even afford to manage the vast tracts of land we’ve already set aside?

Surveying, mapping, signage, general maintenance, enforcement of the restrictions, associated administrative bureaucracies and so on, ain’t free!

We are broke (in case you haven’t noticed) so should we borrow, just a little more, from Folks that will never share our vision, China for instance, or the Middle East? Or, should we put these resources to work.

What happens when we can no longer repay our enemies? Does that prospect worry anyone?

It’s a catch 22 that makes no sense. We indebt ourselves in order to lock away the very land our children will need to have in use (producing renewable energy for instance) in order to repay the debt we incurred by locking the land away in the first place. I think it looks and quacks like stupidity. Don’t you?

What’s it going to take to get our National organizations, those in favor of America’s Independence, to join us? We need to convince Congressional representation in every State that Feinstein’s bill will hurt a whale of a lot more than the good people of California.

I just had a friend email me this with no other info. From what I can see Johnson Valley looks to be getting closed.:mad3:

http://www.pfjv.org/alt6%20PDF.pdf

That is the Marines latest proposal.
It would allow access to The Hammers when they are not useing that area.
It is a crack in the door for us, but why just the Hammers and not all of JV?
If they aren't using it, why not let us use ALL of it?