Guest Column
BLM Wild Lands Policy Deserves Praise
Why should hunters and anglers care about Ken Salazar's "wild lands" proposal?By Joel Webster, Guest Writer, 3-25-11
Red Canyon near Lander, Wyoming. Photo by Flickr user Alan Vernon.
If a misleading statement is repeated often enough, some people will begin to believe it. That appears to be the strategy of those working to overturn the Bureau of Land Management “wild lands” policy that was introduced in December by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Beyond the misleading rhetoric are some hard facts: The BLM wild lands policy assures that the agency will follow federal law. It requires public involvement while creating opportunities to conserve prime fish and wildlife habitat. It offers a common-sense resolution to the uncertainties currently surrounding management of valuable public lands. The policy’s future remains uncertain, however. Hunters and anglers need support from western U.S. senators and representatives to uphold and defend this important conservation tool.
In 1976, Congress passed a law called the Federal Lands Policy Management Act that requires the BLM to keep an updated inventory of lands; develop, maintain and revise land-use plans; and periodically recommend to the president areas deserving of wilderness conservation. In response, the BLM issued national direction for local field offices to ensure their compliance with the law. That guidance stood until 2003, when the DOI established a questionable agreement with the state of Utah, effectively eliminating clear national guidance for the responsible management of wild public lands.
The result was an erratic approach to undeveloped BLM lands management. The recent wild lands policy should provide consistency to the analysis and consideration of these BLM lands as required by law.
Specifically, the policy directs the BLM to solicit public input and consider values of existing wild public lands during local planning efforts. Lands determined worthy of conservation measures will be designated “wild lands,” and the agency will actively work to uphold their primitive character.
First and foremost, the policy brings BLM land management back into compliance with federal law. Yet it also is supported by sportsmen across the country because of the benefits it offers core fish and wildlife habitat – places that allow us to stalk big bucks and bulls, land wild trout and experience the outdoors in a wild and unsullied state.
Decades of scientific studies show that certain public lands, such as undeveloped BLM lands, provide large blocks of undisturbed habitat where big-game animals like mule deer, elk and bighorn sheep can flourish. These lands also offer intact watersheds where wild trout and salmon – dependent on clean water, stable streamflows and consistent lake levels – can thrive. Conservation of these lands and waters generally results in increased hunting and fishing opportunity and higher-quality outdoor experiences.
Opponents to the wild lands policy want the public to believe that this order will result in a D.C.-driven land grab. In reality, the policy provides hunters and anglers opportunities to keep prime big-game habitat and trout waters the way they have been for generations. Notably, it creates an enormous opportunity for average sportsmen to participate in a transparent and open land-use planning process that will help conserve valuable fish and wildlife habitat and equal-opportunity hunting and angling activities on our public lands.
Unfortunately, the House of Representatives passed a budget bill that would prohibit the BLM from carrying out this important policy. If this language is included in the final budget, it not only would prohibit the BLM from following FLPMA; it also would prevent the agency from analyzing and conserving some of the finest backcountry fish and wildlife habitat in the nation.
Sportsmen need western decision makers to keep the wild lands funding prohibition out of the final budget bill. Strong leadership on this issue is the right course of action in returning much-needed consistency to management of our public lands. It also will help guarantee the future of our backcountry public-lands hunting and fishing traditions – an outdoors legacy that defines the American identity.
Joel Webster is a born and raised Western sportsman and is director of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s Center for Western Lands. He writes from Missoula, Montana. This column also appeared in the Denver Post.
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The only reason we are "inventorying" for "wild lands" is because the original FLPMA WILDERNESS-SPECIFIC inventory under section 603 didn't set aside enough land to satisfy environmentalists. FLPMA's biggest failing is, while it set a deadline for a wilderness work product from BLM, it set no deadline for Congressional yay or nay.
There were only about 23 million acres that ever qualified in the first place for the five point wilderness test (same as the Wilderness Act) in 1976, and only 9.6 million passed for recommendation.
