Utah road deal survives in House

WASHINGTON — Although they expected to lose, Utahns in the House on Thursday actually defeated most of an effort by environmentalists to block a deal to give Utah and its counties clear control of up to thousands of roads that crisscross federal lands.

Reps. Rob Bishop and Chris Cannon, R-Utah, convinced the GOP majority to water down legislation pushed by environmentalists enough to salvage most of a deal struck earlier this year by Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.

"This allows the process to move forward," Bishop said.

It came as the House debated amendments to the $19.6 billion annual Interior appropriations bill, which the House passed 269-152 late Thursday.

Also prevailing in other amendment fights Thursday, Westerners:

• Barely blocked — on a tie vote — a move to ban snowmobiling in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

• Blocked a move to ban killing buffalo that wander out of Yellowstone, which ranchers say may spread disease to livestock.

• And blocked a move to end hunting bears by using piles of food as bait, which is allowed in Utah and eight other states.

In a well-financed blitz against the Norton-Leavitt deal, environmentalists had pushed an amendment by Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., that sought to block Interior from spending any money to clear claims to roads by states through an 1866 law called "R.S. 2477."

That law allowed local governments to use for roads any federal lands not otherwise reserved by Congress. It was repealed in 1976 but allowed existing R.S. 2477 roads to remain in local hands. The trouble is, no inventory of them existed.

Environmentalists contend that counties have since claimed everything from cow paths to stream beds as old R.S. 2477 roads to try to block proposed wilderness areas, which are supposed to be roadless.

In January, Norton approved a new regulation to allow her department to disclaim federal ownership of any R.S. 2477 right-of-way claim that it feels is clearly justified. In April, Utah became the first state to sign an agreement with Interior outlining a process to determine which such roads should be quickly cleared for local ownership.