WILDERNESS UNDER SIEGE

Giving Away Our Great Outdoors: WILDERNESS UNDER SIEGE EcoFlight Northern Rockies Office Northern 1615 M St. NW Northern Rockies Washington, DC Office 20036 Rockies Office Northern Northern (202) 833-2300 Rockies Office Rockies Office wilderness.org wilderness.org

WILDERNESS UNDER SIEGE Our nation s wild places don t belong to corporations or only the one percent; they belong to all of the American people. Our public lands exist not as a playground for the rich, but for every American, including families, hunters and anglers to enjoy. However, new assaults on our wild places in Congress assume the opposite that our wild places exist for the benefit of wealthy polluters and developers. That assumption was wrong a century ago, when President Theodore Roosevelt fought to protect our natural heritage, and it is wrong today, when our vanishing wild places are even more threatened. Wild Places Under Attack As we approach the 50 th anniversary of the Wilderness Act in 2014, our public lands are facing unprecedented threats that imperil the fabric of wild places, and the clean air, clean water and long-lasting jobs they provide to surrounding communities. Throughout the 112 th Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives has unleashed a campaign to systematically dismantle decades of protections for our public lands. These include bills that are aimed at giving away our wilderness areas and our national forests, opening up our wildlife refuges and national parks to oil and gas exploration and logging, and handing over precious lands to irresponsible developers and polluters. Several of the bills outlined in this report have passed the House; altogether, they strip protections from nearly 200 million acres of wild lands. Three-hundred million more acres are potentially in danger this year, as the House looks to cement its legacy as the most anti-wilderness Congress in decades. Most of these bills seek to overturn a lifetime s worth of bipartisan legislation. For example, the Antiquities Act was passed in 1906 with support from Republicans and Democrats and signed into law by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, but now the House has passed a bill that would destroy this landmark legislation, which is responsible for protecting places like the Statue of Liberty and the Grand Canyon. The Wilderness Act was passed in 1964 also with bipartisan support yet members of the House of Representatives are determined to undermine it.

Our wild places are a great source of economic vibrancy, especially in the rural communities that surround them. Outdoor recreation, natural resource conservation, and historic preservation activities contribute a minimum of $1.06 trillion annually to the U.S. economy, support 9.4 million jobs nationwide and generate over $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes, according to a recent study. i Now is not the time to devastate the places that need economic support the most. An analysis of our wilderness under siege follows. H.R. 6009 would allow reckless logging in America s national forests H.R. 6009, introduced by Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), will allow governors of any state with national forests to give away swaths of the forests to counties and local governments to meet local budget shortfalls. In the process it will convert the management of our national forests from purposes that serve us all to purposes that serve only a few and are likely to include unsustainable levels of commercial logging. Any national forest that has at least 200,000 acres can be turned over to a Board of Trustees made up of a local politician and representatives from the logging, grazing, and recreation (such as off-road vehicle) industries. This board would be tasked with using the forest to generate revenue to be handed over to local counties; in other words, logging, mining, and otherwise exploiting the forest for short-term monetary gain. Air, water, wildlife, and any other federal protections would be limited. This would endanger over 150 million acres of national forests and directly impact the communities that rely on the clean drinking water, jobs and tourism that protected forests bring. Caribou-Traghee National Forest. Photo by US Forest Service H.R. 1505 would jeopardize personal freedoms by closing our lands to hunting, fishing and recreation July 2012 Update: An amended version of H.R. 1505 was packaged with other public lands bills in H.R. 2578 and brought to the floor of the House of Representatives. Despite bipartisan opposition, the bill was passed by the House. It was strongly opposed by conservation groups, sportsmen s organizations, Latino and immigration advocacy groups, as well as civil liberties groups.

