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Riders on the Storm - Omnibus Appropriations Bill contains bad
news for wildlands
As
discussed in our cover story, the Omnibus Appropriations Bill considered
by the 108th Congress contained numerous riders targeting conservation
protections on our public lands. For those working to stop these
bills, the task was complicated by the fact that nobody seemed to
know what was included, as the text of the Appropriations Bill stretched
for thousands of pages. Omnibus bills are considered “must
pass” legislation due to the potential for government gridlock.
Taking advantage of this rush, some members of Congress attached
last-minute additions as a way of getting quick approval for controversial
projects.
The following summary is a quick guide to the special interest
riders in the bill:
Cumberland Island Wilderness Boundary Adjustment Act of 2004:
Strips wilderness protection from the Cumberland Island Wilderness
by de-designating the existing wilderness, then re-designating certain
disconnected parcels as wilderness, carved up by unpaved 1-lane
tracks where motor vehicles will be allowed to drive.
Wild Salmon River , ID: Amends the Wild and Scenic
Rivers Act to allow three outfitter lodges to remain on the designated
Wild Salmon River corridor within the Frank Church-River of No Return
Wilderness, our largest contiguous wilderness in the lower 48.
Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act: Authorizes a vastly expanded
fee-demo program, making the Recreation Access Tax (RAT) applicable
to all national forest and Bureau of Land Management lands, national
wildlife refuges, national parks, and Bureau of Reclamation lands.
The bill establishes criminal penalties for those who don’t
pay the public lands access fees (6 months in prison and/or $5,000
fine). This bill has never been passed by the full House and has
never been introduced, had hearings, or been voted on by the Senate.
Tongass National Forest, AK:
Places a 30-day limitation on legal challenges of timber sales on
the Tongass National Forest, and interferes with judicial review
by pressuring judges to rule on Tongass timber lawsuits within 180
days.
Grazing: Waives environmental review of grazing permit renewals
on national forest lands — no NEPA analysis of impacts or public
input would be required before renewing grazing permits.
Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, AK:
Transfers 100,000 acres of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge
in Alaska to the Doyon Corporation, a Native corporation seeking
to drill oil on land currently protected as critical wildlife habitat.
Yukon Flats is located immediately south of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge.
Yellowstone Nat’l Park, WY:
Implements a winter use plan for the park that allows 720 snowmobiles
per day into Yellowstone and 140 snowmobiles per day into Grand
Teton Nat’l Park. The bill mandates the winter use plan for
the 2004-2005 season, rendering it immune from modification and
legal challenge.
Sequoia-Kings Canyon Nat’l Park, CA: Grants 62
Mineral King cabin owners permanent occupancy in the national park.
When the Mineral King area was included in the park in 1978, the
cabin owners were given 25-year leases, after which the cabins were
to be removed. This bill gives away the public’s land to the
current “owners” and their heirs.
Remaining
True to the Intent of Wilderness
Excerpts
from the keynote address of Michael Frome, Ph.D.
Utah Environmental Congress
Salt Lake City, Utah, November 13, 2004
I welcome
your invitation to speak on “Remaining True to the Intent of
Wilderness,” a subject, or theme, or purpose, that has meant
much to me for many years. Simply stated, I believe that wilderness
is the heart of the American ideal, that those slender, choice fragments
of earth still wild, mysterious and primeval nourish the soul and
spirit of the nation and its people. That we have set aside these
special places is known throughout the world; wilderness preservation
as part of our way of life makes a far better and more welcome calling
card to other nations than all the armed might we can muster and release
abroad.
The very idea of wilderness enriches my body, mind and spirit, but
it also elevates me to look beyond my own wants and needs. The American
tradition has sought the transformation of resources; materialism
prevails as the dominant paradigm. But there is more to America and
its people than manufacture, merchandise and marketing. Nature, unspoiled,
opens avenues of discovery, exploration, healing, spiritual enrichment
and growth to us all. The Wilderness Act stimulates a fundamental
and older tradition of relationship with resources themselves. A river
is accorded its right to exist because it is a river, rather than
for any utilitarian service. Through appreciation of wilderness, I
perceive the true role of the river, as a living symbol of all the
life it sustains and nourishes, and my responsibility to it.
Attainments in preservation, as in any manifestation of ethics and
idealism, do not come easily. In the case of the Wilderness Act, fruition
came after eight years of discussion and debate by the Senate and
House of Representatives, and after eighteen separate hearings conducted
by Congressional committees around the country. The bill was rewritten
time and again, passed in the Senate, then bottled up in the House.
The very idea of legitimizing wilderness was aggressively opposed
by the timber industry and by the oil, grazing and mining industries.
The National Park Service and Forest Service opposed it, too: The
public may own the land, but the administrators prefer to exercise
their own prerogative without sharing decision-making authority. But
the people, all kinds of people, rallied to the wilderness cause.
The very effort surrounding passage makes the Wilderness Act impressive
as a statement of national purpose. For it plainly evoked the feeling
of countless individuals throughout the country — and likely
throughout the world — who would speak for wilderness if given
the chance and would say that natural islands within our expanding
civilization are essential to the spirit of humankind.
I think of the campaigners for the Wilderness Act as true patriots.
Howard Zahniser, the principal author and advocate of the Wilderness
Act of 1964, was studious, articulate and compassionate. “We
are not fighting progress,” Zahniser said. “We are making
it. We are not dealing with a vanishing wilderness. We are working
for a wilderness forever.” In 1956 Representative John P. Saylor
of Pennsylvania introduced the Wilderness Bill in the House of Representatives.
In many ways he was a conservative Republican. Nevertheless, for eight
years Saylor led the uphill legislative battle and never gave up.