As for ongoing 202 inventories, those are intended to foster adaptive management as conditions change. Memo 3310 and the associated guidebooks put "wild lands" -- which are in turn a complete creation out of thin air with no precedent anywhere in the record -- up top in items to inventory. Further, not only are these inventories prioritized for planning, but direction is given that managers have the discretion to do project level inventory of "land with wilderness characteristics" -- regardless of the land classification in the current Resource Management Plan.
The problem here is that FLPMA doesn't explicitly address the end-purpose of wilderness-charateristics inventories. It neither authorizes nor prohibits stuff such as "wild lands," that is left to the "discretion" of agency leadership. Babbitt, Norton, Salazar....but after 35 years of this junk, the people of the regions most affected by these whipsawing shenanigans have had enough.
Get ready for a near term Congress to finally act and rewrite FLPMA.
The most startling story of today , to me, is the revelation that General Electric---builder of the reactors currently melting down in Japan --- had $14.2 BILLION in earnings last year, and paid exactly $ 0 in US taxes. Zero dollars. Repeat, GE paid no US taxes last year.
In fact , $ 5 billion of GE's earnings were here in the USA, where GE actually recieved $ 3.2 billion in tax benefits. YOU all by yourself out here in Bumfuqt, Wyoming personally paid more in US taxes than a major corporation that had billions in domestic US sales last year, including a lot of military hardware sales.
I guess " others" aren't liable for taxes, either.
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html?scp=1&sq=GEtaxes&st=cse ]
What's your real beef with the Nature Conservancy , Todd ?
As for GE, what can you expect, Immelt is a friend of Obama, what do you expect?
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/03/obama-jobs-chief----the-ceo-of-ge----pays-no-corporate-taxes/1
In 2010, the BLM processed and issued 4,090 drilling permits but industry industry only drilled on 1,490 of them. So it seems BLM is doing plenty enough to foster oil and gas -- by any reasonable measure.
Due to recent discoveries and technological advances, North America is sitting on a 200-year supply of domestic natural gas. In the last few years, industry produced so much that a combination of a supply glut, the recession and low prices resulted in widespread "shutting in" of active wells.
Why not ask the public whether some landscapes worth protecting as is? Wildlands are in short supply, even as high-density oil and gas fields are popping up across the landscape.
Big Oil can keep complaining about access if it wants to further tank its credibility. But that tired, retread, self-serving propaganda is contradicted by the facts. Otherwise stated, that dog don't hunt.
Let's say we did drill the heck out of even more of our most remote and rugged public lands in the next few years. The upshot would be that we'd be leaving next to nothing to future generations, neither fossil energy or nor wild lands resources. Some would say we should leave a little something more to our kids. Skinner can speak for himself; most Westerners support balanced policies, wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation.
Do YOU support GE getting away with paying NO taxes on $ 5 BILLION is US profits, while condemning the Nature Conservancy's ranch operations when really NO Wyoming rancher pays a significant amount of taxes ? You are talking out of both sides of your orifice, Todd.
The hypocrisy, the hypocrisy, the #@%!*ing hypocrisy. That's what I hear you saying
Dewey, I do not know where you get the idea that ranch families do not pay taxes. They pay thousands in property taxes alone, plus taxes on profits etc.
You should listen to Fox News, O'Reilly is livid that GE pays no taxes....as am I...but he had Lou Dobbs on and these companies are able to buy some sort fo tax shelter off our shores and put their money their and the do not pay taxes unless they "repatirate" that money. I do not understand it, but as I have understood the Kennedy's, Rockefellers, etc do the same thing so they do not have the taxes they impose on the rest of us. That is exactly why I would like to see a flat tax....on every dime that a person or business makes and absolutely no offshore accounts. Immelt should be ashamed and Obama should can him!
Does anyone have a magic potion that will simply put the trolls to sleep forever? Truth doesn't seem to work.
RH
" Does anyone have a magic potion that will simply put the trolls to sleep forever? Truth doesn't seem to work."
One way you know a piece is attracting critical thinking and civil discussion is that the grumpy trolls covered with warts, jump in and attack those other tax paying citizens enjoying the freedom of sharing thought and sharing ones conscience. A very famous American freedom, obviously hated by RH. The potion you long for friend is fascism.