Far from protecting federal lands, H.R. 1505, sponsored by Reps. Rob Bishop (R-UT), Peter King (R-NY), and 49 other Republicans, hands over operational control to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of all federal lands, including National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, and BLM lands that lie within 100 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders. In addition, the bill exempts the DHS from having to comply with dozens of environmental, public land management, and religious freedom statutes. Glacier National Park. Photo by Jeff L. Fox. Under this bill, some of our nation s most iconic places such as North Cascades National Park, Big Bend National Park, Allegheny National Forest, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and Glacier National Park could be at risk. The Seattle Times rightly noted that if HR 1505 were approved, the Border Patrol would not have to comply with the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Solid Waste Disposal Act and 32 other federal laws in such popular places as Olympic National Park, Glacier National Park, the Great Lakes and the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area. The Obama administration and the DHS have strongly opposed the bill on the grounds that the federal agencies involved, the Departments of Interior, Agriculture and Homeland Security, already partner together and work closely to make sure that the Border Patrol has appropriate access to public lands to maintain the security of our borders. This bill would try to solve a problem that does not exist by destroying decades worth of environmental protection and public health laws all in the name of national security. H.R. 1581 would give away our great outdoors to polluters Introduced by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the third-ranking Republican in the House, H.R. 1581, would eliminate the Forest Service s roadless rule, which protects over 58 million acres of national forest roadless lands. It would also giveaway 6.7 million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wilderness Study Areas, and prohibit the BLM from implementing Secretary Salazar s Wild Lands policy to protect wilderness-quality BLM lands. During a hearing in mid-summer of 2011, former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt testified that H.R. 1581, is the most radical, overreaching attempt to dismantle the architecture of our public land laws that has been proposed in my lifetime. This bill would give corporate polluters and irresponsible developers, who already have access to 76 percent of all national forests and BLM lands, access to even more of America s vanishing wilderness. ii This bill is a blank check for corporate polluters to exploit wilderness in more than three dozen states.

The agencies responsible for the land covered in H.R. 1581 manage these lands for multiple uses, including wildlife habitat, wilderness, recreation and ecosystem services (like clean water). This bill would take some of our most pristine and spectacular examples of our natural heritage and open them up to reckless development, even preventing federal land management agencies from providing new protections to wilderness-caliber lands in the future. This short-sighted bill would have devastating impacts on the wildlife that take refuge in these protected areas, reduce opportunities for outdoor recreation such as hunting and fishing and put at risk some of the last intact ecosystems in our nation. Cathedral Rock proposed wilderness. Photo by Greg Burke. H.R. 3155 would allow uranium mining in the Grand Canyon H.R. 3155, introduced by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), would strip the Department of Interior of its ability to prevent uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park is one of America s greatest natural treasures, and the first national monument, designated by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. Recent increases in uranium prices caused a uranium mining boom to take place, with mining companies rushing to establish mining claims for uranium in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon under the antiquated 1982 Mining Law. To prevent further damage from mining near the Park, Secretary Salazar recently used his authority to withdraw vulnerable areas from the old Mining Law. The Department of Interior s decision to prevent uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park. Photo by NPS. Grand Canyon National Park is based upon sound science and on-the-ground information. However, some in Congress wish to allow unfettered uranium mining in the area and are attempting to block the withdrawal by passing H.R. 3155. This would ignore the calls of great Americans, such as President Theodore Roosevelt, who upon seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time said, Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is keep it for your children, your children s

children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American if he can travel at all should see. H.R. 2852 would auction off to the highest bidder 30 million acres of America s lands H.R. 2852 was introduced by House National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT). It requires that the federal government literally give away, free of charge, five percent of the unappropriated public lands defined to include national forests and BLM lands to each western state. The amount of federal public land to be given away under this proposal would be roughly 30 million acres, or about Vermillion Basin. Photo by Sam Cox. the size of New York state. In other words, at a time of concern about mounting federal budget deficits, this proposal would distribute, free of charge, tens of billions of dollars of real estate owned by American taxpayers to a select few states, including lands that harbor irreplaceable environmental, recreational, wildlife, wilderness and other natural resources and cultural values that are the heritage of all Americans. H.R. 2852 would undercut a key purpose of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), a bipartisan statute enacted in 1976, that states that public lands be retained in Federal ownership, unless as a result of the land use planning procedure provided for in this Act, it is determined that disposal of a particular parcel will serve the national interest. FLPMA ensures that public lands belong to all Americans and their benefits are bestowed upon all Americans. H.R. 2852 seeks to turn this agreement on its head as it bestows the benefits of America s public lands on a select few, without giving compensation to the rightful owners, the American people. As Harris Sherman, Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the Department of Agriculture put it: The notion that land held in trust for the Nation as a whole should be disposed of for the sole benefit of the residents of an individual state runs contrary to the principle that these lands are important to all Americans. iii Eight bills that would prohibit the president designating national monuments April 2012 Update: In mid-april, the House of Representatives passed an amendment that was modeled after H.R. 302, which would take away the president of the United States authority to designate new

