I have been active in outdoor recreation / silent sports all my life. The neglect by Republican administrations for our natural heritage has been profound and only individual actions like President Clinton's establishment of the Grand Staircase-Escalante have given me hope. President Obama has given me a great holiday gift in his restoration of wilderness rules.
What a gift! Overturning Bush's "No More Wilderness" policy (2003) will have a positive impact on all of us who love our natural America. In one area that I know, this has the potential to protect 6 million acres in Utah that are exceptional areas of wilderness and outdoor recreation.
And one area, in particular, may finally get the designation it deserves: Desolation Canyon. Canoeing that river is fabulous. I daydream about catching a faded pygmy rattlesnake at Rock Creek, or approaching the horizon line at Wire Fence rapid, or the trip where, while doing work with the BLM a flash flood created Belknap Falls. However, enough ruminating. If you have a chance, take a trip on the Green River through these canyons!
In toto:
Salazar said the agency will review some 220 million acres of BLM land that's not currently under wilderness protection to see which should be given a new "Wild Lands" designation — a new first step for land awaiting a wilderness decision. Congress would decide whether those lands should be permanently protected, Salazar said.
Please write to support Secretary Salazar and President Obama in this. Of course all is not perfect. The new policy has an escape hatch that allows the BLM to decide not to protect deserving lands if it decides that development is "appropriate," and the BLM would not designate new "wilderness study areas" under the policy. Please ask that these shortcomings are repaired.
Of course, the repubs will wail that this will destroy the development exploitation of rural areas but fail to explain to the American people how this short-term destruction actually fills the pockets of very few and promotes a bubble of trash and flee ruination.
Meanwhile, I will hope for the best.
This is an example that I have been talking about in many of my comments: That regulatory initiative by the Administration has a greater potential to impact our lives than all of the congressional victories we point out all the time. We need a more activist President when it comes to financial, healthcare, labor, environmental and other regulation. This gift by the administration is hopeful.
This, though, while making me happy, will not assuage the distrust I have towards the Obama administration's economic policy and lack of industrial policy. He is still fair game for his failure there, and while the environment weighs heavily in my political decisions, I won't be swayed by it in the face the failure to defend our nation from the class war waged upon us by the wealthy.