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San Rafael Swell / Utah Wilderness / Off-road vehicles For more than twenty years, people in Utah have been working to add the last great blocks of undeveloped Bureau of Land Management (BLM)- administered public land in Utah to the National Wilderness Preservation System. These lands harbor some of the largest and finest desert roadless areas to be found anywhere in the world. They include the huge canyon systems of the Colorado, Green, San Juan, and Dolores rivers; the intimate slickrock narrows of the Escalante, Dirty Devil, Paria, and Virgin rivers; the vast tablelands and massive cliff walls of the Kaip-arowits Plateau, the Book Cliffs, and the Grand Staircase; and the isolated mountain ranges and desert riparian areas of Utah's Great Basin country. The San Rafael Swell is included in the areas that deserve protection. Approximately 33 miles across by 66 miles long, the San Rafael Swell is located in Central Utah and marks the northern boundary of Utah's famous red rock desert country. Formed by massive uplifts millions of years ago, then carved by erosion into a myriad of slot canyons, badlands and painted deserts, its geological diversity makes it a microcosm of the entire Colorado Plateau. As presently managed, the area is threatened by off-road vehicle use. Dirtbikes and other off-road vehicles (ORVs) can damage the environment. Public land managers have been unwilling to take steps to control ORV use and are not sufficiently enforcing current laws and mandates that are meant to protect our parks, forests, refuges and BLM lands from overuse of ORVs. Unfortunately, on June 7, 2000, Representative Chris Cannon (R-UT) and then-Public Lands Subcommittee Chair James Hansen (R-UT) moved legislation to the House floor to designate a San Rafael National Conservation Area. That designation not only failed to protect the wilderness resources of the Swell, it would have also provided new legal directives for continued off-road vehicle use in the sensitive desert areas. This legislation set off a series of attempts on the House floor to amend the bill to restore environmental protections as well as complex "secondary" amendments designed to undercut those environmental efforts. First, Representative Mark Udall (D-CO) offered an amendment to protect the wilderness characteristics of the San Rafael Swell area in Utah. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) offered a replacement amendment that undercut real protection efforts. Rep. Boehlert's amendment, proposed in alliance with Cannon and Hansen, provided weaker, less enforceable protections for the San Rafael Swell. The Boehlert amendment to Udall’s amendment passed 212 to 211. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll Call vote 238, 106th Congress) Following its passage, the Boehlert substitute for Udall’s effort was incorporated into the bill. Next, Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) offered an amendment to the San Rafael Western Legacy District and National Conservation Act (H.R. 3605) that would expand the boundaries of the proposed National Conservation Area to include all areas in the San Rafael Swell region that qualify for wilderness designation. As the bill was crafted, it failed to include some of the most delicate and important parts of the San Rafael Swell area. Inslee’s effort to include these lands in the National Conservation Area would not result in formal wilderness designation, but it would protect them from mining, drilling, and other harmful activities. The Inslee amendment passed 228 to 194 and it was also incorporated into the legislation. Yes is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll Call vote 239, 106th Congress) Finally, Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) offered an amendment that would protect the proposed wilderness areas in the San Rafael Swell from the worst ORV abuse. His amendment would restrict the use of destructive motorized vehicles in the wilderness study areas designated within the Conservation Area created by H.R. 3605. Again, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) offered a replacement amendment that would have weakened the protections offered under Holt's amendment. This time, the Boehlert secondary amendment failed 214 to 210. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll Call vote 240, 106th Congress) When the bill’s sponsors recognized that this gambit had failed and that two of the proposed amendments would change the bill in ways that they did not support, they removed the bill from the House floor without completing its passage. The House did not take up the San Rafael legislation again in 2000. According to the 2001 Green Scissors report released by a coalition of environmental, taxpayer and consumer groups, the U.S. Forest Service's timber program has "created a legacy of waste and abuse, both fiscally and environmentally." Between 1992 and 1998, the General Accounting Office (GAO) documents that the Forest Service lost more than $2 billion in taxpayer money. The Forest Service used this money to subsidize the timber industry’s logging and road building in our national forests that has destroyed natural habitats and polluted drinking water. On June 14, 2000, Representatives David Wu (D-OR), Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Mark Udall (D-CO) offered an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill to shift $14.7 million from the U.S. Forest Service budget to protect, rather than destroy, our national forests. The amendment would take funds from the timber sales program that subsidizes harmful logging on public lands and reallocate it to protect fish and wildlife in national forests. The amendment failed 173 to 