national monuments under the Antiquities Act. This assault threatens lands that hold unique historical, cultural, and environmental values. With the passage of this amendment the House showed its determination to destroy the long-held bipartisan consensus on national monuments and conservation. The bill is now pending in the Senate for consideration. Eight bills have been introduced that have the sole purpose of gutting the Antiquities Act: H.R. 302, bh.r. 758, H.R. 817, H.R. 845, H.R. 846, H.R. 2147, H.R. 2877 and H.R. 3292. All of these bills eviscerate the president s authority to designate new national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Most of the above proposals seek to either exempt individual states from having new national monuments designated within their borders, limit the size of new monuments, or require congressional approval of their designation. The Antiquities Act is one of America s bedrock land protection statutes, and has been used by Republican and Democratic presidents alike to protect sensitive areas large and small from polluters and irresponsible developers for over a hundred years. Under these bills, the president will lose a critical tool for the preservation of our public lands for future generations, and states may lose local economic benefits generated by visits to national monuments. In Devils Tower National Monument. Photo by Flickr/Binary Dreams. communities all across the West, the designation of new monuments has helped spur economic growth in rural communities. For example, The designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument didn t just help the economy. It is the economy, said Steve Roberts, the owner of Escalante Outfitters in Utah. My business increased by 25 percent this year, and we ve seen similar increases since the designation. Each year, more and more people come because of the monument and the surrounding protected lands. This landmark and bipartisan law, used by 15 different presidents for more than one hundred years, is not an obstacle to a booming economy; it is an economic generator. H.R. 3407 would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge April 2012 Update: H.R. 3407 was rolled up into a larger energy package, H.R. 3408, which passed the House. This package was part of a failed attempt to fund United States transportation infrastructure with drilling revenues. The Senate refused to accept the House energy language, including drilling in the Arctic Refuge, and it was removed from the transportation bill in conference.

H.R. 3407 would open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Arctic Refuge) to oil and gas drilling, eviscerating the protections now afforded to America s Serengeti Plain. The case for drilling in the Arctic Refuge has been debunked over and over again, as some members of Congress repeatedly attempt to open up one of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the country to oil and gas development. This area was first deemed too important to drill some 50 years ago, when under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Lincoln Else. Eisenhower administration, it was first set aside for wildlife conservation. Besides being an essential habitat to many Arctic species, there is much skepticism as to how much oil could even be recovered from the area. Opening the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas drilling would translate to as little as 0.4 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030, iv but could devastate the Refuge s ecosystem. The Arctic Refuge is too valuable to be destroyed as an oil and gas field. But year in and year out the oil and gas industry s congressional allies continue their efforts to destroy this fragile natural ecosystem. H.R. 4089 would destroy hunting traditions April 2012 Update: H.R. 4089, which was originally introduced by Rep. Benishek as H.R. 2834, passed the House and is now pending in the Senate. Characterized by proponents as expanding sportsmen s access, the bill still includes a Trojan Horse provision which will lead to motorized access in wilderness areas, threatening some of the nation s best remaining hunting and fishing experiences in America. H.R. 4089 began as H.R. 2834, a benign-sounding proposal introduced by Rep. Dan Benishek (R-MI) to support hunting access on public lands, but which contained within it a provision that would effectively destroy the Wilderness Act with wording that would allow motorized use in designated Wilderness Areas. Allowing motor vehicles in designated Wilderness Areas would Hunter on the trail. Photo by Virginia State Park staff.

harm the very recreational fishing and hunting opportunities the bill is intended to protect. Fishing and hunting are important activities on our public lands and forests, and a major contributor to local economies. Wilderness Areas are especially attractive areas for hunting and fishing due to the high quality habitat in such areas, and for the unique outdoor experience they afford hunters and anglers. But this bill has some Trojan Horse language in it which would result in the destruction of the very wilderness values that millions of American hunters and anglers cherish. To ensure protection of wilderness values, the Wilderness Act generally prohibits the use of motorized vehicles, motorized equipment and other forms of mechanical transport. However, a provision buried in H.R. 2834 (and its successor, H.R. 4089) would undermine the Act by opening designated Wilderness Areas to all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, motorbikes, motorboats and other motorized vehicles as long as they are used for hunting, fishing or shooting. In addition to undermining the Wilderness Act, another part of the bill undermines the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which is vital for environmental review and public disclosure for all federal action. Recreational fishing and hunting are important and vital recreational activities on our federal public lands. But the anti-wilderness provisions of H.R. 2834 should not be allowed to become law. i http://www.southwickassociates.com/node/10991 ii http://wilderness.org/files/great-outdoors-giveaway-factsheet_0.pdf iii http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/shermantestimony09.22.11.pdf iv http://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/05/23/arctic-drilling-wouldnt-cool-high-oil-prices

For more information please contact: David Moulton, Senior Director for Legislative Affairs (202) 429-2681 david_moulton@tws.org Kitty Thomas, Senior Director, Communications (202) 556-2933 kitty_thomas@tws.org Emily Diamond-Falk, Communications Manager (202) 429-2608 emily_diamond-falk@tws.org Cover photo: EcoFlight UPDATED AUGUST 2012 Our mission is to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. 1615 M Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 833-2300 wilderness.org