Utah Public Lands Initiative a Disappointment

 by Tim Peterson, Utah Wildlands Director

After years of delay, Representative Rob Bishop (R, UT) finally introduced the Utah Public Lands Initiative (PLI) in Congress on July 14th, 2016. The disappointing package of bills fails both the Native American tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and America’s birthright of wild and pristine public lands. 

The bills would diminish the voice of sovereign Native American tribes in management of the Bears Ears cultural landscape, prevent the creation of new or expansion of existing national monuments, encourage rampant development of dirty fossil fuels and uranium, forever prohibit sensible management of livestock grazing, and hand over public lands and public roads to the State of Utah to further the anti-public lands agenda. 

With only a handful of legislative days left in the 114th Congress and looming national elections, even if the PLI were perfect, it would stand almost no chance of becoming law. As such, it’s time for President Obama to protect Bears Ears as a new national monument now! 

Urge President Obama to designate Bears Ears National Monument ›

Show your support at the public meeting with Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell in Bluff, UT this Saturday, July 16 ›

Here are just a few of the many ways the PLI fails. 

It would:

• Leave more than half a million acres of the proposed Bears Ears National Monument unprotected, including tens of thousands of irreplaceable cultural sites and some of the best canyon and mountain scenery in the United States, while forever prohibiting future protections;
• Demote the voice of sovereign Native American tribes in management of Bears Ears to a small voice in a crowd of advisors, instead of enacting the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition’s visionary proposal to blend traditional knowledge with western science and land management in new and exciting ways; 
• Leave millions of acres of potential wilderness unprotected, particularly biologically important national forest wilderness, while preventing protections in the future;
• Hand permitting authority for fossil fuel development of public minerals over to the State of Utah while rolling back the Bureau of Land Management’s oil and gas leasing reforms, cancelling master leasing plans for the seven PLI counties;
• Transfer vast blocks of federal public lands to the State of Utah in the Uintah Basin, Book Cliffs, near the San Rafael Swell, and near the Green River east of Moab for expedited development of tar sands, oil shale, potash, coal, and uranium without public review or input, turning some of Utah’s best wildlife habitat and scenic landscapes into industrial zones;
• Mandate that cattle and sheep grazing occur at present stocking levels (or increased stocking levels) on all public lands across eastern and southern Utah, and reestablish livestock grazing where it has been limited previously due to resource or ecological damage;
• Render void the only true piece of consensus reached by conservation and other stakeholders in Summit County by breaking our agreement;
• Reward scofflaws by granting a right-of way to open the illegal ATV route in Recapture Canyon, site of the infamous 2014 protest ride that drew Bundy militia members to San Juan County;
• Turn tens of thousands of acres of public lands and thousands of public roads over to state and county ownership, furthering Utah’s radical public land seizure agenda, and; 
• Create an unprecedented and troubling new kind of national conservation area that sets up an irreconcilable conflict where destructive land uses such as mining, oil and gas development, grazing, and off-road vehicle use are to be preserved on an equal footing with cultural resources and intact ecosystems.

A legislative lemon

The list goes on. We’ll update you as we continue to analyze this massive piece of bad legislation, and we’ll let you know if there are opportunities to get engaged to make sure Utah’s irreplaceable public lands do not remain under threat from the PLI. 

The PLI has been a long, arduous process, and the Grand Canyon Trust has done our level best to engage thoughtfully, thoroughly, and productively. Regrettably, what could have been a victory for all sides was undermined at every turn by the intransigence of anti-public lands politics. 

Looking ahead

A bright ray of hope sparkles on the horizon, however - an unprecedented worldwide movement is gaining momentum. Together, we can ensure that Utah gains its place on the cutting edge of global land management by looking to indigenous people to help better manage their ancestral lands for the benefit of all people, wildlife, plants, and the land. Bears Ears is that bold vision, and we hope you will join us in support of the tribes calling for a new Bears Ears National Monument.