Nick Snow
Washington Editor
Local Utah political leaders formally challenged US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar's decision to reestablish the so-called "wild lands" policy at the US Bureau of Land Management with a lawsuit filed on Mar. 22 in federal district court for Utah.
"The suit challenges the Obama administration's policy to convert 3-6 million areas of nonwilderness study area BLM lands into a new classification called lands with wilderness characteristics," explained J. Mark Ward, senior policy analyst with the Utah Association of Counties in Salt Lake City. The association and the Uintah County government filed the action.
"It's happening in a de facto, case-by-case situation where they're systematically denied outside areas which are part of the Red Rock Wilderness Study Bill, which is perennially introduced and rejected in Congress and has no support from Utah's governor or any other government officials here," Ward told OGJ. "Basically, they're trying to accomplish administratively what they can't legislatively. They're attempting to create a default position to convert lands to wilderness."
Salazar and BLM Director Robert V. Abbey have said repeatedly that the policy restores a process which a 2003 legal settlement between then-Interior Sec. Gale A. Norton and then-Utah Gov. Michael O. Leavitt interrupted. Local officials and other stakeholders will be extensively consulted in identifying these lands, Salazar and Abbey have maintained.
'Completely excluded'
Republicans on the state's congressional delegation said that wasn't the case leading up to Salazar's Dec. 23 order. "States, counties, local officials, and stakeholders were completely excluded from the discussion prior to the secretary's release of the Wild Lands policy," Rep. Rob Bishop said on Mar. 23 as he expressed support for the lawsuit. "This was no doubt due to the fact that [Interior] knew how detrimental this policy would be to so many communities in Utah and throughout the West."
Ward said the suit contends that Salazar's order violates the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, six BLM resource management plans for Utah which were approved in 2008, and the Norton-Leavitt settlement.
Congress was able to pass FLPMA because of its provision stating that federal lands would be managed in a manner consistent with state and local plans, he said. That's consistent with the US Constitution's 10th amendment providing that any power not expressly delegated to the federal government is reserved for states, he observed.
Utahns probably were most insulted that Salazar and other DOI officials apparently are disregarding resource strategies which state and local officials there developed already. "We prefer a more methodical, grassroots approach to designating wilderness," said Ward. "The wild lands order does an end run around this."
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