249. Yes is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll call vote 277, 106th Congress) The Antiquities Act of 1906 acts as an important insurance policy that gives the president the power to grant national monument status to areas possessing significant historic, scenic, and / or scientific values. The Act has been used by 17 U.S. Presidents to protect many of our nation’s treasured places. President Clinton continued to build on this bipartisan tradition by establishing 19 national monuments. The Antiquities Act maintains appropriate roles for both the president and Congress in the protection of important federal land resources. It allows the president to act quickly, and it also maintains Congress' ability to also designate national monuments, change monument boundaries, direct resources for monument management, re-designate monuments as national parks, and even to abolish monuments. The Interior Appropriations bill included language to prohibit funding for national monuments. On June 15, 2000, Representative Norm Dicks (D-WA) offered an amendment to remove the funding prohibition. As a result, Rep. Hansen (R-UT) offered a substitute amendment to keep the harmful language in the bill. The substitute amendment failed 187 to 234. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll call vote 280, 106th Congress) 6. Development in National Monuments The Antiquities Act, created in 1906, gives the President the ability to proclaim federal lands as national monuments. These designations have occurred because areas were threatened or there were opportunities and interest to protect lands with unique qualities for future generations. The first National Monument was created by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect Devils Tower in Wyoming. Popular national parks that were first protected as national monuments include Joshua Tree in California, Grand Tetons in Wyoming, Grand Canyon in Arizona and Denali in Alaska. President Clinton proclaimed 19 new national monuments during his tenure, including Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante, the Sequoias of California and the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. On July 21, 2001, Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV) offered an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill that would protect our national monuments from destructive oil drilling and mining activities. The Rahall amendment passed 242 to 173. Yes is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll Call vote 180, 107th Congress) 7. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge I In attempt to counter concerns that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would cause irreparable environmental damage, pro-drilling lawmakers argued there could be only 2,000 acres of development associated with drilling in the Arctic. However, the manner of calculating the 2,000 acres was highly suspect, since it counted only the acreage of each drill pad, ignoring the pipelines and roads that would connect them throughout the million acre area, as well as the gravel mines which would have to be developed to create the drill pads in the first place. Despite the deceptive use of the 2,000 acre figure, the development proposal would forever destroy one of the most unique and pristine areas in America through a maze of development; development that one ARCO representative stated would still look like a "small industrial site." (Audubon, Dec. 1997) On August 1, 2001, Representatives John Sununu (R-NH) and Heather Wilson (R-NM) offered a last minute amendment to the Energy Act 2001 (H.R. 4) to limit development to 2,000 acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Amid the deceptive description and the eleventh hour effort, the Sununu-Wilson amendment was a stunning example of greenwashing. It passed 241 to 186. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll call vote 316, 107th Congress) 8. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge II The Coastal Plain is part of the Arctic National Wildlife Range established by President Eisenhower in 1960. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service never allowed oil leasing or drilling in the range. In 1980, Congress doubled its size, renamed it, and expanded its purposes to include conservation of natural diversity, supporting subsistence uses, maintaining international treaty obligations and preserving water quality and quantity. Conser-vationists succeeded in protecting all of the original Refuge as wilderness except the 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain area through the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). Although the area was not granted full wilderness protection in 1980, the legislation specified that it could not be developed except by congressional action. Nestled between the jagged peaks of the Brooks Range and the shores of the Arctic Ocean, the Coastal Plain -- just five percent of Alaska’s North Slope -- is the only fragment of America’s arctic coastline not already opened to oil exploration and drilling. The United States Geological Survey scientists estimate that there is only enough oil under the Arctic Refuge to supply America’s needs for six months. And the oil companies themselves admit that the oil would not be available for at least ten years. The Bush Administration Energy Plan proposed development of the Coastal Plain and the proposal was incorporated in the energy legislation taken to the House floor on August 1, 2001. Following passage of the Sununu-Wilson amendment which purported to limit development, Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA) and Nancy Johnson (R-CT) offered an amendment to strike the entire section of the Energy Act 