This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Salt Lake Tribune's recent editorial "More wilderness" hit the nail right on the head. The time has certainly arrived for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to openly repudiate one of the last administration's most odious policies — the so-called "no more wilderness" agreement between then Interior Secretary Gale Norton and then Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.
That agreement disavowed the Bureau of Land Management's authority to identify and protect lands with wilderness character — large tracts of federal land with spectacular scenery and natural wonders. This decision, roundly criticized at its inception in 2003, opened the door to the leasing, drilling and off-roading in millions of acres of natural, wilderness-caliber lands in Utah and across the West.
This policy is also contrary to 25 years of practice by Republican and Democratic administrations. When I was BLM director in the early 1990s, there was no question that BLM had the authority to designate new wilderness study areas and protect deserving lands until Congress had a chance to decide whether to designate them permanently as wilderness.
Last Sunday's op-ed by Kathleen Sgamma on behalf of an oil and gas trade group, which defended the Norton-Leavitt settlement and questioned the veracity of The Tribune's editorial, is simply nonsense. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act fully empowers the Interior Department to manage BLM lands for all resources, including wilderness. Establishing new wilderness study areas is entirely consistent with this broad authority and an important step to protect deserving public lands from off-road vehicles, oil and gas development and other damaging uses of the land.
The time is now for Salazar to reject this illegal and wrongheaded policy.
Sgamma also complained that energy development on BLM-managed lands across the West has decreased in the past few years, and that this is directly related to Salazar's recently issued, but long overdue, oil and gas reforms. She is wrong for two reasons.
First, these reforms, which largely require BLM to "think first, lease later," were sorely needed. As has been widely reported, the fox (Big Oil) had the run of the hen house (the Interior Department) during the Bush administration. Salazar's modest reforms helped to restore some balance to the oil and gas leasing and development process.
Second, as The Tribune recently reported, the BLM is currently reviewing a record number of new drilling permits in the Uinta Basin, Utah's "oil patch." Given the other major story being reported by The Tribune regarding dangerous levels of ozone pollution in the basin, I have serious concerns about the scope of this proposed development. Nevertheless, BLM has clearly not closed the door to oil and gas as Sgamma suggests.
Despite ample opportunities to drill, and millions of acres under lease but not yet drilled, several oil and gas companies and Sgamma's own trade group have challenged Salazar's reforms in federal court
The one thing Sgamma and I agree on is that protecting wilderness and developing oil and gas are not mutually exclusive concepts. Nothing proves that better than the deal inked this past summer by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Bill Barrett Corp.
That agreement provided real, on-the-ground protection for Desolation Canyon, one of the nation's (undesignated) wilderness crown jewels, while allowing the company to produce significant natural gas. Their deal was widely hailed by federal, state and local officials as an example of unprecedented cooperation. Hopefully the broader oil and gas industry was watching closely.
Protecting wild public lands as wilderness is one of this country's finest and enduring concepts. Without a doubt, Utah's red rock wilderness deserves to be protected as wilderness.
Until that time, however, we need President Obama and his Interior secretary to grab the reigns and give us bold and inspired leadership. The Norton-Leavitt "no more wilderness" deal must be dropped.
Jim Baca is former Bureau of Land Management director, mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico state land commissioner, New Mexico natural resource trustee and is a board member of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.