White House shuns wilds bill

The Obama administration withheld support Thursday for a bill that would designate one-sixth of all Utah land as wilderness, saying instead that it seeks to break a 20-year-old logjam on the issue by working out conflicts on an area-by-area basis through smaller bills.

"We'd like an opportunity to go back and revisit each of these areas that are being proposed for designation and work (for) … more manageable boundaries and to address some conflicts that exist in some of these areas," U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Robert Abbey told a House hearing.

But the administration didn't exactly oppose the bill either, and praised its goals. As Abbey also testified, "We believe there are areas in Utah worthy of wilderness designation. He listed several including Desolation Canyon, Grand Gulch, parts of the San Rafael Swell, and the Deep Creek Mountains.

In fact, he said the BLM through the years has identified 6.6 million acres with some "wilderness characteristics" that merit further study. But the "America's Red Rock Wilderness" bill by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., which has been pushed in various forms for 20 years, now proposes designating 9.4 million acres.

Abbey said the best way to finally pass something and resolve conflicts is to address them in a county-by-county or landscape-by-landscape process in smaller bill, as was done recently in a bill just about Washington County.

"We hope this (Washington County) model can be extended to the rest of Utah, and we suggest an approach that is more geographically focused. We would welcome the opportunity to work cooperatively … to address and hopefully resolve wilderness issues in Utah," Abbey said.

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, both sponsors of the Washington County bill, made the same suggestion. They said their approach looked not only at wilderness, but also how to best protect land through conservation areas, expanding national park boundaries, and wild and scenic river designations, among other options.

Bennett said Hinchey's bill "does not represent progress, but rather the entrenchment of a small cross-section of interest groups who refuse to acknowledge there is a better way."

Matheson said, "If we want to make progress, a collaborative process that engages all of the stakeholders needs to occur."

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources subcommittee that held the hearing, said virtually all parties on all sides agree some more areas in Utah merit wilderness designation, but Hinchey's bill "far, far overreaches."