December 24, 2010 02:52 AM UTC

Bush Era 'No More Wild' Policy Undone by Sect. Salazar

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• by: ClubTwitty

(Happy Holidays!  Long live the new FPEs (and all y’all)! – promoted by ClubTwitty)

In a 2003 out-of-court settlement with (then) Utah Governor Michael Leavitt, Interior Secretary (and former Colorado AG) Gale Norton voluntarily tied the hands of future land managers and their ability to protect the full suite of public and multiple uses–to whit the preservation of wilderness potential on certain agency lands.

Today Interior Secretary (and former Colorado AG) Ken Salazar issued a new directive that takes back much of that relinquished authority. MSNBC is reporting:

DENVER – The Obama administration on Thursday undid a Bush-era policy that curbed some types of wilderness designations within the 245 million acres managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

While Congress remains the only body allowed to create “Wilderness Areas,” the move gives BLM field managers the go ahead to protect areas determined to have “wilderness characteristics.”

“I am proud to sign a secretarial order that restores protections for the wild lands that the Bureau of Land Management oversees on behalf of the American people,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in Denver, where he announced the shift.

The order essentially repeals a policy adopted in 2003 under then Interior Secretary Gale Norton. That policy stated that Interior could not designate some wilderness protections on its own and had to rely only on Congress for any designations.

The 2003 policy reflected an out-of-court deal struck between Norton and then-Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt to remove protections for some 2.6 million acres of federal land in Utah.

The policy allowed oil and gas drilling, mining and other commercial uses on land under consideration as wilderness areas.

Colorado’s roots in the ‘No More Wild’ matter go deeper than the two Interior Secretaries. For while it was on-going battles over wilderness quality lands in Utah that were improperly overlooked in BLM’s 1970 inventories of agency lands that led to the backroom deal, the agency’s decision to re-inventory certain of its lands for wilderness possibility first came about in Colorado.  

The 1976 passage of the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (pdf) directed the BLM to inventory all its lands for wilderness character (reporting back with recommendations in 15 years), and to protect the ‘wilderness suitability’ of all the areas that qualified until Congress decides if they should become Wilderness. FLPMA–described as BLM’s ‘Organic Act’–also directed BLM to maintain current inventories of agency lands and to manage those accordingly.  

Protecting some lands as Wilderness (designated by an Act of Congress) is recognized as consistent with Multiple Use, as defined by the relevant laws from which BLM takes its direction. Managing certain lands to maintain their wilderness potential–which is really the point here–has long been a recognized authority of federal land agencies.  

The lands which sparked the deal are part of the longstanding America’s Redrock Wilderness Act, primarily in southern and eastern Utah. But before the Clinton Administration took a second look at BLM lands in Utah, they pioneered their effort in Colorado.

Since soon after the Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management issued its Wilderness Study Areas decision in 1980, Colorado conservationists have been calling for reconsideration of the agency’s decision to exclude hundreds of thousands of acres of qualifying lands.  Places like Vermillion Basin, Pinyon Ridge, and Granite Creek that inexplicably were excluded from this interim protection.

In the mid-1990s the BLM in Colorado agreed to take a fresh look at six areas that had been a source of particular contention, lawsuits, and other difficulties. All six areas were found to remain primarily roadless (pdf), the first (agency) criteria for wilderness consideration. Three of these areas were found by BLM to possess all the qualities necessary to become wilderness.  

The agency set out to amend its land use plans in 2000 to account for this updated information (as required by FLPMA, the National Environmental Policy Act, and agency regulation) and to determine whether they should be managed as Wilderness Study Areas.

Of course these things take time, meetings were held, comments were gathered, more meetings were held, Club 20, cattlemen, water districts, and everyone anywhere who had a stake weighed in, attended hearings, spoke, and was spoken to.  

Meanwhile, BLM began its re-inventory of agency lands in Utah, and found over 2 million acres of non-Wilderness Study Areas lands that still qualified for the gold standard of Wilderness designation.  Among those leading that effort was long-time Colorado BLM wilderness staffer, (the late) Eric Finstick, who had been instrumental in the Colorado version of the policy and re-inventory.

(Eric was a long time champion of wild places, and if there is any Coloradan that deserves to have a National Conservation Area named after him its Mr. Finstick).

The ‘No More Wild’ settlement stopped all this in its tracks.  (It also aborted plans by the agency to consider Wilderness Study Area status for the wildest portions of the Roan Plateau, completely tossing out the alternative that had garnered the vast majority of public support).  

At issue was whether BLM’s authority to consider new information, overlooked facts, or other relevant data in updating its land use plans by protecting certain lands’ suitability for Wilderness was a one-time or on-going deal.

The two statutory authorities (‘inventory lands and keep management current’ and ‘protect wilderness suitability on qualifying lands’) are in two separate sections of the law (202 and 603, for the wonks among you). The State of Utah argued that BLM was over-stepping its bounds by conflating the two. Norton caved, or eagerly capitulated (depending on how kind you are). And BLM’s decades long authority to update its land use plans (as the US Forest Service can do) to include the possibility of new Wilderness was thrown under the bus.

Today Secretary Ken Salazar has reclaimed that ability.

The new policy creates a management category called “Wild Lands”.

The Interior Department said that “‘Wild Lands,’ which will be designated through a public process, will be managed to protect wilderness characteristics unless or until such time as a new public planning process modifies the designation.

“Because the ‘Wild Lands’ designation can be made and later modified through a public administrative process, it differs from ‘Wilderness Areas,’ which are designated by Congress and cannot be modified except by legislation, and ‘Wilderness Study Areas,’ which BLM typically must manage to protect wilderness characteristics until Congress determines whether to permanently protect them as Wilderness Areas or modify their management.”

BLM’s current Director–Bob Abbey–was serving in the Lakewood office when the Colorado re-inventory policy was initiated. And of the six places that the BLM in Colorado re-inventoried, the fight for their protection continues.  

Earlier this year the BLM announced its plans to keep oil and gas drilling out of Vermillion Basin. For now lawsuits have kept new drilling out  of South Shale Ridge. The heart of Bangs Canyon, the third area found to possess full wilderness character, remains undeveloped and wild. Castle Peak, near Wollcott–which includes both a ‘603’ Wilderness Study Area and re-inventoried roadless lands–is part of Rep.  Polis’ Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act, which advocates hope will be re-introduced in the 112th Congress, and is included in Rep. DeGette’s wilderness bill.  

Thanks to President Obama and Secretary Salazar, Coloradans now have another tool to help ensure that our federal land managers don’t overlook their obligation to manage America’s public lands for a changing 21st Century.  For places like Castle Peak, South Shale Ridge and Vermillion Basin this matters.