In 1961, when the going was tough, he declared: “I cannot believe
the American people have become so crass, so dollar-minded, so exploitation-conscious
that they must develop every last little bit of wilderness that still
exists.”
I like to think the wilderness cause appeals to the best in people,
and to the best people, who give of themselves with commitment and
compassion, like Dick Carter and Margaret Pettis, who have made the
country conscious of the special qualities of the High Uintas. Stewart
Brandborg, who succeeded Howard Zahniser as executive director of
the Wilderness Society following Zahniser’s death and who served
in that capacity for fifteen years, and Brock Evans, a longtime leader
of the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society and the Endangered Species
Coalition, have been close friends of mine for forty or fifty years.
I daresay that efforts to remain true to the intent of wilderness
have rewarded me greatly in lasting, treasured friendships.
Looking back, I remember environmental leaders of forty or fifty years
ago as missionaries. Those people gave us broad shoulders to stand
on: like David Brower, the most militant and effective of his day,
and like Zahniser, who drafted the Wilderness Bill, creating reality
out of a dream. I’m sorry to say that in the years since then
I have watched various leaders of national environmental organizations
change from missionaries to corporate CEOs. Brower, later came back
to the Sierra Club as a member of the board of directors, but in May
2000 resigned out of frustration. “The world is burning and all
I hear from them is the music of violins,” he declared. “The
planet is being trashed, but the board has no real sense of urgency.
We need to try to save the earth at least as fast as it’s being
destroyed.”
In my book he was right as rain: We still are subject to Nero’s
fiddling while Rome and the world burn. Something has happened between
then and now. Our public agencies, the Forest Service and National
Park Service, have lost their way. They want to think of themselves
as “marketers” of mass recreation as a commodity, building
“partnerships” with commercial interests, the bigger the
better, and treating the public as “customers.” Environmentalists
need to bring the agencies back on track as resource stewards in committed
public service.
These indeed are tough and trying times. We need to sound the alarm
and to alert the public to the “new” face of wilderness
bills in Congress, highly questionable pseudo-wilderness proposals,
like the Owyhee Initiative and the Boulder-White Clouds in Idaho and
the Lincoln County (Nevada) Conservation, Recreation and Development
Act. When you read of conservation, recreation and development in
the same package, you can bet your bottom dollar that wilderness protection
will come last and least. Those bills include harmful tradeoffs, giving
away more wilderness and public land than they protect; they bypass
environmental laws with dangerous new precedents privatizing public
lands for the benefit of commercial developers, favoring the use of
motorized equipment inside wilderness, releasing large and significant
areas from wilderness study, and with legislative negotiations conducted
behind closed doors. That isn’t right and it is not in the best
interest of the country.
Maybe the most important role of the public lands is to safeguard
wilderness. Wilderness is at the core of a healthy society. Wilderness,
above all its definitions, purposes and uses, is sacred space, with
sacred power, the heart of a moral world. Wilderness preservation
is not so much a system or a tactic, but a way of understanding the
sacred connection with all of life, with people, plants, animals,
water, sunlight, and clouds. It’s an attitude and way of life
with a spiritual ecological dimension.
The leadership now in wilderness preservation, as I see it, comes
from Wilderness Watch, a wise and courageous outfit that remains true
to the intent, and from Wild Wilderness, run by Scott Silver as a
one-man band in Bend, Oregon, and from grassroots groups like the
Utah Environmental Congress.
The best defense clearly is an aware, alert and involved public. Yes,
these are hard times, especially following the recent election. There
may be room for gloom, but not for doom. Shortly after Harvey Broome
died in 1968, Representative John P. Saylor paid tribute to him on
the floor of the House of Representatives with these words: “
We must resolve never to falter, as he never faltered, and to take
inspiration from his life to fight all the harder for the future of
the wilderness. His spirit knows no boundaries and will be with us
in the years ahead.” Then Saylor went on to say he was proud
to consider himself a fellow to Robert Marshall, Olaus Murie, Howard
Zahniser, and Harvey Broome: “They were all great leaders,”
he said, “for the saving of wilderness for our time, for all
time. They have passed on, but their legacy falls to new leaders,
as their spirit lives on.” Yes, their spirit lives on and the
legacy is ours, yours and mine.
Changes
in the New Year
— Glenn Marangelo
For
those of you who have been members of Wilderness Watch for many
years, I would like to test your memory. Think back to when the
regular membership dues rate for Wilderness Watch last changed …
don’t worry, I could not remember either.
Digging back through the archives, I found that Wilderness Watch’s
regular membership dues rate last changed from $20/year to $25/year
back in 1995. A lot has changed during these past 9+ years: the
challenges facing the preservation of our Wilderness heritage have
become more varied and complex; the reach and impact of our efforts
have grown tremendously; our national role and reputation as wilderness
stewardship experts has grown and solidified; and our ability to
coordinate with, reach out to, and engage others in wilderness management
issues has greatly expanded. On every front, thanks to our members
and supporters Wilderness Watch is a stronger, more effective organization.
The one thing that remains constant over the years is our annual
membership rate. However, with the increasing costs of “keeping
the boat afloat” (costs of printing, rent, increasing litigation,
etc) we now find it necessary to make a change here as well.
As of 1/1/05, our regular annual dues will increase from $25 to
$30. However, in an effort to continue to keep our membership dues
as affordable to as wide a range of individuals as possible, we
will be keeping our “Living Lightly” membership dues at
$15/year. The Wilderness Watch Board of Directors and staff all
strongly believe that it is better to have as many people involved
and active as possible.
Thank you to all of our supporters for your understanding of
this necessary change. Feel free to contact me if you have any
questions.
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