Every single dollar paid for oil leases whether it is drilled or not is money to our government to manage the land. Why on earth anyone objects to being paid for land not to be used is beyond me. I am thrilled when oil companies lease my mineral rights, although I have to admit, I'd enjoy a few wells even more.
I do want to remind you of a fact. A simple glaring fact. Over 20 million acres---that's 36,000 square miles--- of public land in the Amrican West are currently fallow leases. The ground has been leased but it's not developed or producting. The greater percentage of it isn't even being explored. The corporations and landmen have locked up that much land , as much to fence out their competitors as anything else.
The bottom line is it is very counterproductive and is adding nothing to the energy solution or the tax base. It is corporate chicanery at the least , and corporate duplicity at the worst . And you and me do pay for those fallow leases, one way or another, usually in the form of higher energy costs at the pump or the gas meter.
The enrgy and mineral companies have learned to game the system. In many cases they either wrote the rules via their lobbyists, or have such cozy relations with the regulators they get some undue advantage. Don't you recall the sex drugs and gift scandals in the Denver office of Minerals Management just a few years ago ? MMS was being run by former Wyoming State Auditor Jonnie Burton at the time, and she knew. This happens in Wyoming government and state leasing , too.
You never see your arguments through and through, Todd. You flash on one small point, magnify it beyond recognition , distort it out of context, then blame enviros or you new whipping boy , the NGO's.
The public lands issues with respect to mineral and energy leasing are too often just the 21st century version of 19th century Robber Barons. Your blame is misplaced.
Try following your conscience for once when working thru an issue, if you can possibly work all the way thru an issue at all....
Since you asked, yes I do support mineral and energy exploration , where it's appropriate and where it's done appropriately. But not catre blanche , l'aissez faire , drill-baby-drill, or blast-brother-blast.
Have you ever worked on a drilling rig, Todd? Ever worked in a strip mine ? Ever used dynamite to break part ore bodies? Ever surveyed 500,000 acres of uranium claims for a corrupt company ( Kerr-McGee) ? Ever core drilled for gold inside a wilderness area for another hellbent-for-profit company , AMAX ? Ever bartended in boom town cowboy bar during a Wyoming oil boom and heard the tool pushers cutting deals with the oil vendors and chemical suppliers and bragging about cheating on their regulations? Ever seen brand new golf clubs being shoved in the trunk of the Production Manager's company car ? Ever seen a semi-load of prostitutes roll into town , a mobile brothel ? Ever seen rig hands poach Pronghorn from the top of the derrick ? Ever had to pick up 150 miles of seismograph line pin flags in Oregon Basin and seen the terrible mess that the druggie juggies left behind ? Ever seen ounces of cocaine change hands in the doghouse during a pipe trip ?
Been there, done all that .
I support the mineral and energy industries when they do it right and for the right reasons. But that was a scarce commodity.
" Ever seen ounces of cocaine change hands in the doghouse during a pipe trip ?"
Sounds like the Allen and Company Party in July, over to Sun Valley.
Except;
Ever seen a Gulfstream jet full of prostitutes flown into town from L.A., or Vegas, a mobile brothel.
And those wild drug parties while everyone, including WWP looks the other way while hoping for a financial handout.
My point, Todd , is pretty simple. Without environmental checks and balances, and without regulatory oversight, the energy and mineral companies would just run amok on public lands. That's been my actual experience, albeit in the 70's and 80's. They only behave and do it right, i.e. " appropriately", when they have adult supervision and rules.
Like what is the wild lands thing? A complete rewriting of the rules, golly gee, politically driven, the third lap around the White House.
Congress is probably going to take care of that problem once the results of the next general election are in.
Because we are a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization, property taxes are voluntary.
"What a country chooses to save is what a country says about itself."
Rutherford, we can use our natural resources for our needs as we work on "alternative energies" that actually work and are not financed by we the people. We do NOT need taxpayer supported land set aside for a bunch on taxpayer supported recreationalists. They save nothing and contribute nothing except a big hole in the pockets of working taxpaers.
