The Republican agenda in Washington, D.C., contains a strand that identifies environmental policy as an impediment to economic development – or, recovery, as the case may be – and seeks to undermine as many such policies as possible, regardless of their actual bearing on the economy. One example that blatantly overlooks economics in favor of party line politics is the proposed Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act.
The measure was introduced by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and would release almost 43 million acres of public lands managed for their wilderness characteristics by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, overturning 35 years of agency policy and the input of countless citizens and local governments across the country. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, is a co-sponsor.
HR 1581 would also do away with the Interior Department’s recently unveiled “wild lands policy” – an administrative attempt to return to the Bureau of Land Management authority to identify wilderness-quality public lands and protect them.
The measure is being billed as a way to empower local communities in land-management processes, but the fact is, that power exists today. All agency land-use decisions are required to undergo a thorough public process, and any official wilderness designation – whether on BLM or Forest Service land – requires an act of Congress. Achieving such a thing requires a lengthy building of support at the local level that can be carried to Washington, D.C., for congressional action. The notion that wilderness is foisted upon communities is patently false.
The bill would strip away the interim protections that lands identified as having wilderness characteristics enjoy while they are being considered for permanent designation – a process that can take years.
McCarthy’s bill would predetermine that all areas not recommended for wilderness designation by managing agencies will never have the chance to earn the designation, even if lands meet the parameters as defined by the agency, and if local sentiment desires that protection. In Southwest Colorado, local stakeholders have invested years reaching consensus on two wilderness measures: the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act, which former Rep. John Salazar championed in the U.S. House and Tipton has expressed interest in pursuing, and the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act, which Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet will introduce.
Both of these measures resulted from local desire for protection of areas with wilderness qualities but that were not recommended by the management agencies for wilderness designation. That sentiment would be ignored under HR 1581. So, too, would the economic benefits that protected wildlands bring to nearby communities. Backcountry recreation is no small contributor to Southwest Colorado economies, and assuring permanent protection of the resources that make such recreation possible is an investment in that known driver.
Tipton’s co-sponsorship of the measure is troubling in that it signals he is not concerned about local input. In fact, it runs counter to his record of enthusiasm for such consensus, as demonstrated in his sponsorship of a measure to designate Chimney Rock Archaeological Area as a national monument. That measure was born of local interest and built on consensus over Chimney Rock’s value and the benefits it offers nearby communities. By co-sponsoring HR 1581, Tipton seems to suggest that wilderness-quality lands should not be able to travel the same path to protection.