2001 (H.R. 4) that would provide for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Markey-Johnson amendment failed 206 to 223. Yes is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll call vote 317, 107th Congress) Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act of 2001, H.R. 488 is sponsored by Representatives Chris Shays (R-CT) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). There are over 20 million acres of publicly owned wildlands that remain unprotected in an area defined as the Wild Rockies. Including areas in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming, it is the only region in the lower 48 that still contains all species present at the time of the Lewis & Clark expedition. Populations of bison, bighorn sheep, grizzly bear, goshawk, elk, caribou, and mountain lion roam the region's temperate forests, alpine tundra, and desert canyons. Migratory salmon and native trout still journey over 900 miles from the Pacific to spawn in the region's high mountain tributaries. The five core areas within this region are linked through a network of biological corridors, a living web of mountain ranges and rivers. Together, this is defined as the Wild Rockies. Co-sponsoring legislation to protect the Northern Rockies is the pro-wilderness position. For more information, visit http://www.wildrockiesalliance.org/issues/nrepa/ 10. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Morris K. Udall Arctic Wilderness Act of 2001, H.R. 770 is sponsored by Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) and Nancy Johnson (R-CT). In the far northeast corner of Alaska lies one of America’s great natural treasures, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is considered the crown jewel of America’s National Wildlife Refuge System. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers the 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain area to be the "biological heart" of the entire 19-million acre refuge. This area -- where the oil industry wants to drill -- is the center of wildlife activity in the Arctic Refuge and its most productive area. The Coastal Plain is a critical part of our nation's preeminent wilderness. Such a broad spectrum of diverse habitats occurring within a single protected unit is unparalleled in North America earning the nickname of "America’s Serengeti." This area is home to caribou, musk oxen, grizzly bears, wolves, wolverines, foxes, golden eagles, snowy owls, snow geese and millions of other birds. The Arctic Refuge supports more than just wildlife. For a thousand generations, the Gwich’in people of Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada have depended upon the Porcupine (River) caribou herd to sustain their culture, their way of life. To the Gwich’in people, the Coastal Plain is sacred ground. Co-sponsoring legislation to protect the Arctic Refuge is the pro-wilderness position. For more information, visit http://www.alaskawild.org 11. America’s Red Rock Wilderness Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) is the sponsor of America's Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2001, H.R. 1613. America's Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2001 would protect more than nine million acres of federal public lands in Utah. The publicly owned wild places of Utah, managed by the Bureau of Land Manage-ment (BLM), are world-renowned for their spectacular beauty, with deep, narrow redrock canyons, fantastic sandstone arches, tremendous open vistas, and wild rivers. Utah’s BLM wildlands provide home to at least two dozen endangered or sensitive wildlife species, including the desert bighorn sheep, cougar, peregrine falcon, and the endangered desert tortoise and Bonneville cutthroat trout. They also protect some of the richest concentrations of prehistoric ruins – left by America’s ancient Anasazi and other cultures – in the world. Co-sponsoring legislation to protect Utah wilderness is the pro-wilderness position. For more information, visit http://www.suwa.org Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act of 2001, H.R. 2908 is sponsored by Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Connie Morella (R-MD). Alaska’s Chugach National Forest at 5.5 million acres, is the second largest national forest, and is the northernmost temperate rainforest. At 98% roadless, it is the nation’s wildest national forest, yet Congress has never designated a single acre of the Chugach as Wilderness. Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, at 17 million acres, is the nation’s largest National Forest. This mist-shrouded rainforest is home to ancient trees, grizzly bears, and bald eagles that thrive in the vast and wild reaches of the forest. Wild and ancient runs of salmon return each year to the Tongass feeding eagles, bears, and other wildlife, and providing unparalleled commercial, sport, and subsistence fishing opportunities. Nearly a century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt created the Tongass and the Chugach National Forests. Today, it is considered the Amazon of North America, and the crown jewels of our national forest system. The Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act would protect approximately 14 million acres of land in the Tongass and Chugach National Forests through wilderness and other protective designations. Sustainable resource development could still continue in areas that already have logging roads and infrastructure. Co-sponsoring legislation to protect the Alaska Rainforest is the pro-wilderness position. The Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act has the support of over 400 Alaskan and national conservation, sporting and religious groups. For more information, visit http://www.akrain.org |