Ever watch episodes of The twilight zone??
You'er there pal.
The plot revolves around a Honeywagon.
there is no escape.
I really like honey and try to buy it from local producers. Is our pet troll Todd-Marion one of those? I really don't know what this ' honeywagon' thing is all about...
Speaking of which , This is for you, Todd. There's a new story at WyoFile today about the very large number of undrilled leases..." Industry sitting on permits" , thousands of them:
http://wyofile.com/2011/03/industry-sitting-on-permits/
Seems like the for-profit motivated energy industries do not share your belief that we need to keep drilling drilling and more drilling till that newfangled alternative energy comes along. They a re perfectly content to lease millions of acres land for the express purpose of NOT drilling at all... Seems like the For Profits are just as deserving of your well worn tar brush as the Non Profits.
The entire DOI and their BLM have hundreds of old out of date methods that just spend federal funds at a loss. Its like welfare for oil companies and foreign beef industry.
America could save billions of taxpayer dollars if they start cutting out the waste from the DOI and the BLM.
I am 68 years old. My wiife who still loves to hunt, is disabled. My grand kids are in grade school. You simply cannot expect our family to support policies that deny us the privileges we once had.
How ironic that BLM's opposition in this case is using it's own tactics against it. For example, one of the Director's favorite mantra's is, "Wild horse herd populations can increase by 40% every two years," without ever explaining how he has arrived at this number or under what sort of scenario this would be possible. No science supports this claim. For years BLM has told the public that wild horses must be removed from their lawful herd management areas because there is not enough forage to support them. Another misleading statement. I'd there were not enough forage for the horses in acreages where they are the designated primary grazers, then there would be insufficiently forage for the far greater numbers of cattle that are added to wild horse herd management areas set aside for them by Congress per the expressed will of the American people.
The idea that any federal law could make the BLM follow the law is ludicrous to those of us who have been keeping a close eye on their carefully orchestrated dance with the judiciary system.
Transparent? The BLM is about as transparent as the muck the wild horses in the Salt Lake City short term holding pens had to lay in. The BLM has gone to great lengths to keep its incompetence managing the wild horse and burro program from the public including placing trap pens for wild horses stampeded across miles of public lands on private property, locating short term holding facilities on private property, and not enforcing previously contracted visiting hours for the public.
During the House Natural Resouces subcommittee for Interior Appropriations hearing Chairman Simpson told The Director that he was frankly surprised that the BLM was requesting over 40 million dollars for 2012 to acquire new When BLM was unable to manage the land it already had very well at all.
And you still want to entrust our natural resources with the Secretary who, had he exercised reasonable and prudent caution with regard to what was then MMS and followed through with the department as he said he would, could have had, at the very least, fhe Deep Water Horizon rig inspected before it exploded. If someone even glanced at the disaster plan, do you think the word walrus would have given him or her pause?
Science??? The Department of Interior? Neither DOI nor BLM have any angency or bureau policy mandating any standards of scientific integrity. Moreover, while on the subject of integrity, how much credit do you think the Secretary should get for altering the scientific conclusions of scientists who had volunteered to peer review the governments initial finding regarding the Deep Water Horizon disaster?
Despite the fact that more fossils, both of complete and incomplete horse remains of diverse horse ancestors with fairly complete links from different generations through the last 55 million years have been found in the western United States than anywhere else in the world, this DOI Secretary has had the hubris to try to overturn both the laws of nature and the Congress to collect and transfer wild horses from the West to live as non-reproducing herds in Midwest and the East until, of course, wild horses become extinct.
For the unenlightened, horse meat has not been used in dog food for many years. Horses are not raised as food animals, and they are treated with many drugs and chemicals that are toxic to animals and people. So while there are regulations about what types of substances can be used in commercial pet food, there are no regulations to protect people who live in countries that still import and consume US horse meat.Hundreds of thousands of US horses, mostly quarter horses and thoroughbreds, are exported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter.