Press Releases from The Wilderness Society

Senate Hunting Bill Would Allow Motor Vehicles in Protected Wilderness Areas

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Companion legislation threatening tens of millions of acres of wilderness already introduced in the House

The Wilderness Society expressed deep concern about a key provision of the “Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act,” introduced today by Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Joe Manchin (D-WV). A companion bill, H.R. 2834, has been reported from the House Natural Resources Committee.

While the bill’s stated and laudable intention is to provide for recreational hunting and fishing opportunities on our federal public lands, Section 4(e)(1) could lead to motorized access into designated Wilderness Areas that are statutorily off-limits to off-road vehicles.

While the legislation was moving through the House Natural Resources Committee, The Wilderness Society raised these concerns, requesting that the problematic language be stricken from the bill.

“This legislation has ‘Trojan Horse’ language in it that would have devastating consequences for Wilderness protection,” said Dave Alberswerth, senior policy advisor at The Wilderness Society. “Since the sponsors of the bill claim that they do not intend to allow motorized intrusions into wilderness areas, we are urging them to drop Section 4 of the proposal.”

To learn more about the Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act and other misguided legislation, please visit http://wilderness.org/content/wilderness-under-siege

To view The Wilderness Society’s statement for the record on the House version, please visit: http://wilderness.org/files/TWS-letter-HR-2834.pdf

Sacrificing Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a Running-On-Empty Strategy

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:23:05 +0000

The following statement from The Wilderness Society Senior Director of Legislative Affairs David Moulton is in response to the markup in the House Natural Resources Committee of H.R. 3407, H.R. 3408, and H.R. 3410.

“The myth that all of America’s problems can be solved by drilling for oil is front and center in this flawed plan to fix America’s crumbling bridges and highways. Combined, these bills would generate less than 1% of the necessary revenue to fund the proposed highway bill. The majority members of the House Natural Resources Committee are running on empty, trying to roll this vehicle forward a few more inches before forced to abandon it at the side of the road.

“Sacrificing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – one of the last pristine ecosystems in the world – will not even begin to fix the problem facing America’s infrastructure. Nor will opening all of America’s coasts to offshore drilling – inviting more Deepwater Horizon disasters, but coming no closer to rebuilding America’s highways. Oil shale is even less likely to solving the crisis, having never been commercially viable, and with zero likely revenue.

Meanwhile, this bill would land a massive blow to the mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System. It would force the Refuge System to do something that has never been allowed since the Refuge Act passed in 1966 – issue new oil or gas leases on a wildlife refuge. It would authorize an invasive network of roads, oilrigs, and pipelines that would fragment the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, destroying the untrammeled habitat forever. In addition, this legislation would imperil coastlines that now are protected from drilling by making them vulnerable to oil spills, and tens of thousands more acres of public lands would be leased to oil and gas companies on the false promise of oil shale development. This plan is all risk with no reward, as it will not even begin to approach the revenues needed to fix our roads.

“These bills do not represent a serious effort to address the needs of America’s highways – just more wilderness under siege from an anti-conservation Congress. They represent not-so-veiled attempts to hand out favors to fossil fuel industries that hardly need another assist from the federal government.”

For more on the attacks on America’s wild places, see the TWS report Wilderness Under Siege

Hollywood's 'Big Miracle' reminds Americans of the special nature of the Arctic Ocean

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:13:27 +0000

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Feb. 1, 2012) – Although it may not appear in the credits, the Arctic Ocean is one of the stars of this week’s release from Universal Pictures, “Big Miracle,” featuring Drew Barrymore as an activist who helps rescue three endangered gray whales after they become trapped by sea ice off the coast of Barrow, Alaska.

Based on actual events that occurred in 1988 and drew the world’s attention to the Arctic and its inhabitants, this film from Universal Pictures highlights a remote and fragile part of the world that is facing unprecedented pressures as climate change opens new shipping routes and oil companies prepare to begin drilling the Outer Continental Shelf.

These changes pose threats not only to a variety of Arctic creatures – quite possibly including the very trio of whales that inspired “Big Miracle” – but to Alaska Natives who depend on the Beaufort and Chukchi seas to support their generations-old culture and subsistence way of life.

As moviegoers enjoy the film’s opening weekend, Shell Oil is making plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean this summer, pending final approval from the federal government. The Department of the Interior appears to be fast-tracking offshore oil development off Alaska despite a glaring lack of scientific knowledge about the Arctic Ocean and how a major oil spill would affect whales, polar bears, fish and migratory birds, not to mention the food supply for indigenous people.

Meanwhile, Shell promises to recover 95 percent of any oil released into the Arctic Ocean, a goal it has never come close to achieving under far more hospitable conditions in other parts of the world. The fact is, effective spill-response technology just doesn’t exist for an environment where ice, rough seas, fog and high winds are the norm.

As moviegoers will see this weekend, rescuing three whales in the Arctic was such a daunting task that it required the United States and the Soviet Union to set aside their Cold War differences.

Maybe we should all consider what would happen if sea ice stranded not whales, but a major oil spill?

Sounds sort of like a Hollywood disaster movie, doesn’t it?

The Wilderness Society Statement on Obama Administration’s Release of Forest Planning Rule

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:59:30 +0000

The following statement from Mike Anderson, Senior Resource Analyst for The Wilderness Society, is in response to the Obama Administration’s release of a new National Forest Planning Rule.

“The Forest Service has needed a new planning rule for some time in order to move forward with the important task of updating management plans for the National Forest System. The process of revising forest management plans is an important one – it gives citizens a voice in the management of their national forests and assurance that our national forests will successfully fulfill their role as providers of clean water, healthy outdoor recreation, and habitat to imperiled species.

“The agency’s latest proposal provides a strong vision and generally sound framework for sustainably managing our national forests, and represents an improvement over the earlier draft in many respects. It relies on sound science, provides direction to protect the ecological integrity of national forests, creates mechanisms for addressing climate change, and emphasizes the importance of water. We are hopeful that it will result in management plans that reflect modern-day thinking about ecosystem management, and that provide important services like clean drinking water and great recreational experiences.

“The Forest Service has made a sincere effort to reach out to the public, scientists, and stakeholder groups as it developed the new planning rule, and it is clear from the changes contained in this new draft that they have attempted to address many of the public’s concerns.

“Although we agree with the proposed rule’s overall vision, problems with the specifics remain. For example, we are concerned that the Forest Service will not be adequately accountable for achieving the rule’s goals, and that unfair bureaucratic requirements will interfere with citizens’ ability to voice concerns and challenge agency decisions. We urge the Administration to address these and other important concerns before the rule is finalized.

“We look forward to working with the Forest Service and U.S. Department of Agriculture to address the remaining problems with the rule, and once the rule is finalized to begin the process of developing more effective management plans for our national forests.”

Clean energy – not a drilling frenzy – will keep the State of the Union strong

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:18:15 +0000

In his annual speech to Congress and the American people tonight, President Obama is expected to address one of our nation’s most critical issues— energy. The Wilderness Society has led national efforts to ensure America moves steadily away from a fossil fuel based energy program, one of the many threats to our shared public lands, to a balanced approach that includes smart development of clean, renewable technologies.

The following statement can be attributed to Bill Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society:

“President Obama has done more to jump-start the clean energy economy than any previous president. Beginning in 2009 the Department of Interior has issued permits for 25 renewable energy projects on public lands - enough to power 2.3 million homes - while establishing a sensible framework for ensuring renewable energy is done “smart from the start,” by siting them in the right places with high energy potential and low environmental impacts.

“Continuing to expand clean energy infrastructure will keep America competitive in a global marketplace, and help free us from a harmful dependence on fossil fuels – both foreign and domestic. In the western US you are seeing the results of that effort with people being put to work, from construction jobs to high paying engineering roles. America needs these clean energy jobs.

“Tonight, President Obama is expected to lay out a plan to move America forward, but his call for increased production of domestic fossil fuels is misplaced. Recent drilling statistics prove that the oil and gas industry is sitting on millions of unused acres and thousands of unused drilling permits. In 2011 alone, for example, the Bureau of Land Management issued over 4,200 drilling permits – but only 3,260 wells were actually drilled.

“Energy independence in America will not be found at the bottom of well – it will be found alongside American jobs that cannot be outsourced, in a clean, renewable energy economy.”

For more information about unused leases and drilling permits, go to http://wilderness.org/content/numbers-dont-lie-blm-lease-sales-undercut-industry-claims.

API continues to mislead American public and lawmakers

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:42:03 +0000

Data released today by The Wilderness Society refutes the conclusions of a recent report by The American Petroleum Institute that government policies are inhibiting oil and gas development on onshore federal lands.

“API continues to cherry-pick data to push for more drilling on our public lands,” said Dave Alberswerth, senior policy advisor for The Wilderness Society.

The data released by the Wilderness Society shows that industry “nominations” for tracts of federal lands for leasing have declined over the past several years, with a resultant decline in the number of leases issued to oil and gas interests by the Bureau of Land Management. The Wilderness Society notes that, despite the downturn in leasing requests by industry, there are over 38.4 million acres of onshore federal lands currently under lease to the industry of which over 26 million acres have never been developed – an area larger than Kentucky.

In addition, The Wilderness Society also pointed out that the BLM in recent years has approved over 6,500 new drilling permits that have not been utilized by the industry.

“If the industry is so concerned with increasing drilling, their actions aren’t showing it,” said Nada Culver, senior director for agency policy and planning for The Wilderness Society. “The thousands of unused federal drilling permits, the tens of millions of acres of idle leases, and now the general downturn in lease tract nominations from industry– these facts all tell a far different story than the one that API is telling. The bottom line is that the new reforms implemented by the Bureau of Land Management are badly needed to restore an appropriate balance between development and conservation of our public lands, and the oil and gas industry has ample opportunities to responsibly develop oil and gas resources on those lands.”

The lease nominations data for the years 2006 through 2011 is here.

Report: Wilderness Under Siege

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:48:29 +0000

The Wilderness Society releases a report on the congressional assault that would threaten nearly half a billion acres of public lands

Since the beginning of the 112th Congress, we have seen a wave of new legislation that seeks to systematically dismantle decades of laws that protect America’s wilderness and public lands. Today, The Wilderness Society released a new report, “Wilderness Under Siege.” In total, 13 pieces of legislation that could affect nearly half a billion acres of wild public lands have been introduced.

In addition to the report, there is an interactive map that shows how the 13 bills – collectively and individually – affect each state. You can view the report, interactive map and a list of state-by-state impacts of these bills at
http://wilderness.org/content/wilderness-under-siege.

“It appears that some members of Congress are waging an all-out war on wilderness,” said Dave Alberswerth, senior policy advisory at The Wilderness Society. “These bills are out of touch with the cultural and natural values that define us, and they ignore the $1 trillion dollars that conservation, recreation and preservation contribute to our economy every year.”

The bills highlighted in the report include:

1. The Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act (H.R. 1581) -- introduced by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the third-ranking Republican in the House -- is better known as the Great Outdoors Giveaway. It would remove protection of 58 million acres of roadless National Forests, and 6.7 million acres of pristine Wilderness Study Areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It would open these tens of millions of wild public lands to logging, road building and other forms of development that are incompatible with wild land protection.

“The Great Outdoors Giveaway puts corporate polluters first, and the American people second,” said Mark Starr, MSW, Iraq war veteran and program director at the Vet Voice Foundation in Los Angeles, California. “We should treasure, not squander our lands and waters that define the America I fought to protect.

2. The Action Plan for Public Lands and Education Act of 2011 (H.R. 2852) -- introduced by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) -- should be called the 30 Million Acre Giveaway Act. Thirty-million acres of national forests and BLM lands would be given away under this bill by allowing certain states to choose five percent of the federal lands within their borders to be given to them, which they can sell to developers.

“The 30 Million Acre Giveaway Act is an unwarranted and unmerited giveaway of assets owned by all Americans to corporate polluters,” continued Alberswerth. “This bill would result in corporate polluters profiting from public lands owned by all Americans.”

3. The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act (H.R. 1505) -- sponsored by Reps. Rob Bishop (R-UT) and Peter King (R-NY) -- is really the Border Patrol Takeover Act. National treasures like Glacier National Park in Montana would be turned over to the "operational control" of the U.S. Border Patrol, which could block public access, build roads, and erect fences and other structures. The bill also exempts the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from having to comply with dozens of environmental statutes on these lands, like the Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. The DHS strongly opposes this bill, as do the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service, since federal agencies already work closely with Border Patrol to secure our borders.

“The Border Patrol Takeover Act would turn back the clock 50 years to a time when there were few federal rules in place to protect our air and water and cultural heritage,” said Tony Bynum, adventure photographer and small business owner in East Glacier, Montana. “People from all over the world come here to see and experience the remote wilds of Montana -- whether it’s hunting, fishing, hiking or just seeing the vastness from their cars. They come here in search of an experience in a wild setting. They expect a healthy environment.”

4. From Arizona's Grand Canyon, to Virginia's Fort Monroe, presidents of both parties for more than 100 years have used the power under the Antiquities Act to designate national monuments on federal public lands. But eight bills (The End of the National Monuments Acts: H.R. 302, H. R. 758, H.R. 817, H.R. 845, H.R. 846, H.R. 2147, H.R. 2877 and H.R. 3292) pending in the House of Representatives would in various ways prohibit the president from exercising his authority to designate new national monuments under the Antiquities Act.

"Thank goodness President Theodore Roosevelt had the foresight to enact the Antiquities Act in 1906 during his presidency. It is critical that the president of the United States continues to have the authority to protect sensitive public lands for future generations under this Act," said John Cornell, campaign coordinator at the New Mexico Wildlife Federation in Hillsboro, New Mexico. "Thanks to the Antiquities Act, generations of hunters, anglers and hikers have had the opportunity to enjoy our public lands, and they will continue to do so for years to come."

5. The American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act (H.R. 3407) -- sponsored by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Don Young (R-AK) -- which should be called the Drill the Arctic Refuge Act, would undo protections that this landscape has enjoyed since President Eisenhower first protected it. Opening the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas drilling would only translate to as little as 0.4 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030, but could devastate the biological heart of the Refuge’s ecosystem.

“The Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge is the sacred place where life begins,” said Sarah James, Chairperson, Gwichin Steering Committee, Elder and Board Member of the Neet’sai Gwich’in, Arctic Village. “If we allow oil companies to drill and develop in the Arctic Refuge, we will lose the birthing grounds for the Porcupine Caribou Herd that the Gwich’in people depend on for our culture, sustenance and way of life.”

6. This benign-sounding proposal, the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act (H.R. 2834) -- sponsored by Dan Benishek (R-MI) -- would more appropriately be titled the Motorize Our Wilderness Areas Act, as it contains a “Trojan Horse” provision which would potentially allow motorized access to tens of millions of acres of designated National Forest and BLM Wilderness Areas. Because much of America's highest quality hunting and fishing occurs within Wilderness Areas -- the very reason that they are off-limits to motorized use -- this bill would ironically undercut the very values for sportsmen its sponsors claim to have in mind.

“The travel, tourism and outdoor industries are working hard to ensure that Montana is protected so that we may continue to share this wonderful landscape with others. Adding roads and unmanaged development would change everything,” added Bynum. “Due to its ambiguity, the Motorize Our Wilderness Areas Act would create a quagmire of legal challenges that in all likelihood would last for decades.”

To view the report, interactive map and state-by-state impacts please visit: http://wilderness.org/content/wilderness-under-siege

Obama makes the right decision, blocks the Keystone XL pipeline

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:58:45 +0000

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The Obama administration’s decision to turn down the controversial Keystone XL pipeline is the right decision according to The Wilderness Society senior director for legislative affairs David Moulton.

“Today President Obama made the right choice and put America first, ahead of oil industry profits. He preserved a fact-based assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline from being overrun by politics and the special interest pleas of the polluters. The administration is correctly following the science, acknowledging that the full effects of the Keystone XL pipeline cannot be determined by the arbitrary deadline set by House Republicans, and thus, the pipeline was rightly denied.

“The Keystone XL pipeline is a global warming accelerant that will turn an already dangerous situation into a disaster. It is a threat to the American heartland as 1700 miles of pipe carry toxic tar-based crude across some of our most important drinking water supplies so that the TransCanada oil interests can get world oil prices on the export market. This is not a pipeline To America – it is a pipeline THROUGH America.

“A radical majority in the Congress continues to want to jam this project down the public’s throat because the main course is so unappetizing when looked at on the plate. It is an earmark, plain and simple – an attempt to achieve politically what cannot be justified on the merits.”

Natural Gas from Federal Lands Hits Reported Record High

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:37:20 +0000

Industry sitting on millions of unused acres, thousands of unused leases despite PR campaign

Recently released data from the Bureau of Land Management undercuts the oil and gas industry’s public relations campaign urging for more drilling and less safeguards on public lands. The data from the BLM shows a reported record amount of natural gas production, millions of acres held by leases that are not being produced, and thousands of unused drilling permits - dispelling the notion that America must leave more of its public lands open to drilling.

“Unfortunately for the oil and gas industry’s hundred-million-dollar PR blitz, the facts tell a different story,” said Dave Alberswerth, senior energy policy advisor for The Wilderness Society.

“We’ve seen reported record production of natural gas and billions of dollars in profits for the oil and gas industry, and at the same time we’re seeing unused drilling permits all across the West and tens of millions of acres of unused federal leases. How can the industry say they’re being locked out in the face of this new information?”

The BLM’s 2011 Oil & Gas Statistics report shows a record high amount of natural gas extracted from federal leases, over 5.3 million MCF – nearly double the highest total ever recorded by the BLM since they began keeping records in 1984. The agency’s records show an increase in leasing of federal acres – up to more than 2 million acres in fiscal year (FY) 2011, from less than 1.4 million acres in FY 2010. The number of leases also increased, to 2,188 in FY 2011 from 1,308 in FY 2010.

Further, oil and gas companies still have a large number of unused drilling permits – the “green light” to start a well. In June of 2010 BLM reported more than 7,000 approved but unused federal drilling permits – the data released today shows that the industry continues to acquire permits they are not using. In FY 2010, 1,400 wells were drilled despite more than 4,000 drilling permits issued– in FY 2011 that number went to 3,260 wells drilled while 4,244 were issued.

“The bottom line is that the industry is making billions of dollars and has enough leases and permits to produce record amounts of natural gas from our federal lands. They are sitting on tens of millions of acres of unused federal leases and thousands of unused federal drilling permits. We can continue to permit oil and gas development in a responsible manner that also safeguards our wild places,” said Nada Culver, senior director of agency policy.

Resources:
BLM Oil & Gas Statistics:
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/newsroom/Energy_Facts_07/statistics.html

The Wilderness Society joins nation in mourning slain Mt. Rainier Park Ranger

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:14:29 +0000

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The following statement from The Wilderness Society President William H. Meadows is in response to the death of Mt. Rainier National Park Ranger Margaret Anderson.

“The Wilderness Society joins Americans in Washington State and across the nation in mourning the death of Mount Rainier National Park Ranger Margaret Anderson. Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and the co-workers and volunteers at Mount Rainier who worked alongside her. Her life and work are a testament of the tremendous commitment of so many Americans who work every day to protect our wild places.”

Sonoran Solar project approval means much needed clean energy can help power Arizona homes

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:19:35 +0000

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Details of the Department of Interior’s progress on renewable energy and the approval of a key renewable energy project in Arizona were announced today by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The Record of Decision for the Sonoran Solar application in Arizona provides approval by the Bureau of Land Management for the proposed project, the first on public lands in Arizona, which could provide enough clean power for nearly 90,000 homes in the Phoenix region. This decision marks the end of a year where utility scale renewable energy has gained significant traction.

“At a time when some in Congress have turned their backs on renewable energy, it is important for the public to know that clean energy is working in America,” said Chase Huntley, Director of Renewable Energy Policy at The Wilderness Society. “What the leadership and staff at the Department of the Interior have accomplished towards meeting Congressional targets for renewable energy from our nation’s lands and waters is a paradigm shift. In approving more renewable energy than any administration in history, they have succeeded where others have failed. And, most importantly, they’ve done so clearly understanding that we do not have to choose between renewable energy and our irreplaceable natural heritage.”

The Sonoran Solar Project does not conflict with proposed wilderness areas and has limited impacts to wildlife habitat. The project would also be sited near 500 kV transmission lines and a nearby substation, meaning that less infrastructure will need to be developed from the ground up. The PV technology chosen by the company also drastically reduces water use and land requirements and significantly reduces impacts to wildlife habitat, wildlife movement corridors and washes and floodplains.

“We are excited to see the Sonoran Solar project proposal moving forward with greatly reduced impacts due to the decreased size and water use of the new photovoltaic alternative,” said John Shepard, Senior Advisor with the Sonoran Institute. “ With BLM approval in hand, we also hope to see NextEra acquire the additional agreements it needs to get this project built and producing clean energy in a timely manner.”

Today’s announcement amplifies the need for Congress to take action to ensure that the solar industry continues to benefit from programs established to help ensure stable financing and support to see utility scale renewables come to fruition.

“The true measure of success will be projects built, not permits issued—and for that, Congress needs to extend critical tax incentives including the Treasury Grant Program and the Production Tax Credit in any final tax deal,” said Huntley. “But, in permitting these projects and promoting responsible zone-based development of the public lands, the Interior Department is blazing a trail that will pay dividends for years to come.”

XL-sized poison pill puts Canadian oil agenda ahead of American working families

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:34:05 +0000

Statement from The Wilderness Society Senior Director of Legislative Policy David Moulton on the House proposal to tie a payroll tax cut extension to the Keystone XL pipeline.

“The decision by the House majority to combine the must pass payroll tax cut extension with a potpourri of failed legislation is a remarkable example of tin-ear legislating. The House of Representatives is jeopardizing the payroll tax cut extension for 160 million working Americans in order to make a holiday wish come true for a Canadian oil pipeline company.

“Rather than making America less dependent on foreign oil and lowering energy prices for American consumers, the Keystone XL would threaten American lands and waters, just to sell the final product to markets overseas. TransCanada is already selling tar sands oil to the Midwest, but is apparently not satisfied with the prices there, and has included overseas sales in its business plan for the Keystone XL oil.

“Moreover, TransCanada is part of the fossil fuel chorus that has convinced the Canadian government to pull out of the climate agreement so that it can keep polluting. Apparently the US House majority so agrees with Canada’s dirty energy agenda that it is willing to put at risk America’s public health and payroll tax cut simultaneously. Is it any wonder that the American public is holding Congress at lower approval ratings than car salesmen? There seems to be no end to the games played on behalf of special interests at the expense of everyone else. Congress should work for the American people and stop playing political games with our environment.”

Republicans’ “Drilling for Highways” initiative doesn’t add up

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:12:40 +0000

The latest proposal by Speaker Boehner, Chairman Hastings, and Chairman Mica to promote oil and gas drilling revenues to repair our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges doesn’t add up.

“The Republican plan for filling the rather large pothole in the Highway Trust Fund is the same plan that they have for everything: ‘Drill, baby, drill,’” said Dave Alberswerth, senior energy policy adviser for The Wilderness Society.

Drilling sensitive areas of America’s coasts, in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and mining western oil shale deposits, will not fix the sizable gap in the Highway Trust Fund, according to The Wilderness Society. The three bills in the proposal are scheduled to be debated in the Energy and Minerals Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee on Friday, November 18th, and are expected to be the roadmap for the Republican Leadership’s new “jobs agenda.”

“Their numbers don’t add up – the amount that they might get from new OCS revenues couldn’t build an on-ramp, much less a highway, and by the time oil shale development generates any revenue, we’ll all be using Star Trek teleportation machines,” said Alberswerth.

Some of the questions that the “drilling for highways” plan raises include:

Currently, most of the revenue from offshore drilling goes to the US Treasury. Won’t diverting these revenues to the Highway Trust Fund add to our budget deficit woes?
The Highway Trust Fund currently has a funding gap of $12 billion over the next 2 years; drilling in the new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf proposed by the Speaker’s plan will only add about $10 million per year, according to a CBO report on the Republican’s OCS drilling proposal, and the other proposals would take years, if not decades to show any revenue. Realistically, how would the Speaker’s plan close that gap?
The $730 billion outdoor recreation economy depends on lands like those protected by the LWCF. If the OCS royalties that are currently funding the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund are stripped to add to the Highway Trust Fund? If so, how will the losses to the outdoor recreation economy be offset?
How would external costs such as coastal degradation and other environmental costs be offset? Would royalty rates on offshore drilling be raised to make up for the lost funding for the LWCF and other environmental programs?

“This is just another initiative to further pad the oil and gas industry’s profits, and at the expense of our oceans and coastal areas. We won’t be able to improve our highway transportation system or fill the Highway Trust Fund with the monies falsely promised by the Speaker’s proposals, but the oil and gas is certainly looking forward to more record-breaking profits from the favors this proposal does for them,” said Alberswerth.

Deceptive Hunting Bill Heads to Committee Threatening Tens of Millions of Acres of Protected Wilderness

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0000

The Wilderness Society urges anti-wilderness provisions struck before passage

The Wilderness Society strongly urged the House Natural Resources Committee today to remove two provisions buried in H.R. 2834, the “Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act” before it is passed out of committee. The provisions would eviscerate the Wilderness Act of 1964 and provide an exemption from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

While the bill’s stated intention is to provide for continued recreational hunting and fishing opportunities on our federal public lands, Section 4(e) would allow activities that are incompatible in Wilderness -- such as motorized access, road construction, and even logging -- that would destroy the pristine characteristics of designated Wilderness Areas. Additionally, the bill would provide a complete exemption from NEPA.

“The title of the bill may misguide members of the committee into ignoring the devastating consequences for Wilderness protection that one section of the measure poses,” said Dave Alberswerth, senior policy advisor at The Wilderness Society. “If passed with that language intact, the bill will ruin quality hunting and fishing experiences in our nation’s Wilderness Areas and hurt local economies that depend on outdoor recreation.”

In a letter to the House Natural Resources Committee, The Wilderness Society’s vice president for public policy, Melanie Beller, stated:

The Wilderness Society strongly supports recreational hunting and fishing on our public lands and national forests. But though the expressed purpose of H.R. 2834 is to facilitate opportunities for hunting and fishing on these lands, the two objectionable provisions mentioned above would eviscerate protections afforded to tens of millions of acres of Congressionally designated Wilderness Areas that currently offer some or our nation’s highest quality angling and hunting opportunities, and waive a bedrock environmental law that should continue to apply to decisions made by federal land managers under the proposal.

To view The Wilderness Society’s statement for the record, please visit: http://wilderness.org/files/TWS-letter-HR-2834.pdf

While the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act contains language that would eviscerate the Wilderness Act itself, the House Natural Resources Committee is considering other dangerous legislation. The Great Outdoors Giveaway, introduced by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would further erode protection of wilderness-quality Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands and roadless National Forests. Additionally, Rep. Rob Bishop’s (R-UT) National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would yield control of all public lands -- including National Parks, National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, and BLM lands -- within 100 miles of American land borders to the Department of Homeland Security. Seven other House bills would eviscerate the President’s authority to designate new National Monuments granted under the Antiquities Act, a law established by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

"Securing America’s Future and Environment" bill will help create jobs and protect communities

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:16:07 +0000

Today, Senators Max Baucus (Mont.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) renewed the urgent call to protect American communities, lands, and waters from the effects of climate change by introducing Securing America’s Future and Environment (SAFE) Act. The Wilderness Society applauds the introduction of the bill, and issued the following statement.

“The SAFE Act is a vital step in protecting American communities from the unavoidable effects of climate change. The health of our communities is directly dependent upon the health of our public lands, and protecting our natural resources also puts boots on the ground and Americans back to work” said The Wilderness Society President William H. Meadows.

Climate Policy Advisor JP Leous echoed this sentiment, saying “Protecting our natural resources in the face of climate change is a win-win proposition. In a sea of climate inaction, the SAFE Act is a beacon of hope for protecting our economy and our environment.”

Climate adaptation work is a strong economic driver. Investing $1 million in adaptation and restoration can create more than 25 full-time jobs and produce more than $2.1 million in economic benefits, according to a study from the University of Oregon. These projects also help protect and restore vital watersheds and wildlife habitat that support the $730 billion outdoor recreation economy and the clean air and water that cities and communities across the country depend upon.

“Preparing natural resources for climate change – through activities including forest restoration and watershed rehabilitation, coastal reconstruction, and proactive land management – helps keep communities prepared and protected from some of the more extreme effects of climate change,” said Leous. “Massive floods, crippling droughts, and extreme storm events will increase as the climate continues to change, and by preemptively working to safeguard the natural resources that provide our food and water we can ensure that these critical resources are safe—while creating and protecting American jobs.”

The Wilderness Society Statement on Keystone XL Delay

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:25:05 +0000

The following statement from David Moulton, director of climate policy for The Wilderness Society, is in response to the Obama administration delaying action on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

“The Wilderness Society welcomes the Administration’s decision to slow down the Keystone XL pipeline juggernaut long enough to address the looming catastrophe of climate change. While the focus of the State Department’s decision to “seek additional information” involved the impact of the route through Nebraska, the statement specifically provided that “among the relevant issues that would be considered are environmental concerns (including climate change), energy security, economic impacts, and foreign policy.

“Last week, the Department of Energy announced that in 2010 we saw the largest ever recorded year-to-year jump in the emissions of harmful carbon pollution. This rate is above the worst case projections made by the Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when it issued its last large report on global warming in 2007. At the time it forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees.

“Climate change is hurtling at planet earth like an asteroid. We can see it coming, and we know it is going to be a disaster when it hits. But with climate change, unlike asteroids, the world knows how to take evasive action – by reducing the burning of fossil fuels and increasing the use of clean renewable energy. Keystone XL takes us in the wrong direction and would impose an environmental insult on our planet from which our children may never recover.

“Yesterday Australia, a country highly dependent on coal and with some of the highest per capital emissions of any developed country, voted both to cap its emissions and tax carbon. Today the White House announced that Keystone XL will not receive any early approval. The climate asteroid is still moving towards us very fast, but at least some people in power are beginning to think about how to avoid it.”

Wilderness bills pass out of Senate committee with bipartisan support

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0000

The Wilderness Society urges Congress to pass key wilderness legislation

The Wilderness Society today praised the passage of six wilderness bills out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The bills being considered today demonstrate that wilderness protection continues to receive broad support from the American people in addition to Democrats and Republicans in Congress. This welcomed Senate activity stands in stark contrast to the barrage of anti-conservation measures that have been introduced this year, primarily in the House. The bills now wait for passage on the Senate floor.

“The fact that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee took up these bills signals that support for wilderness is strong in both chambers,” said Paul Spitler, senior regional conservation representative at The Wilderness Society. “These are the wilderness efforts that deserve support in Congress, not radical legislation that aims to give away our great outdoors. We hope the measures considered today become law this Congress.”

The bills also speak to the economic benefits that wilderness can bring to rural communities through jobs, real estate value and tourism. A recent report by The Wilderness Society found that wilderness designation benefits local economies through long-term, sustainable jobs in outdoor recreation, restoration, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The wilderness designation bills under consideration supported by The Wilderness Society include:

• The Alpine Lakes Wilderness Additions and the Pratt and Middle Fork Snoqualmie Rivers Protection Act (S. 322) -- introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) -- would protect an additional 22,000 acres of wilderness adjoining the existing Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area, and would designate nearly 30 miles of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and 10 miles of the Pratt River as Wild and Scenic Rivers.

• El Rio Grande Del Norte National Conservation Area Establishment Act (S. 667) -- introduced by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) -- would protect 24,000 acres of wilderness and 235,000 acres as a National Conservation Area.

• The Devil’s Staircase Wilderness Act of 2011 (S. 766) -- introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) -- would protect 29,650 acres of wilderness within Oregon’s coastal rainforest and roughly 19 miles of Wild and Scenic River.

• The Oregon Caves Revitalization Act of 2011 -- introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) --would expand the Oregon Caves National Monument.

• Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Conservation and Recreation Act (S. 140) -- introduced by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) -- would protect 32,557 acres of wilderness located on Lake Michigan.

• The Tennessee Wilderness Act of 2011 -- introduced by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) -- would permanently protect 20,500 acres of wilderness in Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest.

To see a full list of wilderness bills pending in the 112th Congress, please visit: http://wilderness.org/content/112th-congress-and-wildlands

Obama Administration following Bush’s lead too closely in the Arctic Ocean

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:20:21 +0000

The following statement from The Wilderness Society President William H. Meadows is in response to the Department of Interior’s 2012-2017 offshore leasing plan, which includes leases in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas of the Arctic Ocean.

“It is disappointing that the Obama administration has chosen to follow in the footsteps of the Bush administration when it comes to drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Today’s announced lease sale plan continues to take America down the road of putting big oil first, threatening our few remaining pristine areas with drilling and spilling. The Arctic Ocean is also critically important to Native communities that depend on the waters to feed their communities and as part of their cultural heritage.

“In planning to sell more leases in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, the administration continues to ignore glaring problems with any Arctic Ocean drilling plan. There is no proven way to clean up an oil spill in icy Arctic waters, and even if there was, there is still vastly insufficient response capacity and Arctic onshore infrastructure to do so. Furthermore, there still has not been adequate scientific research done on the Arctic marine ecosystem, so the administration is literally flying blind into this new leasing plan.

“It is too soon for the administration to say that they will have the necessary science, the proven spill-response techniques, and the needed response capacity and onshore infrastructure by the time of their proposed Arctic Ocean lease sales. Rather than putting the cart before the horse, they need to call a timeout on Arctic Ocean leasing and do the needed research and testing of spill-response technology first.”

Report: New National Forest Program a Success

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:17:34 +0000

First Year of CFLRP Reveals Big Forest, Jobs, Water and Wildlife Benefits; More Investment Needed So More Communities Can Benefit

NOVEMBER 7, 2011 (Arlington, Virginia) — A national report released today on first-year results of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) revealed impressive returns for forests, jobs, water, and wildlife. In 2010 the federal program split $10 million among ten projects on National Forests throughout the country.

As identified in the report, one year the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program:

Created and maintained 1,550 jobs;
Produced 107 million board feet of timber;
Generated nearly $59 million of labor income;
Removed fuel for destructive mega-fires on 90,000 acres near communities;
Reduced mega-fire on an additional 64,000 acres;
Improved 66,000 acres of wildlife habitat;
Restored 28 miles of fish habitat;
Enhanced clean water supplies by remediating 163 miles of eroding roads.

The results of the report were heralded by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), original co-sponsor of the Act in 2009.

“The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program is bringing communities from around the country together to create jobs, to restore forest and watershed health, and to reduce the costs of wildfire suppression at impressive scales,” offered Senator Bingaman. “The program and its many supporters are charting a successful path forward for National Forest management.”

CFLRP is also a political success in that it has won bipartisan support in Washington— both the Senate and House budgets for 2012 have proposed funding CFLRP at the $30 million level. Senator Bingaman, along with Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Jim Risch (R-ID), is currently circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter supporting an increase to $40 million to allow more landscapes to participate.

Observers say the program is bucking the larger downward funding trend because restoration of National Forests is the new ‘zone of agreement’ where traditional adversaries in the timber industry, conservation, and local county governments are working to advance common goals. This new cooperative attitude links forest jobs to forest health and has emboldened key Western Congressional representatives to cross party lines and support it.

However, without additional support the benefits of CFLRP will be limited to the existing 10 sites; when 26 more sites around the country applied for the program in 2011.

National and local partners also heralded the report, and the benefits of American forests provide the nation.

“Besides the pleasure forests give us on a personal level,” offered Laura McCarthy of The Nature Conservancy, “they also cover one-third of the United States; store and filter half the nation’s water supply; provide jobs to more than a million wood products workers; absorb nearly 20% of U.S. carbon emissions; offer 650 million acres of recreational lands that generate well over $15 billion in economic activity annually; and provide habitat for thousands of species across the country.”

“This is an outstanding program because it simultaneously helps forests, water, and jobs,” said Kelsey Delaney of the Society of American Forests. “Sometimes a healthy environment is falsely framed against a strong economy— CFLRP is proof that isn’t the case. It’s a win-win-win across the board for our nation.”

“CFLRP projects are cost efficient, mostly because of their long time frame and larger scale,” added Scott Brennan of The Wilderness Society. “Selected projects are assured 10 years of funding as long as appropriations are available, which provided certainty for businesses their banks and other investors, time for workers to be trained and become skilled, and for product markets to be developed and expanded.

“This program is a new, bipartisan approach with a broad base of support,” said Rebecca Turner of American Forests.

Maia Enzer of Sustainable Northwest said, “CFLRP is about boots on the ground, creating jobs in rural communities. Now is the time to invest in rural communities and restore the health of our National Forests. CFLRP does exactly that.”

The ten CFLRP sites in 2010 were:
1. Four Forest Restoration Initiative, Arizona, $2 million
2. Dinkey Landscape Restoration Project, California, $829,900
3. Front Range Landscape Restoration Initiative, Colorado, $1 million
4. Uncompahgre Plateau, Colorado, $446,000
5. Accelerating Longleaf Pine Restoration, Florida, $1.17 million
6. Selway-Middle Fork Clearwater, Idaho, $1 million
7. Southwestern Crown of the Continent, Montana, $1.03 million
8. Southwest Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, $392,000
9. Deschutes Collaborative Forest, Oregon, $500,000
10. Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative, Washington, $1.63 million

CFLRP is especially needed now. A century of suppressing natural wildfires has resulted in unhealthy forests choked with small trees and brush that can lead to destructive mega-fires. Over the last 50 years the United States has only had 5 years with more than 8 million acres burned—all of them are in the last 7 years (including 2011).

Pests and pathogens are decimating wild, managed, and urban forests nationwide. Bark beetles alone have killed a New Jersey-sized swath of trees.

A legacy of poorly planned logging roads, sprawling development, and a changing climate with extensive droughts is further knocking forests off-balance.

The Nature Conservancy estimates 120 million acres of America’s forests – an area bigger than the state of California – are in immediate need of restoration due to this “perfect storm” of threats.

The CFLRP annual report was produced by the CFLRP Coalition, which is comprised of 144 member organizations that includes private businesses, communities, counties, tribes, water suppliers, associations, and non-governmental organizations.

Copies of the 2010 CFLRP Annual Report can be requested from Jon Schwedler of the CFLRP Coalition at jschwedler@tnc.org

The Wilderness Society Statement on Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act of 2011

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:34:56 +0000

Statement from Chase Huntley, Renewable Energy Policy Director for The Wilderness Society on introduction of S. 1775, Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act of 2011:

“Today’s introduction of the Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act of 2011 shows we can advance clean energy and protect our great outdoors at the same time. By making vital investments in local communities, future permitting, and natural resource conservation, the bill makes a bold commitment to affected communities. The bill strikes a good balance between the renewable energy we need and the places we love. ”

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Thank you letter--Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act of 2011 FINAL.pdf	33.82 KB

Interior’s New Solar Plan Aims to Build a Balanced Solar Energy Program

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:09:22 +0000

A strong solar program with designated areas for solar development can enhance success of solar projects going forward

WASHINGTON, DC (October 27, 2011) – U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today released a plan to develop a comprehensive and environmentally responsible roadmap for solar development on public lands in the West, which national environmental groups, leading solar industry organizations and utility companies agree is urgently needed. The supplemental draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for solar is the most recent effort by the Obama administration to guide development to appropriate areas on public lands to achieve a successful solar energy program while also minimizing potential impacts to wildlife and sensitive lands.

The supplemental draft PEIS is the result of months of work by the Obama administration to address the concerns and recommendations submitted by the conservation community, solar energy industry groups and utilities, and in more than 80,000 comments from people and organizations across the nation earlier this year. Based on a briefing from Interior the supplemental appears to include a number of modifications that could improve the process for siting large-scale solar projects on public lands, laying the foundation for a durable, successful solar energy program. All stakeholders will engage in an intensive review of the document and provide comment during the 90 day period.

The consensus on the recommendations reached by solar industry groups, utilities and environmental organizations, comprise a balanced package intended equally to reflect the needs of the emerging solar industry and the mandate to conserve our nation’s precious natural resources. The recommendations also reflect a significant new area of common ground that stakeholders hope would enable the Obama administration to identify a successful path toward achieving the nation’s renewable energy goals in an environmentally responsible fashion.

Following are statement from leaders of the conservation groups, solar organizations, utility and transmission companies:

“Identifying areas of environmental concern at the outset of the makes good business sense. By streamlining the process and providing additional project certainty, it clears the way for smart solar power development on public lands,” said Jim Baak, director of utility-scale solar policy at Vote Solar. “Although I can't comment on the specifics of the PEIS draft at this early stage, the DOI has clearly prioritized these goals as part of its process. In doing so the Department has taken an important step in aligning our nation's conservation and development interests so together we can build a strong new energy economy.”

“As one of the major buyers of renewable energy -- especially solar power -- in the country, PG&E supports this process which will provide more certainty around project development on the front end, by helping to streamline siting, permitting and other potential challenges,” said Fong Wan, senior vice president for energy procurement for Pacific Gas and Electric Company. “It is steps like these that will help increase the likelihood of successful projects, propelling the country toward our shared renewable energy goals and clean energy future.”

“Industry and conservation groups have supported the Department of Interior’s efforts to make the solar energy program a success,” said V. John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies. “We remain committed to working together to resolve differences and help the Department improve its proposed program so that it provides a lasting framework that will yield benefits to our nation and meets our shared goals for clean energy while protecting our critical natural resources.”

“California’s renewable energy and climate change goals are among the most ambitious in the nation. In support of these goals, Southern California Edison (SCE) procures more energy from renewable resources than any other utility in the U.S. Despite aggressive procurement, challenges to meeting the state’s renewable energy goals remain,” said Nino Mascolo, manager of real properties and government lands for Southern California Edison. “These challenges include permitting and siting transmission infrastructure interconnecting with renewable energy projects, which Solar PEIS seeks to address. SCE supports the administration’s efforts to streamline the approval of solar energy project applications, and the necessary transmission system infrastructure to support such generation, to facilitate environmentally responsible utility-scale solar energy development in a timely fashion.”

“Designing a solar program that balances the nation’s need for increasing solar production from the public lands and the need to protect the publicly owned resources of those lands is a tall order, but one that must be met so that the solar industry can succeed and our nation can transition faster to a clean energy economy,” said Johanna Wald, director of the western renewable energy project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The major elements of the policy framework released today by the Interior Department – a preference for zones, a process for adding new zones, and a variance process for projects process that will allow well designed projects outside of zones – appear to achieve that balance, and I look forward to working with Interior, partner environmental groups, the solar industry and utilities to develop a strong and comprehensive final program.”

“Clean Line Energy Partners supports the Interior Department’s coordinated effort to designate solar energy zones promoting development,” said Jimmy Glotfelty, executive vice president, Clean Line Energy Partners. “The zones will allow transmission planners to focus on their efforts strategically on preferred areas, including corridors and already disturbed lands.”

“There’s enough room on our nation’s public lands both to produce renewable energy and conserve our wildlife heritage if we are “smart from the start” in planning our clean energy future,” said Jim Lyons, senior director for renewable energy with Defenders of Wildlife. “We’re looking for the Obama administration’s solar energy program to guide projects to places where the chance of conflicts with wildlife, wild lands and sensitive natural resources can be avoided altogether or are minimal and can be effectively mitigated, and where transmission will get power to where it is needed. The benefits of guided development are clear: Clean energy can come online faster and at a lower cost to developers and to our nation’s wildlife and treasured places. Solar developers, their investors, utilities and conservationists want greater certainty that good projects can get built without delay. We remain optimistic that this new guidance will provide the certainty that we all seek.”

“The West is leading the way in building a sustainable solar industry through our renewable energy portfolios standards, transmission planning and project siting to accelerate clean energy production while preserving the water, wildlife and wildlands that define our western way of life,” said Pam Eaton, deputy vice president for public lands at The Wilderness Society. “For our public lands, that means putting in place a solar program that provides appropriate land for solar development and guides that development and transmission to zones with great solar resources that do not contain critical wildlife habitat, wilderness quality lands or sensitive cultural resources. The Secretary, with the solar industry, conservationists, and others committed to combating climate change and protecting western wildlands, is laying the foundation for that program.”

“By focusing on zones where projects have the greatest chance for success, the federal government can ensure that good projects move forward more quickly and that our most critical areas of important wildlife habitat are protected,” said Michael Powelson, director of energy programs in the North America region for The Nature Conservancy. “We will continue to work with the Department to adopt a framework for mitigation that supports conservation actions on both private and public lands, which is crucial for the protection of wildlife corridors and intact arid ecosystems.”

“With today’s announcement, Secretary Salazar has taken an important step forward in moving the BLM towards a ‘Smart from the Start’ solar development program,” said the Barbara Boyle, senior representative at the Sierra Club. “A ‘Smart from the Start’ program will establish clear criteria for planning, designing and siting solar projects in areas with high energy potential and few environmental conflicts.”

This is a joint release by The Wilderness Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife and Sierra Club.

Exporting America’s Heritage - New report shows increasing amount of domestic fossil fuels going overseas

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:41:05 +0000

An increasing amount of domestically produced fossil fuels are being exported for use overseas, rather than staying in the United States, according to a new report from The Wilderness Society. The report, released during a week when oil companies are announcing huge profits, calls on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction or “supercommittee” to end the billions in subsidies the oil and gas industry gets from U.S. taxpayers every year.

“Despite calls for “energy independence” from Congress and the campaign trail, it is clear that the oil and gas industry is more concerned with profits,” said Dave Alberswerth, senior policy advisor for The Wilderness Society. “While American families are struggling to make ends meet, these companies are enjoying multi-billion dollar profits every quarter by shipping American energy resources overseas.”

The report shows that over 150 million barrels of gasoline are actually exported from the U.S. every year, despite high gas prices domestically. Coal companies also exported more than 26 million short tons of coal to overseas markets in just the first quarter of 2011.

As calls continue for increased domestic drilling, more opportunities for exporting American energy resources are becoming available. The Department of Energy has already approved two new liquefied natural gas terminals to further increase exports overseas.

The report calls for more emphasis on energy sources that cannot be exported: renewable energy sources like wind and solar. In addition, the report also calls for increased energy efficiency measures that both cut down on consumer utility bills but also promote job growth.

Read the report: http://wilderness.org/content/exporting-americas-heritage

Hearing on wilderness bills underscores bipartisan support

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Committee holds first wilderness hearing in the 112th Congress

The Wilderness Society today welcomed the first hearing that the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands has held on legislation to designate new wilderness during the 112th Congress. The bills being considered today demonstrate that wilderness protection continues to receive broad support from the American people as well as both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. The hearing stands in stark contrast to the barrage of anti-conservation measures that have been introduced this year.

The bills also speak to the economic benefits that wilderness can bring to rural communities. Additionally, a recent report by The Wilderness Society found that wilderness designation benefits local economies through long-term, sustainable jobs in outdoor recreation, restoration, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

“These bills are literarily a breath of fresh air for the House Natural Resources Committee and the diverse communities that support these wilderness protection measures,” said Paul Spitler, National Wilderness Campaigns Associate Director at The Wilderness Society. “Recently we’ve seen too many efforts to give away our great outdoors, and this hearing is an opportunity to get back to protecting our wild places. We hope the committee will get to work on passing these measures as soon as possible.”

The wilderness designation bills under consideration supported by The Wilderness Society include:

• The Alpine Lakes Wilderness Additions and the Pratt and Middle Fork Snoqualmie Rivers Protection Act (H.R. 608) -- introduced by Rep. Dave Reichert (R, WA-8) -- would protect an additional 22,000 acres of wilderness adjoining the existing Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area and would designate nearly 30 miles of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and 10 miles of the Pratt River as Wild and Scenic Rivers.

• The Devil’s Staircase Wilderness Act of 2011 (H.R. 1413) -- introduced by Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D, OR-4) -- would protect 29,650 acres of wilderness within Oregon’s coastal rainforest and roughly 19 miles of Wild and Scenic River.

• The Cibola National Forest Boundary Expansion Legislation (H.R. 490) -- introduced by Rep. Martin Heinrich (D, NM-1) -- adds 896 acres to the Manzano Mountain Wilderness and will protect a critical wildlife corridor through the Sandia and Manzano Mountains.

• The Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests Protection Act (H.R. 113) -- introduced by Rep. David Dreier (R, CA-26) -- would protect an additional 18,000 acres of public lands in the San Gabriel Mountains as wilderness.

• The Beauty Mountain Agua Tibia Wilderness Act of 2011 (H.R. 41) -- introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R, CA-49) -- would protect 21,000 acres of exceptional rock formations, steep canyons and chaparral and oak woodlands in San Diego County.

• Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Conservation and Recreation Act (H.R. 977) -- introduced by Rep. Bill Huizenga (R, MI-2) -- would protect 32,557 acres of wilderness located on Lake Michigan.

To see a full list of wilderness bills pending in the 112th Congress, please visit: http://wilderness.org/content/112th-congress-and-wildlands

Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals protects 49 million acres of national forests

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:42:18 +0000

Conservationists hail end to decade-long legal battle over Roadless Area Conservation Rule

America’s national forests are breathing a collective sigh of relief today after the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that permanently protects some 49 million acres of forests covered by the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The ruling should put an end to a decade-long legal battle waged by the timber industry, Bush administration and the states of Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming.

“The win in the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals is a great victory that validates the massive support of millions of Americans for protecting roadless forests and removes the clouds of legal uncertainty from this issue,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “This is a day for celebration for everyone who cherishes our roadless forests for their scenic beauty, clean water supplies, recreational opportunities and wildlife habitat.”

A study by the Forest Service shows that recreation activities on national forests and grasslands have helped to sustain an estimated 223,000 jobs in rural areas and contributed approximately $14.5 billion annually to the U.S. economy. National forests also play a vital role in protecting supplies of clean drinking water -- holding the headwaters that provide drinking water to millions of people across the country. In addition, roadless forests preserve high-quality habitat for many kinds of fish and wildlife.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was adopted by the U.S. Forest Service on Jan. 12, 2001, after the most extensive public involvement in the history of federal rulemaking. The Roadless Rule generally prohibited road construction and timber cutting in 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, covering about 30 percent of the National Forest System. Since then, the rule has been the subject of numerous legal challenges and administrative attacks seeking to reverse it and open the lands up to unneeded timber production and other destructive activities.

Currently, the 2001 Roadless Rule is in effect nationwide except in Idaho, where different regulations apply. Thus, the Forest Service may not undertake activities that violate the Roadless Rule on 49 million out of the 58.5 million total acres of inventoried roadless areas. A lawsuit by The Wilderness Society and other conservation groups challenging the Idaho exemption is pending in a federal appeals court. The State of Alaska recently challenged the Roadless Rule in a lawsuit filed in the District of Columbia.

“The Tenth Circuit’s decision greatly helps to clarify and solidify the nationwide protections provided by the Roadless Rule,” said Mike Anderson, a senior resource analyst in The Wilderness Society’s Seattle office. “We still have a ways to go to restore protection for roadless areas in Idaho, which the Bush administration exempted from the rule. We will continue our efforts to ensure full protection of all roadless areas.”

Learn More:
Visit The Wilderness Society’s Web site to learn more about the history of the roadless rule. For a detailed chronology of the issue: http://wilderness.org/content/roadless-area-chronology. For a legal primer, visit: http://wilderness.org/content/legal-status-roadless-rule.

Message to deficit supercommittee: protect rural jobs

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:31:33 +0000

The Wilderness Society issues report about getting rural Americans back to work

The Wilderness Society today delivered a report to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that calls on Congress and the Obama administration to protect rural jobs by defending key programs that support public lands. Those programs include the establishment of a renewable energy program that guides development to areas offering high wind and solar potential, and programs that put Americans to work by saving energy.

Coming on the heels of major report released last week demonstrating that conservation, recreation and preservation generate more than $1 trillion a year for the U.S. economy, The Wilderness Society’s job priorities of renewable energy, restoration, and outdoor recreation mark a stark contrast to the chorus of “drill, baby, drill” coming from the oil and gas industry and their supporters in Congress.

“Rural communities have been hit especially hard by the recession, and our public lands offer critical jobs to Americans who need them in the outdoor recreation sector, as well as in helping to restore our forests and generate clean energy,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “No one in Congress should stand in the way of creating more jobs for rural Americans struggling to find work.”

The first phase of Congress’ work to reduce the deficit in August led to cuts to critical environmental programs. The deficit reduction committee must now use a more balanced approach while finding new cost savings. “Conservation related spending is only 1% of the federal budget,” said Alan Rowsome, Director of Conservation Funding at The Wilderness Society. “We can’t balance the budget cutting from these programs, and continuing to go after them will actually cost us money down the road.”

The Wilderness Society has targeted specific areas in the federal budget that the deficit reduction committee must protect and invest in to help get rural America back to work. Some examples include:

Supporting the establishment of a Smart from the Start renewable energy program at DOI that guides development to areas that offer high wind and solar potential with little or no risk to ecologically and culturally important sites. Clean energy investments create 16.7 jobs for every $1 million in spending compared to just 5.3 jobs per $1 million for the fossil fuel industry.
Supporting programs that put Americans to work by saving energy, such as the Weatherization Assistance Program, stronger appliance and building energy standards, and financing for energy efficiency investments by homeowners, small businesses, schools and hospitals. National appliance and equipment efficiency standards created 340,000 jobs by 2010. By 2030 efficiency standards can save $68 billion in electricity costs and create 40,000 jobs. Energy efficiency in California alone has created some 1.5 million jobs with a payroll of $45 billion.
Investing in the restoration our forests. The process of restoring our forests moves our country away from an economy based on logging old-growth and roadless forests to one that’s based on restoring the health of our most important forests, rivers and streams. A $1 million restoration project can create and protect up to 29 jobs and contribute over $2.1 million in total economic activity. An investment of $2 million in 19 Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation projects in the State of Montana that generated approximately 35 new jobs, $1.8 million in new contracts, $2.49 million in increased demand for local businesses, and $650,000 in increased wages.
Investing in our booming outdoor recreation economy by backing full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). LWCF supports outdoor recreation, natural resource conservation, and historic preservation activities that contribute a minimum of $1.06 trillion annually to the economy, supports 9.4 million jobs that can’t be exported and generates over $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes. (Link to LWCF economic fact sheet) LWCF funds come not from taxpayer dollars, but from offshore oil and gas royalties, meaning that we can stimulate local jobs through a proven program without raising the deficit.

“As the ‘Supercommittee’ continues to look to ways to cut the deficit and grow the economy, these recommendations should guide them towards future economic growth for rural America, and continued protection and conservation of America’s natural heritage,” said Meadows.

The report was delivered to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction on October 18, 2011.

Read the report

Final Little Snake plan prioritizes drilling over wildlands and wildlife

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:04:48 +0000

Vermillion Basin protected, but wildlife habitat and Yampa River at risk

The Bureau of Land Management released a Final Resource Management Plan (RMP) and Record of Decision for the Little Snake region that shows a vast improvement from Bush Administration draft plans but continues to prioritize oil and gas development over all other uses. The clean air, outstanding wildlife habitat and free-flowing rivers in northwest Colorado will continue to face threats from oil and gas drilling in the final management plan released today.

“While we are pleased to see Vermillion Basin protected, we are dismayed that the plan still opens around 90% of the resource area to oil and gas drilling, leaving 10% for the myriad other uses of these amazing lands,” said Soren Jespersen, Northwest Colorado Wildlands Coordinator with The Wilderness Society in Craig, CO.

According to the plan, around 90% of land and minerals managed by the Little Snake Field Office will continue to be available for oil and gas drilling. In addition, less than 8% of the field office will be closed to off-road vehicle use. With some of North America’s largest elk and mule deer herds, Colorado’s largest populations of the imperiled greater sage-grouse, nearly 300,000 acres of proposed Wilderness, and the iconic Yampa River, the Little Snake Resource Area is an American treasure that will continue to face wildlife threats from increased drilling in the region.

“The draft plan—put out under the Bush administration—completely ignored the desires of the citizens of Northwest Colorado and Americans in general to have a public land management that balanced energy development with the protection of our clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitats,” said Jespersen. “The last administration set the bar so low, that although this final plan is a vast improvement, it still does not do enough to protect the amazingly unique natural resources of Northwest Colorado.”

This RMP is one of the first in the country to be finalized under the Obama Administration and does strive to protect many of the unique wilderness-quality lands in the area such as Vermillion Basin, Cold Springs Mountain, and Diamond Breaks. The plan also found that 22 miles of the Yampa River are suitable for inclusion in the federal Wild & Scenic Rivers system, good news to the thousands of visitors that come to the region every year to float or fish on this iconic western river.

“The Yampa River provides world-famous recreational opportunities in Dinosaur National Monument and Cross Mountain and provides critical habitat for endangered Colorado River fish species,” said Ken Brenner, Board President at Friends of the Yampa in Steamboat Springs. “We need to see the river recommended to Congress for permanent protection. Merely finding the river suitable—without actively recommending it to Congress—is not enough to protect the largest free-flowing river in the Colorado River system from its immediate threats, although it is an important recognition of the Yampa’s outstanding values.”

The BLM made an unprecedented effort to engage the public in this process, hear their desires and concerns and craft a plan that reflected them. However, the final decision makes it clear that oil and gas development is unfortunately still the priority.

”The BLM did an excellent job of reaching out to the public and soliciting input on how these public lands should be managed," said Sasha Nelson of the Colorado Environmental Coalition in Craig, CO. “And in Colorado the public resoundingly supports protecting the public lands that provide us with the clean air, pure drinking water, and wildlife habitats that make Colorado famous. Unfortunately, the BLM did not go far enough in answering Coloradoans desires to see these important lands protected.”

Recreation is also poised to be hurt by the BLM’s plan says Scott Braden of the Colorado Mountain Club. “Recreation—including hunting and fishing—is an important economic driver in Colorado and protected public lands and rivers are a pillar of this recreation. Each year these lands attract thousands of visitors who come to the region to hike and camp, raft and kayak, and who often stick around to start businesses and families. This plan does not do enough to protect these attractions.”

This is a joint release by The Wilderness Society, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Friends of the Yampa, and the Colorado Mountain Club.

Growing support for Interior Department’s zone-based approach to solar development is key component of Smart Solar report

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Anticipating a major announcement by the Department of Interior (DOI) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in late October, The Wilderness Society has released Smart Solar, a report that shows why there is great support for the Department’s commitment to focusing solar development in low-conflict “Solar Energy Zones” on public lands. As shown in Smart Solar, people from many walks of life—sportsmen, ranchers, regulators, members of Congress and others—endorse guiding solar development to areas with low environmental conflicts and high solar resources.

Smart Solar gives an armchair tour of the areas under consideration by the BLM. DOI and the BLM are expected to publish a Supplement to the Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement at the end of the month that would address some of the concerns and recommendations they received in tens of thousands of comments from people across the nation earlier this year.

“Smart Solar illustrates the critical thinking that has gone into BLM’s solar energy program across the west” said Alex Daue, Renewable Energy Associate at The Wilderness Society, and primary author of the report. “There is great value in the BLM developing a roadmap for the future, to create predictability for solar developers while working with local stakeholders to reduce conflict and avoid impacts to wilderness quality lands and key wildlife habitat.”

The backbone of the BLM’s solar program is the agency’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) scheduled for completion in 2012. The Draft PEIS, published in December 2010, elicited over 80,000 public comments, highlighting the importance of this effort and the great interest in putting in place a sustainable solar energy program for our public lands. The Supplement to the PEIS is expected to refine the current 24 proposed zones and create a process for identifying additional zones going forward. The BLM has said the solar program is likely to also include some kind of variance process that would allow consideration of appropriate sites outside of zones.

“There are certainly opportunities to improve BLM’s plan; Smart Solar lays out some ways to strengthen the program, and it can also help guide citizens to better engage in the public process for their public lands,” said Daue. “The PEIS is more than just a document – the decisions made through this process will provide a foundation for a smart solar energy program on our public lands for the next two decades. Smart Solar identifies very specific ways to do that well.”

In general, focusing solar development in low-conflict zones offers many benefits and can facilitate responsible development while minimizing impacts. Smart Solar addresses various issues in the states covered by BLM’s plan:

“Solar energy is vital to our energy future in the west,” said Daue. “We have terrific solar resources that can help us reduce the impact of electricity generation on our air, water, and climate. Without a focus on low-conflict zones, the amazing wildlife, vast wildlands and fascinating and precious archeological sites that make the west such a special place to live could be threatened. For example, 1.5 million acres of citizen-inventoried wilderness lands could be open to solar development if the BLM does not truly focus permitting and construction of solar projects in low-conflict zones. The BLM has committed to a zone-based solar energy program, and we will be working to ensure the final program reflects that commitment. With smart up-front planning, we'll have more power from renewable energy, get it to consumers sooner and at a lower cost, create thousands of new jobs, and provide a cleaner, healthier future for our children.”

To view Smart Solar in its entirety, visit: http://wilderness.org/content/smartsolar

To coordinate an interview with the supporters featured in Smart Solar please contact Alex Daue at (303) 650-5818 ext. 108.

New report: Conservation, recreation and preservation generate $1 trillion a year for U.S. economy

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:31:06 +0000

With the unemployment rate still over 9% in the third quarter Labor Department jobs report, study illustrates job growth potential.

WASHINGTON (Oct. 12, 2011) – Officials looking for cost effective ways to stimulate the economy should look no further than out their own window: That’s where the authors of a new economic study demonstrate that the great outdoors and historic preservation generate a conservative estimate of more than $1 trillion in total economic activity and support 9.4 million jobs each year.

“As a former Secretary of the Interior, governor, senator and mayor, I have witnessed firsthand how historic preservation, conservation and outdoor recreation result in tremendous benefits to our nation’s economy,” said Dirk Kempthorne. “This study is a valuable tool for reaffirming and quantifying those benefits.”

“Sportsmen put billions of dollars of their own money annually into conservation through the licenses they buy and the excise taxes that they pay on hunting and fishing equipment,” added Lindsay Thomas, a former U.S. Congressman and current chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. “This combined with the other taxes that are paid through activities associated with outdoor recreation and historic preservation, total over $100 billion annually contributed to state and federal coffers.”

Conducted by Southwick Associates, the study is packed with highlights including:

• In 2006, the total contribution from outdoor sports in the United States was nearly $730 billion a year, generating more than 6.4 million U.S. jobs and $99 billion in federal and state tax revenues. This includes hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing and other outdoor sports that include hiking, camping, skiing, paddle sports and bicycling.

• In 2006, the combined spending effect of hunting, fishing and wildlife watching associated with National Forest Service land totaled $9.5 billion in annual retail sales, supported 189,400 jobs and provided $1.01 billion in annual federal tax revenues.

• Every million dollars invested in residential historic rehabilitation generates approximately 36 jobs, $1.24 million in income and nearly $200,000 in state and local taxes.

• In 2010, 15 million visitors to Civil War battlefields managed by the National Park Service, in just five states (MO, PA, SC, TN, and VA), generated 7,700 jobs.

Commissioned by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), the study is being conducted as part of a larger ongoing effort by NFWF to determine the economics associated with natural resource conservation.

The study has commanded the attention of many, including America’s Voice for Conservation, Recreation and Preservation (AVCRP), a coalition of more than 770 organizations representing tens of millions of citizens with diverse political backgrounds who have united in support of conservation, recreation and preservation programs as a means to create jobs and improve the economy.

“Natural resource conservation and historic preservation programs provide hundreds of thousands of jobs and strong returns on public investments that primarily help rural communities and cannot be exported abroad,” said John L. Nau III, chairman emeritus of the Civil War Trust and co-chair of the AVCRP. “This country needs jobs that leverage private investment and conserve our precious natural resources and historic spaces.”

“The jobs that our public lands and cultural heritage create are jaw-dropping,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society and the AVCRP’s other co-chair. “This study is yet more evidence that investing in the environment is good for the fiscal health of our country.”

Press Contacts: Alan Rowsome (202) 429-2643, alan_rowsome@tws.org; Vaughn Collins (202) 639-8727 vcollins@trcp.org

America’s Great Outdoors report shows progress and potential

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Report highlights next steps in conservation

The Wilderness Society today welcomed the Obama administration’s America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) “2011 Progress Report” as a step forward in the unprecedented conservation initiative. The report catalogs the dozens of completed AGO-related projects, and highlights the agency plans moving forward in several areas critical to protecting wild lands, such as enhanced recreation opportunities; raising awareness of the value and benefits of our great outdoors; conserving and restoring our public lands and rural working lands through partnerships and incentives; and protecting and renewing rivers and other waters.

The report specifically outlines that agencies will work together to achieve landscape-scale conservation in Crown of the Continent in the northern Rockies and the northern forests of New England and New York, two critical wild land areas.

The “2011 Progress Report” is the next step in the 21st century conservation conversation with the American people that began with over 50 “listening sessions” across the United States last year. After a summer of traversing the country, the Obama administration released a report, and then met with the Governors of all 50 states to assess how to implement the ideas heard during the listening sessions. “2011 Progress Report” combines the feedback from the American people and elected officials nationwide.

“In a time when we are seeing our lands and waters facing unprecedented attacks, America’s Great Outdoors is a necessary reminder that Americans strongly support conservation,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “Now President Obama must give this progress report legs and act to protect the natural legacy the American people love.”
When crafting the America’s Great Outdoors report, The Wilderness Society and our supporters asked the Obama administration to implement the following policies:

• Protect our wilderness by designating new national monuments using the Antiquities Act
• Address conservation at a large scale
• Fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)
• Improve watersheds and wildlife habitat
• Connect people, especially kids, with Nature
• Provide increased access and recreational opportunities

Wilderness Society President Announces Transition To Advisory Role as Counselor in the Next Year

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:22:38 +0000

Wilderness Society (TWS) President William H. Meadows announced today that in the next year he will transition out of his position as president of the organization, and begin to serve in the role of counselor once a new president is chosen.

Meadows informed The Wilderness Society's Governing Council of his intention to vacate the position of president at the board's annual meeting in West Virginia in September. The Governing Council requested that he remain with TWS serving in the role of counselor, a position previously held by the late Senator Gaylord Nelson from 1981 until his death in 2005.

“This is a change I have been planning for the last two years,” said Meadows. “It has been a great honor to serve as president of the Wilderness Society, the leading public lands conservation organization in the nation. In the coming months, I am committed to ensuring a smooth leadership transition for TWS. Once a new president is chosen, I am looking forward to filling a new role as counselor to the organization, where I will remain dedicated to protecting our wild places. “

Organization Will Conduct National Search for New President

TWS was founded in 1935, and Meadows became its president in 1996. Under Meadows’ leadership, TWS has played a critical role in defending the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, protecting 58.5 million acres of roadless areas, and winning permanent protection for more than five million acres of wilderness nationwide, among many other achievements. Meadows’ approach to building new, diverse partnerships and coalitions has extended the reach of TWS and helped to strengthen the entire conservation community.

“Bill Meadows has been a tremendous leader of The Wilderness Society for the last 15 years,” said TWS Governing Council Vice-Chair Molly McUsic, president of The Wyss Foundation. “When he transitions to his new role Bill will remain committed to the strength of this outstanding organization, and to the well being of our wild places across the country. TWS has long history of accomplishments, and a great future ahead as the leader in public lands conservation.”

TWS will be engaging in a national search to find a new president. That effort will be led by a committee of TWS’s Governing Council and headed by Council Member David Field, president and CEO of Entercom Communications Corp.

Controversial border bill is nothing more than a land grab

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:26:07 +0000

Statement from The Wilderness Society on the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act

The House Committee on Natural Resources today marked-up a controversial bill that would cede day-to-day management 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 U.S. borders to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The bill, the “National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act” would also exempt the DHS from having to comply with dozens of environmental statutes that protect the air we breathe and the water we drink.

William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, said about the legislation:

“The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act is an overreaching bill that tramples on the rights of Americans to clean water, healthy air and a world-class natural legacy. It is manipulating a serious security issue to eviscerate long-standing and overwhelmingly popular public health policies. Under this bill, some of our nation’s most iconic places – such as Olympic National Park, Big Bend National Park, Allegheny National Forest, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and Glacier National Park – could be at risk. Even the Department of Homeland Security, who would have control over the lands, opposes this legislation. If the co-sponsors were serious about protecting America’s borders and our citizens, they would offer a thoughtful and serious proposal; not a land grab disguised as ‘border security.’”

Politics trump science in latest Obama decision on Arctic Ocean drilling

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:42:41 +0000

The Obama administration’s decision to affirm Chukchi Lease Sale 193 in America’s Arctic Ocean is a clear case of politics trumping science. The Obama administration inherited the deeply flawed 2008 lease sale from the Bush administration. But in July 2010, a federal district court in Alaska ruled that the federal government had unlawfully failed to address the absence of basic scientific data in the Arctic Ocean in the lease sale’s environmental analyses. The court directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) to revise the analyses and reconsider the lease sale decision.

Today’s decision to affirm the lease sale—instead of requiring that important scientific information be gathered and proven methods for cleaning up an Arctic oil spill be developed before opening the Chukchi Sea to oil and gas companies—shows that the Obama administration has backed away from its stated commitment to make decisions “based on sound science and the public interest, and not on the special interests.”

The decision today is not consistent with a recent report from top scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, which confirmed that there is enough important missing information about the Arctic’s unique marine environment that it presents a “major constraint to a defensible science framework for critical Arctic decision making.” Despite the fact that this report was specifically commissioned by the Secretary of the Interior to guide offshore oil drilling decisions in the Arctic Ocean, BOEMRE dismissed the report as largely “beyond the scope of the BOEMRE mission” and determined that no missing information is essential to the decision to open the Chukchi Sea to oil drilling.

What’s more, if an oil spill were to happen in the Arctic’s extreme, remote conditions, there is no proven method and almost no resources available to clean it up. This fact has been affirmed by administration officials themselves. To quote BOEMRE Director Michael Bromwich, “spill response is a question.” Similarly, Admiral Robert Papp, the top officer at the U.S. Coast Guard, recently told Congress that if the Deepwater Horizon disaster “were to happen off the North Slope of Alaska, we’d have nothing. We’re starting from ground zero today.”

America’s Arctic Ocean is home to many of our nation’s most beloved species of wildlife including polar bears, ice seals, walrus, beluga whales and more. It is also known as the “garden” to the Inupiat people of Alaska’s Arctic coast. Royal Dutch Shell hopes to proceed with risky, aggressive plans to drill six wells in the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea beginning next summer. As the Obama administration reviews Shell’s drilling proposal, which includes woefully inadequate spill response plans, the question we pose is this: Are you willing to spoil our Arctic Ocean for political gain?

Chukchi Lease Sale 193 timeline

September 2005: Bush Administration moves to lease Chukchi Sea for first time since 1991

February 2008: Royal Dutch Shell and other oil companies paid $2.1 billion to lease 2.76 million acres of Chukchi Sea waters.

March 2010: Obama administration cancels all future lease sales in the Arctic Ocean through 2012, citing a lack of information to support moving forward there, but keeps Chukchi Lease Sale 193 intact.

July 2010: An Alaska district court rules that the environmental analysis for Lease Sale 193 is inadequate and directs the federal government to redo its analysis of data gaps and reconsider the leasing decision.

October 12, 2010: Just a few months after the court’s ruling, BOEMRE releases a draft supplemental EIS (SEIS) that appears designed to justify the earlier decision to hold Lease Sale 193. The draft SEIS states that none of the missing information is essential to a reasoned choice about whether and how to lease, and thereby declines to gather any of the information.

May 25, 2011: BOEMRE releases a second draft of a court-ordered redo of the environmental analysis for Lease Sale 193. Once again, the agency acknowledges hundreds of instances where it lacks scientific information about the Arctic Ocean – such as the migration patterns of whales and habitat use of walruses, beluga, fish and other species – but determines that this information is not necessary to make decisions about opening areas for drilling. BOEMRE’s second SEIS also acknowledges, for the first time, that a very large oil spill on the order of magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon spill could occur in the Chukchi Sea. Such a blowout could spill over 2 million barrels of oil and could flow for 74 days before it is stopped, according to BOEMRE.

August 18, 2011: BOEMRE releases a final draft SEIS that once again fails to meaningfully address crucial gaps in information and summarily dismisses the government’s own science experts’ report on missing information.

Adapted from a joint release with: Alaska Wilderness League, Center For Biological Diversity, Defenders Of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Eyak Preservation Council, Inupiat Community Of The Arctic Slope, League Of Conservation Voters, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Native Village Of Point Hope, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Oceana, Pacific Environment, Resisting Environmental Destruction On Indigenous Lands, World Wildlife Fund

County Commissioners, Conservationists and Local Citizens Praise Senators Udall and Bennet for Reintroducing San Juan Wilderness Bill

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Bill would protect lands in San Miguel and San Juan counties

Officials from San Miguel, San Juan and Ouray Counties commended Colorado Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet for re-introducing the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act. Local and national conservation organizations also celebrated the bill’s reintroduction, pointing out that it comes during the heart of National Wilderness Month and following National Public Lands Day.

After years of negotiations and work with local stakeholders, the legislation would expand the existing Mt. Sneffels and Lizard Head Wilderness Areas, establish the McKenna Peak Wilderness in western San Miguel County, create the Sheep Mountain Special Management Area along the alpine ridge between San Miguel and San Juan Counties, and prohibit oil and gas development in Naturita Canyon near Norwood.

"Three cheers to Colorado Senators Udall and Bennet for working with people on the ground to reintroduce this bill during the 112th Congress,” said Joan May, San Miguel County Commissioner. “The places this bill protects are some of the most ecologically valuable lands in Southwest Colorado and we look forward to this becoming law."

Support has continued to grow for the legislation and includes elected officials, ranchers, mountain bikers, conservation groups, outfitters, local residents, a heli-skiing operator, private landowners, and motorized and non-motorized recreationists. San Miguel, Ouray, and San Juan Counties support the legislation, in addition to the towns of Telluride, Mountain Village, Ophir, Norwood, Ridgway, and Ouray, as well as the Ridgway Area and Telluride Chambers of Commerce.

Over three years in the making, multiple groups worked together to make sure all stakeholders were heard in this process. Conservation groups and lawmakers met with all user groups and adjacent landowners of the areas, found compromise and developed a proposal that has a broad range of support from the entire region.
"I am grateful to see Senators Udall and Bennet taking action that represents so much of our local grassroots efforts," said Pete McCay, San Juan County Commissioner. “The Senators recognize that our wild and scenic areas are essential for tourism, our main economic engine.”

“The town of Ouray and the county are a year-round destination for people who want to enjoy the outdoors. These visitors are a key part of our current economy and our future, and its great to see Senators Udall and Bennet taking steps to ensure our region’s economic future with this legislation,” said Lynn Padgett, Ouray County Commissioner. “Hats off to the Senators for the courage and vision to move this legislation forward.”

"Senators Udall and Bennet believe in the vital importance of preserving our remaining wild lands and I am thrilled to see this incredible area in Southwest Colorado move closer to protection” said Hilary White, Executive Director of the Sheep Mountain Alliance. “This bill is broadly supported regionally and we hope that it will be in Congress as well."

“San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act exemplifies all that National Wilderness Month symbolizes,” said Jeff Widen, conservation designations associate director of the Wilderness Support Center The Wilderness Society. “In reintroducing this bill, Senators Udall and Bennet have shown that land preservation and our outdoor recreation economy are driving forces in Colorado.”

Recreation and tourism is critical to Southwest Colorado and the state. Outdoor recreation supports more than 107,000 jobs and contributes $10 billion annually to Colorado’s economy.

The supporters will continue to work with elected officials and people on the ground to ensure that this bipartisan legislation becomes law this year.

Department of Energy's loan guarantee should not be cut

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:50:44 +0000

Statement from Chase Huntley, director of renewable energy policy, The Wilderness Society on the House-passed Continuing Resolution:

"Last night the majority in the House of Representatives passed a Continuing Resolution that cuts a critical bipartisan program used to help invest in necessary domestic renewable energy sources. Many members of the majority party sought access to these funds during the last year in order to receive important government assistance for growing renewable energy companies in their district.

"However, now they have gone back on their promise to create jobs for Americans by cutting the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program. Programs like this are responsible for moving the United States away from foreign oil to a domestic clean energy future. Jobs have been saved and created through this important program that Republicans in the House of Representatives are now working to eliminate.

"In order to slow and attempt to reverse this march towards climate change we need to invest in renewable energy. We urge the Senate to stand firm in the face of these disastrous cuts and to pass a clean bill without harmful cuts."

The Action Plan for Public Lands and Education Act is a public land giveaway

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:51:34 +0000

Western states could be stuck in financial gridlock while corporate polluters profit

The Wilderness Society today strongly opposed H.R. 2852, “The Action Plan for Public Lands and Education Act of 2011,” introduced in the National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee. This hearing comes during Great Outdoors America Week, in the heart of National Wilderness Month, and just days before Public Lands Day on September 24.

Testifying before the Subcommittee, David Alberswerth, Senior Policy Advisor at The Wilderness Society said, “We oppose enactment of H.R. 2852, which essentially requires the federal government to give away 5 percent of the ‘unappropriated public lands,’ in each western state,” which includes most Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and National Forest lands. “This is an unwarranted and unmerited giveaway of assets owned by all Americans to a select few states.”

According to our initial analysis, the legislation would require 29.8 million acres to be transferred to the western states, effectively giving away tens of billions of dollars of American taxpayer assets without compensation to those taxpayers. In his testimony, Alberswerth offers alternative and better ways to enhance the revenues of western states. For example, oil and gas companies only pay a 12.5 percent royalty rate for oil and gas extracted from federal public lands, while often paying significantly higher royalty rates on state-owned lands.

“… [O]ur recommendation is that, instead of promoting a bill like H.R. 2852 which unnecessarily perpetuates conflicts, misunderstandings, and gridlock over the status and management of America’s public lands and national forests, the sponsors of this legislation should change direction and seek out practical solutions to the nettlesome issues of federal/state land and resource ownership patterns,” Alberswerth said.

To view David’s testimony, please visit: http://wilderness.org/content/testimony-action-plan-public-lands-and-education-act-2011

Sadly, this legislation comes during a barrage of unprecedented attacks on America’s lands and waters from a minority in Congress:

• Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R, CA-22) has introduced risky legislation, The Great Outdoors Giveaway, that would give corporate polluters access to protected national forests and BLM lands.

• Devastating budget cuts have been made to our most needed programs, and further cuts could result in closures in our parks, refuges and other wild places.

• Several Congressmen have introduced numerous bills that would severely undercut the President’s ability to designate national monuments using the Antiquities Act.

• Various bills have been introduced that would waive environmental regulations and destroy public lands on our nation’s borders, and eviscerate the Wilderness Act of 1964.

The Wilderness Society will continue to work with people across the U.S. to ensure that bipartisan wilderness legislation becomes law, and protect our natural heritage for future generations.

Latino Congressional Environmental Leaders Honored at Great Outdoors America Week

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 19:47:05 +0000

Reception Celebrates Representatives Raúl M Grijalva, Grace F. Napolitano and Ben Ray Luján

Three members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus were honored for their dedication to protecting the environment by The Wilderness Society at a Capitol Hill reception.

As part of Great Outdoors America Week - and in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month – the three honorees are Representatives Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA), Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM).

“Latino lawmakers are important leaders in efforts to protect our air, water, and land,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “We are proud to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month by honoring these three champions of America’s environment and the great outdoors.”

The honorees were recognized at a Sept. 20 reception during Great Outdoors America Week and National Wilderness Month. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have a long and proud history of leading efforts to protect America’s green spaces and wild places.

Rep. Grijalva has fought tirelessly to protect the Grand Canyon from the threat of expanded uranium mining and to preserve wilderness areas and endangered species. He was the lead House sponsor of legislation to establish the National Landscape Conservation System.

“The diversity of this great nation of ours, and the protection of our national parks, and the expansion of our wilderness areas, and making the conservation system a real system with funding and appropriate attention - that’s going to happen as a consequence of the American people demanding that it happens,” Grijalva said.

Rep. Napolitano has focused her efforts on securing safe and reliable drinking water supplies. She has fought to clean contaminated groundwater at a Superfund site in east Los Angeles County, and to remove tons of uranium waste near the Colorado River and close to the town of Moab.

Family inspires her dedication. “I have 5 grown children, 11 grandsons, 3 granddaughters, a great-grandson and one on the way,” she said. “That’s my future. That’s the future that we all look for… I want to be sure that [wilderness] is going to be there for the future.”

Rep. Luján, co-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is working to protect 236,000 acres of northern New Mexico public lands. His legislation for a Rio Grande Del Norte National Conservation Area will include the Rio San Antonio Wilderness and Ute Mountain.

“Protecting these lands is much more than saving beautiful scenery,” he said. “It’s also preserving our cultural, traditional and historical resources which are important to the identity of all New Mexicans.”

The Wilderness Society looks forward to working with these dedicated conservation leaders who continue to protect our shared natural heritage for future generations.

Land Management Plans Put Wilderness Quality Lands at Risk

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:37:30 +0000

The Bureau of Land Management fails to protect thousands of acres of wilderness quality lands in Colorado in draft land use plans released for public review and comment. The Colorado River Valley (formerly Glenwood Springs) and Kremmling Resource Management Plans cover 883,000 acres of public lands that include some of Colorado’s most pristine wild lands and sagebrush habitat. The BLM found more than 60,000 acres in the planning area harbor wilderness characteristics, but declined to protect a single acre in the preferred alternatives.

“We are beyond disappointed that the agency’s preferred plans do nothing to protect the outstanding wild lands in these areas, which comprise just seven percent of the public lands at stake,” said Steve Smith, Associate Regional Director for The Wilderness Society. “These plans do not reflect the high value Coloradans place on wilderness, nor do they reflect the Obama administration’s commitment to preserving lands with wilderness character.”

“Fortunately this is just a draft and there is still opportunity for Coloradans to engage in the process and see to it that wilderness quality areas get protection they deserve,” said Peter Hart, Conservation Analyst at Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop. “We will work hard with local communities to ensure BLM adopts management actions in the final plan that protect the few wild lands remaining in the Colorado River Valley Field Office.”

As drafted in the agency’s preferred alternatives, the Colorado River Valley and Kremmling RMPs would allow motorized use in 95% of the planning area and close less than 6% to oil and gas leasing. Both plans neglect to designate substantial areas for non-motorized recreational uses such as hiking, backcountry hunting and fishing and wildlife viewing.

“These plans fall far short of providing balance among the multiple uses of our public lands,” said Scott Braden, Director of Conservation of the Colorado Mountain Club. “Our members, and many other Coloradans travel to these public lands for quiet backcountry experiences, and the BLM needs fix these plans to protect lands with wilderness character and promote those opportunities.”

The draft plans are open for public comment until December 15, 2011. The BLM is hosting a series of public meetings on the Colorado River Valley RMP in October, and the schedule can be accessed at http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/BLM_Programs/land_use_planning/rmp/kfo-gsfo/crv.html.

Adapted from a joint release with the Wilderness Workshop and the Colorado Mountain Club

The Wilderness Society applauds Senator Barbara Boxer for protecting San Diego’s Wilderness

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:59:43 +0000

Senator Boxer introduces the Beauty Mountain and Agua Tibia Act of 2011

The Wilderness Society today commended Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) for introducing the Beauty Mountain and Agua Tibia Act of 2011. Introduced during the heart of National Wilderness Month and at the beginning of Great Outdoors America Week, the legislation would add 13,635 acres to the Beauty Mountain Wilderness and 7,796 acres to the Agua Tibia Wilderness. Rep. Darrell Issa (R, CA-49) first introduced the House companion of this legislation in December 2009.

The legislation would protect roughly 21,000 acres of exceptional rock formations, steep canyons and chaparral and oak woodlands in San Diego County. This incredible area is enjoyed by thousands of hikers and equestrians who travel the Cutca Trail. Agua Tibia and Beauty Mountain protect critical wildlife habitat and provide an important boost to the thriving outdoor recreation and tourism economy of San Diego County.

“The Beauty Mountain and Agua Tibia Act of 2011 exemplifies all that Great Outdoors America Week and National Wilderness Month symbolize,” said Paul Spitler, national wilderness campaigns associate director at The Wilderness Society. “This bipartisan legislation is in sync with the conservation values held in the Wilderness Act of 1964.”
Recreation and tourism is critical to this region and the state. Outdoor recreation supports more than 400,000 jobs and contributes $46 billion annually to California’s economy.

The Wilderness Society will continue to work with people on the ground in California to ensure that this bipartisan legislation becomes law this year.

The Wilderness Society unites with skiers and snowboarders to fight climate change

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:18:48 +0000

The Protect Our Winters coalition of skiers and snowboarders, including two-time Olympic snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler, joined The Wilderness Society and other environmental groups to call on Congress and the Administration to help curb climate-change causing carbon emissions that are threatening to put an end to the winter sports industry in the United States.

“Climate change will cost billions in economic damage to America. The costs of not acting could be devastating to a state like Colorado where the outdoor recreation industry adds $10 billion to the state economy every year and supports 107,000 jobs, many of them connected to skiing and snowboarding ,” said David Moulton, Director of Climate Policy for The Wilderness Society. “By bringing their message to Capitol Hill, Gretchen, Jeremy, and Chris are making sure that Congress knows that climate change is endangering one America’s favorite pastimes.”

Rising temperatures and unpredictable winter weather could alter the face of skiing and snowboarding forever, said Moulton. “We don’t want to reach the point they have reached in Europe where desperate attempts are made in the summer to place plastic over glaciers so they are still around to ski on in the winter”

An overwhelming majority of climate scientists have identified unmitigated carbon pollution as the primary culprit.

“We cannot keep letting polluters dump their carbon pollution into the air, leaving American citizens – snowboarders, skiers, and everyone else – to pay the consequences,” said Moulton. “We must put a lid on greenhouse gas pollution, to protect our communities and our winters.”

The Wilderness Society condemns hearing to block Antiquities Act

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:36:35 +0000

Hearing comes amid unprecedented attacks on America’s recreation economy

The Wilderness Society today strongly condemned the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands’ hearing on six bills that would limit the president’s ability to designate national monuments using the Antiquities Act. The hearing comes during an onslaught of attacks from House leadership on our nation’s lands and the recreation economy they support.

The six bills being heard all chip away at the Antiquities Act which has been used to designate and protect national monuments by 15 presidents – both Republican and Democratic -- since it was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. All of the presidents who used the Antiquities Act – from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush – have had the foresight to use this bipartisan tool to protect some of our nation’s most treasured natural and cultural wonders, from the Grand Canyon to the Statue of Liberty.

"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% 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.”

On top of the bills attacking the Antiquities Act, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy has introduced the Great Outdoors Giveaway that would essentially give a blank check to corporate polluters to exploit wilderness. Additionally, Rep. Dan Benishek (R, MI-1) recently introduced the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act which includes a provision that would eviscerate the Wilderness Act of 1964.

“These bills are out of touch with what the American people care about,” said Ryan Bidwell, associate director of the National Monuments Campaign at The Wilderness Society. “Time and again, including just this winter with the Continuing Resolution, the majority of Representatives and Senators have voted against bills weakening the Antiquities Act. This hearing represents another barrage in a long line of misguided attacks on our lands and waters, and on our recreation economy.”

Below, please find background information on the bills being brought up at the hearing, including national monuments in the sponsors’ states and the Outdoor Industry Association’s analysis of the economic benefits of outdoor recreation, where available:

• H.R. 758: Mandates certain procedures for designating national monuments (Devin Nunes (R, CA-21)), and
• H.R 817: Mandates additional requirements for national monuments (Wally Herger (R, CA-2))

Eight national monuments in California: Cabrillo established by President Wilson in 1913; California Coastal designated by President Clinton in 2000; Carrizo Plains designated by President Clinton in 2001; Devils Postpile designated by President Taft in 1911; Giant Sequoia designated by President Clinton in 2000; Lava Beds designated by President Coolidge in 1925; Muir Woods designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908; and Pinnacles designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.
California’s Outdoor recreation economic impact: $46 billion annually to California’s economy; supports 408,000 jobs across California.

• H.R. 845: Bars new national monuments in Montana (Denny Rehbert (R, MT-At large))

Two national monuments in Montana: Pompey's Pillar and the Upper Missouri River Breaks, both designated by President Clinton in 2001.
Montana’s outdoor recreation economic impact: Contributes $2.5 billion annually to Montana’s economy; Supports 34,000 jobs across the state

• H.R. 846: Bars new national monuments in Idaho (Raúl Labrador (R, ID-1))

Two national monuments in Idaho: Craters of the Moon designated by President Coolidge in 1924; Minidoka Internment designated by President Clinton in 2001.
Idaho’s outdoor recreation impact: Supports 37,000 jobs across the state.

• H.R. 2147: Bars new national monuments in Utah without Congressional consent (Rob Bishop (R, UT-1))

Five national monuments in Utah: Cedar Breaks designated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933; Grand Staircase-Escalante designated by President Clinton in 1996; Natural Bridges designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908; Timpanogos Cave designated by President Harding in 1922; Hovenweep designated in 1923 by President Harding.
Utah’s outdoor recreation impact: Contributes $5.8 billion annually to the state’s economy; supports 65,000 jobs across the state.

• H.R. 302: Mandates state approval of national monuments (Virginia Fox (R, NC-5))

National Monuments: NA
Economic Impact: NA

Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities bill harbors anti-Wilderness attack

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Bill could lead to destruction of quality hunting and fishing habitat

The Wilderness Society strongly urged the House Natural Resources Committee today to remove a provision buried in H.R. 2834, the “Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act” that would eviscerate the Wilderness Act of 1964.

While the bill’s laudable intention is to provide for continued recreational hunting and fishing opportunities on our federal public lands, Section 4(e) would allow activities that are incompatible in Wilderness -- such as motorized access, road construction, and even logging -- that would destroy the pristine characteristics of designated Wilderness Areas.

In a letter to the House National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee, The Wilderness Society’s President, William H. Meadows, pointed out that:

…the bill declares that “any requirements imposed by [the Wilderness Act] shall be implemented only insofar as they facilitate or enhance the original or primary purpose or purposes for which the Federal public lands or Federal public land unit was established and do not materially interfere with or hinder such purpose or purposes” (Sec. 4(e)(2)). This sweeping limitation on the Wilderness Act’s requirements is not limited in the draft bill to requirements affecting hunting, fishing, and shooting; therefore, it presumably covers all other land use activities as well, including logging, oil and gas drilling, road construction, buildings, mining, and commercial development. Since one of the original purposes of the national forests (as provided by the Organic Administration Act of 1897, 16 U.S.C. 475) is “to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States,” H.R. 2834 could effectively lift the Wilderness Act’s prohibition on logging road construction and timber cutting in all national forest Wilderness Areas.

“Contrary to the title of the bill, language in it will actually ruin quality hunting and fishing experiences in our nation’s Wilderness Areas,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “Millions of Americans enjoy recreational hunting and fishing every year, including in Wilderness Areas, and that in turn supports local economies.”

Another provision of the bill, Section 4(c)(1)(B), would preclude the use of the National Environmental Policy Act in making hunting and fishing management decisions on our public lands and forests.

To view The Wilderness Society’s statement for the record, please visit: http://wilderness.org/files/Statement-for-Record-HR-2834.pdf

While the “Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act” contains unfortunate language that would eviscerate the Wilderness Act itself, the House Natural Resources Committee is considering another bill that would further erode protection of wilderness-quality BLM lands and roadless National Forests. Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy has introduced H.R. 1581, termed the “The Great Outdoors Giveaway”, which would give away our lands and waters to corporate polluters. The 112th Congress has already made devastating budget cuts to our most needed programs, and further cuts could result in closures in our parks, refuges and other wild places.

“We hope the House Natural Resources Committee will reconsider these attacks on our nation’s most pristine public lands,” said Meadows. “America’s hunting and fishing heritage is important to maintain, and we need to keep our Wilderness Areas intact for present and future generations of American hunters and anglers to enjoy.”

Drilling in the Arctic Ocean? Really?

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:23:07 +0000

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Inspired by the “Really!?!” segment on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, we have taken a fresh look at arguments for allowing Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean next summer:

“The U.S. Coast Guard can oversee Arctic Ocean spill response operations from its facilities approximately 900 miles away.” 1

Really!?!

“Canada’s National Energy Board says that oil spill response measures cannot be used in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea about 20 percent of the time in June, 40 percent of the time in August and over 65 percent of the time in October. Shell Offshore, Inc. says it can recover 95 percent of an oil spill in the Beaufort during the summer.” 2

Really!?!

“The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE, the former Minerals Management Service) says it doesn’t need to collect more scientific information on whales and other marine animals in the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea because knowing where animals migrate and give birth, for example, doesn’t affect where it offers drilling leases to oil companies.” 3

Really!?!

“BOEMRE says there doesn’t need to be an Environmental Impact Statement developed for exploratory drilling in the Beaufort because ‘no potentially significant impacts are expected to occur.’ Despite the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BOEMRE is not analyzing the consequences of a well blowout in the Beaufort.” 4

Really!?!

“Some in industry and government say the Arctic Ocean’s wind, fog, floating icebergs, and frigid working conditions won’t make offshore drilling and oil spill response any more challenging than in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Really!?!

When you think about it, drilling in the Arctic Ocean is a really bad idea.

Sources: 1Nearest U.S. Coast Guard facilities to the Arctic are in Kodiak, AK; 2Spill Response Gap Study for the Canadian Beaufort Sea and the Canadian Davis Strait, Table 8 (July 2011); Beaufort Sea Regional Exploration Oil Discharge Prevention and Contingency Plan, Shell Offshore Inc., p. 1-33 (January 2010); 3Lease Sale 193 in the Chukchi Sea, Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, Appendix A (August 2011); 4Finding of No Significant Impact, Shell Offshore, Inc., Revised Outer Continental Shelf Exploration Plan, Camden Bay, Alaska, 2012 (August 2011).

Statement from William H. Meadows on National Wilderness Month 2011

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Proclamation from President Obama begins significant month for America’s public lands

Today President Obama issued a proclamation decreeing September as National Wilderness Month.

William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, said about the proclamation:

“President Obama’s National Wilderness Month proclamation comes just days before the 47th anniversary of the Wilderness Act on September 3rd. Today, thanks to bipartisan leadership in both houses of Congress and the president in 1964, nearly 110 million acres of our shared public lands are protected for future generations to enjoy.

“This month, families are returning from their summer vacations spent hiking, swimming, camping and exploring America’s wild places – places that provide not just recreation, but clean water and clean air for communities, and critical support to many local economies.

“As we celebrate National Wilderness Month, we must also tackle the threats we face. House leadership has introduced the Great Outdoors Giveaway which would give away our public lands and waters to corporate polluters. The 112th Congress has also made deep, unprecedented cuts to critical conservation programs, while subsidies to industrial polluters remain high.

“Despite these tough challenges, millions of Americans are inspired daily by our treasured wild lands. We hope that Congress will heed their calls and work to protect our natural heritage.”

Celebrating the Harris River Restoration

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:39:57 +0000

Prince of Wales salmon streams get new lease on life after decades of logging

On Aug. 25, the U.S. Forest Service will celebrate the ongoing restoration efforts in the Harris River watershed on Prince of Wales Island. After seven years and $3.5 million, the project has begun to correct much of the damage done during decades of heavy logging.

The Wilderness Society is proud to support this effort and the benefits it provides as the Forest Service transitions the Tongass National Forest from boom-and-bust logging to a sustainable economic model based on restoration, fishing and tourism. Restoring salmon-spawning streams is of key importance because the Tongass is truly a salmon forest, annually producing millions of fish that support commercial fishing industry and sport-fishing-related tourism.

“Salmon are vital to the health and economic stability of Southeast Alaska communities, and the Harris River restoration is a great example of how the Forest Service and local stakeholders can work together to help ensure that abundant salmon continue returning to Southeast Alaska rivers in the future,” said Austin Williams, Forest Program Manager for The Wilderness Society.

From the 1960s through 1987, 4,669 acres of the Harris River watershed were clearcut, including nearly half of the riparian areas. Logging and road building changed how fallen trees shaped the waterways and allowed sediment to choke nearby streams, devastating fish and wildlife habitat. In 2000, the Harris River, along with its main tributary, Fubar Creek, became a focal point for watershed restoration and a top restoration priority for the USDA Forest Service and a coalition of conservation organizations.

Since then, 11 miles of stream have been stabilized with the thinning of more than 500 acres of new forest growth, and the addition of 350 whole trees and logs to provide habitat for young salmon at sites along Fubar Creek.

“Restoring the Harris River watershed helps create jobs working in the woods, and supports important commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries,” said Williams. “The Wilderness Society looks forward to continuing to work with the Forest Service in other restoration projects throughout the Tongass.”

Thanks to efforts such as the Harris River watershed project, healthy streams and spawning habitat are being restored in the salmon forest of the Tongass, assuring the communities of Southeast Alaska a brighter future.

Final, Deficient Environmental Analysis for Chukchi Sea Lease Sale 193 Released

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 01:35:29 +0000

Analysis Does Not Address Court’s Concerns

Today the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) released a final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Chukchi Sea that dismisses the need for additional scientific information before allowing drilling in the Arctic Ocean, according to The Wilderness Society. The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska in July 2010 required BOEMRE to develop the revised SEIS to address – and fill, if possible – data gaps important to lease sale decision-making. The Wilderness Society, other conservation organizations, and tribal organizations were plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“Unfortunately, BOEMRE has chosen to ignore the court’s requirement to determine if the missing ecological information would result in a different lease-sale decision. A sister agency to BOEMRE at the Department of the Interior, the US Geological Survey, stressed the importance of filling data gaps prior to decision-making in a comprehensive Arctic Ocean science report released this summer,” said licensed engineer and The Wilderness Society’s Arctic Program Director, Lois Epstein.

The Chukchi Sea is a near-pristine portion of the Arctic Ocean which does not yet have any oil production. The coastline abutting the Chukchi is among the most remote in Alaska, but the residents of several Native coastal villages rely on the ocean’s resources for subsistence and to maintain their age-old Inupiat culture.

Shell, which leased the right to drill in the Chukchi in 2008, currently is trying to stop and respond to an oil spill from a pipeline in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland. Extreme weather conditions, not unlike those found in the Chukchi Sea, are hampering the company’s efforts to address the spill.

“Shell’s North Sea pipeline spill highlights the difficulties of stopping and responding to offshore spills in shallow water under adverse weather conditions. Shell’s spill response staff can’t operate under those conditions, or the much worse icy Arctic conditions, without putting themselves in danger. Adverse weather and ice floes are an all-too-common situation in the Chukchi,” added Epstein.

“The Bush Administration leased areas in the Chukchi to Shell and others prematurely, without an adequate scientific baseline, without identification of critical ecological areas, and without any spill response capability that could be counted on to prevent spill impacts. With publication of this problematic SEIS, the Obama Administration makes clear that it has not deviated from a path that could lead to horrific consequences for the Arctic Ocean and its coastal residents,” said Epstein.

Fish and Wildlife Service Considers Wilderness for Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:07:34 +0000

With today’s release of a draft revised Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) made an important decision to formally consider Wilderness for the crucial Coastal Plain area – the biological heart of our nation’s wilderness icon. As part of this plan, a full Wilderness Review was done for the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain for the first time ever - presenting a historic opportunity to protect the Arctic Refuge for future generations.

The 50-year old Arctic Refuge is the only national wildlife refuge established specifically to preserve wilderness values. Its Coastal Plain is a vital part of the larger ecosystem that is home to some of America’s iconic wildlife species - including whales, seals, wolves, polar bears, grizzly bears, muskoxen and caribou. In addition, nearly 200 bird species from six continents depend on the Arctic Refuge, including birds that migrate to every state in America.

The Arctic Refuge’s Coastal Plain functions as the critical birthing grounds for polar bears, many bird species and the internationally important Porcupine Caribou herd. For this reason the people of the Gwich’in Nation call this area “the sacred place where life begins.” For the Gwich’in, protecting the Coastal Plain, a vital piece of their traditional way of life and culture which has been based on the Porcupine Caribou herd for thousands of years, is a human rights issue.

“We are co-managers of the Arctic Refuge because we live there. As a co-manager, I would say that the Coastal Plain should be designated as Wilderness,” said Sarah James, chair of the Gwich’in Steering Committee. “The Coastal Plain is the most important part of the Arctic Refuge. It is the birthplace for the caribou and many life forms. It is the only place where the polar bear is being protected now. It’s very important to protect these special places permanently.”

The Arctic Refuge is currently the only portion of Alaska’s North Slope that is legislatively closed to oil and gas leasing, exploration, and development. Year after year, millions of Americans have reaffirmed their support for the protection of one of our nation’s last great wilderness places. Throughout the 90-day public comment period, Americans everywhere will ask the US Fish & Wildlife Service to recommend Wilderness designation for the Arctic Refuge's Coastal Plain to protect its unique wilderness, wildlife, and subsistence values.

“Since President Eisenhower established the Arctic Refuge in 1960, our nation has acted to embrace the bold wilderness vision of the refuge’s founders and to protect it from oil and gas interests. In the face of climate change and a renewed push to develop the Arctic for oil and gas, our country’s leaders should support the wishes of Americans by taking the necessary steps to permanently protect the Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain - a globally significant, vital homeland and birthing ground for millions of birds, polar bears and caribou, as well as a critical subsistence resource,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska Director, The Wilderness Society.

As mandated by law, FWS must develop a CCP for every national wildlife refuge by 2012, and revise existing plans every 15 years. The last Arctic Refuge plan was done in 1988. The Arctic Refuge’s revised CCP process began in the spring of 2010 and is expected to be finished by the spring of 2012. For more information on the process visit: http://arctic.fws.gov/ccp.htm.

Adapted from a press release with the Alaska Wilderness League, Audubon, Defenders of Wildlife and others.

Imperiling Alaska’s Arctic

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 22:59:18 +0000

Protections not in place to drill safely in the Beaufort Sea

Despite the lack of needed spill prevention measures and effective cleanup technologies for the Arctic, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) today issued conditional approval for Shell Offshore Inc. to drill up to four shallow-water exploration wells in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea beginning in July 2012. Shell still needs to obtain other federal permits on specific drilling-related issues before proceeding.

“Because Congress and the Obama Administration have not implemented many significant post-BP spill reforms, we are not confident that everything is being done that can be done to prevent major spills in the Arctic. Shell’s word that the company is trying to prevent spills is not good enough,” said Lois Epstein, an engineer and Arctic Program Director at The Wilderness Society and a member of the federal Offshore Energy Safety Advisory Committee. Reforms recommended by the National Oil Spill Commission in January include the need for adequate, stable, and secure funding to key regulatory agencies, whistleblower protections, and new regulations for blowout preventers.

According to The Wilderness Society’s Alaska Regional Director Nicole Whittington-Evans, “This decision threatens Alaska’s Arctic environment, its wildlife and its coastal communities. A major spill could impact bowhead whales and other marine life which Arctic communities have relied on as food sources for thousands of years, and could adversely impact sensitive coastline belonging to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”

While the BP spill in the Gulf was in deep water, blowouts can and do occur in shallow water as in the Arctic. Additionally, while BOEMRE does have spill response requirements, only a very small percentage of oil has been recovered during past spills. Conditions in the Arctic are even more challenging for spill response than elsewhere due to ice blocks that inhibit oil recovery and make ship travel more dangerous, as well as fog, winds, and cold water that decreases bacterial growth.

“To make matters worse, with no coastal zone management program in existence in Alaska to help ensure local input and governmental transparency, and only a limited Environmental Assessment performed, this approval is entirely premature,” added Epstein.

Wilderness Bills Move Forward in the Senate

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:51:23 +0000

The Organ Mountains-Dona Ana County Conservation and Protection Act (S. 1024) and the Tennessee Wilderness Act (S. 1090) are making their way through Congress with a hearing in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests.

The Organ Mountains-Dona Anna County Conservation and Protection Act would protect 241,000 acres of Wilderness and 160,000 acres as a National Conservation Area. Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Tom Udall (D, NM) re-introduced this act this Congress, which is supported by local elected governments and Chambers of Commerce, sportsmen organizations, community groups and conservation organizations.

“For years, a critical mass has been building to protect the spectacular Organs that make up Las Cruces’ horizon,” said Michael Casaus, New Mexico state director at The Wilderness Society. “Senators Bingaman and Udall, and the thousands of on-the-ground supporters, understand that Wilderness designation would mean a win for our local economy and a win for the health of our citizens and visitors.”

The Tennessee Wilderness Act would protect 20,500 acres of wilderness in Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest, including the headwaters of the Upper Bald River. The act was re-introduced this Congress by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Bob Corker (R-TN). The legislation is supported by local businessmen, sportsmen and outdoorsmen, and elected officials.

“Passage of The Tennessee Wilderness Act is critical if we are going to continue to enjoy clean air and drinking water and exceptional outdoor activities in our own natural ‘backyard,’” said Brent Martin, southern Appalachian program director at The Wilderness Society. “With strong bipartisan support locally and in Congress, we are encouraged that this bill will become law this year.”

To view a full list of bills moving through the 112th Congress, please visit wilderness.org/content/112th-congress-and-wildlands.

Unfortunately, the Organ Mountains-Dona Ana County Conservation and Protection Act and the Tennessee Wilderness Act come on the heels of a hearing in the House of Representatives on the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act, or the Great Outdoors Giveaway.

The Great Outdoors Giveaway (H.R. 1581) gives corporate polluters and developers, who already have access to 76 percent of all national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands, access to even more of America’s vanishing wilderness. Yet these two Wilderness bills being considered in the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests are working to protect, not destroy, our last wild places.

Debt ceiling deal puts U.S. on brink of defaulting on environmental debt

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:00:00 +0000

The Wilderness Society said today that the congressional accord on the debt ceiling puts the U.S. on the brink of defaulting on what it terms the country’s skyrocketing “environmental debt.” The dramatically reduced spending on conservation and environmental programs the debt ceiling deal will induce poses a wide range of risks to human health and economic growth.

“Congress doesn’t deserve to thump its chest for reaching a debt ceiling compromise on a mess it created,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “The reductions in spending the deal causes will result in massive cuts that threaten to damage our water, our air and our lands beyond repair. This assault is part of a larger effort by some in Congress to give away our great outdoors to corporate polluters and developers, and it’s creating an environmental debt that we can’t repay.”

Meadows added that Congress is going about solving the debt problem the wrong way.

“This deal leaves huge, wasteful and unnecessary tax subsidies for the oil and gas industries untouched,” Meadows said.

With a debt ceiling agreement working its way toward a conclusion, Congress is expected to soon adjourn for August recess – abandoning its work on the Interior appropriations bill until September. Congress will then have to start working on a new Interior spending bill that uses the debilitating limitations imposed by the debt ceiling agreement.

“Congress continues to turn the thumb screws on our natural resources and on conservation funding,” Meadows said. “Congress had to reach an agreement on the debt ceiling issue but this is no cause for celebration. Now we’ll suffer the consequences of its failures to solve our fiscal and environmental problems before they reached crisis levels.”

The Wilderness Society condemns the “Great Outdoors Giveaway”

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:23:01 +0000

Bill to give away our great outdoors to corporate polluters receives hearing

The Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act today received a hearing in the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands.

The legislation, introduced by U.S. Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), opens tens of millions of acres of pristine lands to corporate polluters. H.R. 1581 is really a “Great Outdoors Giveaway.” It gives corporate polluters and developers, who already have access to 76 percent of all national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands, access to even more of America’s vanishing wilderness.

“The Great Outdoors Giveaway is a blank check to corporate polluters to destroy our land, air, and water,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “This risky legislation flies in the face of values the American people hold dear: that we should treasure, not squander, our lands and waters. Americans don’t want Congress to give away our great outdoors.”

The Wilderness Society, along with several other groups, has provided background on the Great Outdoors Giveaway bill here: greatoutdoorsgiveaway.org.

Background and details on the Great Outdoors Giveaway bill
Our Lands, Dangerously Out of Balance
Today corporate polluters and developers have access to 76 percent of National Forests and Bureau of Land Management lands, leaving 24 percent, less than a quarter of those lands, with some level of wilderness protection. Under H.R. 1581, the Great Outdoors Giveaway, that percentage of protected lands would shrink even further, to just 12 percent, giving polluters and developers access to a whopping 88 percent of all National Forest and BLM lands.

Passage of this bill would throw the management of our public lands dangerously out of balance. It tips the scales even further in favor of developers and polluters, and would destroy pristine wilderness that, once lost, is gone forever.

Giving a Blank Check to Corporate Polluters, Threatening Our Water Supply
This legislation would give away more than 60 million acres of public land to people who will pollute the water we drink and the air we breathe. National Forests provide drinking water for more than 123 million Americans. By opening an area the size of Wyoming to pollution, H.R. 1581 poses a real threat to clean water in many parts of the country.

Clean air will also suffer, because these forests and wild lands also play a critical role in filtering pollution and providing clean air to millions of Americans.

The Great Outdoors Giveaway, by the Numbers
More than 60 million acres of land would be opened to polluters under H.R. 1581. That’s an area of land larger than the state of Wyoming which would lose protection and be opened up to the oil and gas industry, corporate developers and others.

More than three-quarters of the states would be impacted by this legislation, including 13 million acres of wild Alaska forests, nine million acres in Idaho, and nearly five million acres in California. Click here to see how many acres are impacted in each state.

Our American Heritage at Risk
H.R. 1581 would remove protections that have been in place for decades from some of America’s most iconic lands, including the Red Rock deserts of southern Utah, California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the Appalachians. The places that generations of Americans have come to know and love could disappear before our eyes.

Images of Threatened Lands Across the Country
From our western mountain ranges to our eastern forests, treasured lands across the country are at risk. Click here to see images of some of the lands that would be open to corporate polluters and developers if H.R. 1581 becomes law.

The Great Outdoors Giveaway: What H.R. 1581 Does
• Rolling back protections for nearly 60 million acres of unroaded National Forests: The bill would overturn the Forest Service “roadless” policy that protects nearly 60 million acres of roadless National Forest lands by prohibiting road-building and commercial logging on those lands. H.R. 1581 would overturn this policy and open up these unroaded national forest lands to road building, commercial logging, and other destructive development.

• BLM Wilderness Study Areas…going, going, gone?: H.R. 1581 would strip existing protections from nearly seven million acres of Bureau of Land Management Wilderness Study Areas that have not yet been considered by Congress for Wilderness designation. Passage of the bill would all but guarantee that tens of millions of acres of public lands and national forests currently protected would lose that protection and their wild land qualities forever lost.

• Multiple use would be a thing of the past: The “Great Outdoors Giveaway” would also overturn a decades-old policy of balancing the myriad uses of federal lands. Under this policy, known as “multiple use,” land managers analyze federal lands to determine the best uses for each landscape.

• Undermining Congressional authority: Existing laws allow the Forest Service and BLM to identify and protect areas with wilderness characteristics from incompatible uses – authority that the H.R. 1581 would gut. As a consequence, Congress would likely not have the ability to designate as Wilderness many of the areas currently protected by the Forest Service and BLM because the lands would likely no longer possess wilderness qualities if opened to development by this misguided proposal.

True Grit

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:02:16 +0000

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In order to combat the ongoing lack of accuracy in the debate over the many uses of our public lands The Wilderness Society’s team of legal, economic, and research experts are launching a series of “bites” of truth about Western economies and public lands—the True Grit.

True Grit is aimed at bringing reality back to the public lands conversation as well as documenting the misleading information being spread across the West. The goal is to shed some light on the spin that seems to be driving the conversation despite the reality behind many of the policies that govern our public lands.

Every ten days or so you will hear more from our team of experts, including a new edition of True Grit, an audio sound bite, and images, charts or graphs that can be used for reproduction.

For more information contact:
Jennifer Dickson, Communications Manager

True Grit: A Heap-of-NEPA Lies

Fact sheet -- A Heap-of-NEPA lies
Audio -- Leslie Jones, General Counsel, talks about the significant value of the National Environnmental Policy Act
Graphic Download -- NEPA Cases Filed Compared to All US Cases 2001 to 2009

True Grit: Technically Uneconomic: Natural Gas Edition

Fact sheet -- Technically Uneconomic: Natural Gas Edition
Audio -- Pete Morton, Director of Economics, talks about the affordability of extracting natural gas

True Grit: FUNDamental Misunderstandings- The Truth about the Land and Water Conservation Fund

True Grit: Can Your Community Afford
the Oil and Gas Industry? It’s more expensive than you think…

Fact sheet -- Can Your Community Afford the Oil and Gas Industry? It’s more expensive than you think…
Audio -- Michelle Haefele, PH.D., talks about the impacts to local communities from oil and gas drilling
Graphic Download -- Drilling Activity and Crime in Sublette County, Wyoming

True Grit: Monumental Lies

True Grit: Oil and Gas Industry Job Numbers Just Don't Add Up

True Grit: Multiple Truths About Multiple Use

Fact Sheet — Multiple Truths About Multiple Use: The Facts About Conservation as a Multiple Use of Our Public Lands
Audio — Phil Hanceford explains what multiple use really means
Graphic Download — The Multiple Uses of Our Public Lands

True Grit: Overwhelmed with Opportunity

Fact Sheet — Overwhelmed with Opportunity: The truth about oil and gas drilling access vs. what the industry would like you to believe
Audio — Nada Culver explains why drilling isn't the answer to America's energy problems
Graphic Download — Onshore acres leased for drilling versus the number producing on BLM land (FY 2010)
Graphic Download — Approved drilling permits versus new wells started on BLM lands (FY 2010)

Mining Puts New Mexico Grasslands and Sacred Native American Lands At Risk

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 06:00:00 +0000

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The New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division today approved exploratory mining in Otero Mesa, the state’s pristine desert grassland straddling the Texas-New Mexico border.

The approval for Geovic Mining Corp.’s exploratory drilling comes just months after the company began staking over 150 claims near Wind Mountain on Bureau of Land Management lands of the mesa, and at a time of immense local and national support for permanently protecting Otero Mesa’s wilderness, wildlife, water resources, and Native American treasures.

“It is alarming that mining activities will begin on Otero Mesa, with no opportunity for public input, after we’ve worked for a decade to ensure Otero Mesa was safeguarded from oil and gas drilling,” said Nathan Newcomer, associate director of New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. “It is devastating that this company would put drinking water, wildlife, and these natural lands at risk in an area that we all know deserves protection.”

In 2005, a coalition of conservation organizations joined the State of New Mexico in filing suit against the Bureau of Land Management’s plan to open the grassland to oil and gas development. The lawsuit was ultimately successful, and Otero Mesa is currently unavailable to oil and gas leasing until the BLM completes a new environmental analysis. Unlike the BLM’s planning process for oil and gas leasing and drilling, the proposed mining activities do not permit public comment.

Ted Rodriguez, Headman of the Mescalero Apache Traditional Elders Council also expressed disappointment to hear that initial mining operations have been approved on Otero Mesa. Ted Rodriguez and Larry Shay of the Apache Advocates for Otero Mesa recently returned from Washington, D.C., where they met with members of the New Mexico delegation and Interior Department officials to advocate for permanent protection of Otero Mesa.

“We envision Otero Mesa as a place for Apache youth programs that will educate and inspire them by the unique lifestyle of their ancestors,” said Mr. Rodriguez. “If hardrock mining is allowed to move forward, then we are going to lose an opportunity to pass these sacred lands on to future generations.”

In addition to harboring expansive wilderness lands and irreplaceable cultural resources, Otero Mesa is treasured by hunters locally and nationally for its vibrant wildlife populations and backcountry hunting opportunities. “Mining on Otero Mesa would most certainly have a negative impact on hunting,” said John Cornell of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. “That type of energy extraction would change the landscape forever in this rare and vulnerable grassland ecosystem.”

In its decision invalidating the BLM’s plan for oil and gas development in Otero Mesa, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit specifically found that the plan did not adequately consider potential impacts of oil and gas development in causing habitat fragmentation in the grasslands or in contaminating the Salt Basin Aquifer. The Salt Basin is believed to be New Mexico’s largest untapped freshwater resource, and research has shown it is likely to be extremely vulnerable to contamination. The Court demanded the BLM conduct additional environmental analysis on habitat fragmentation and aquifer impacts before proceeding with oil and gas leasing and development.

This is a joint release by the Coalition for Otero Mesa.

Oil and gas industry “sitting pretty”

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:13:08 +0000

New analysis shows more than 6,500 drilling permits undeveloped, 97 percent in the Interior West

The oil and gas industry has failed to develop 6,573 drilling permits issued by the Bureau of Land Management, even though the agency has given these oil and gas operators a green light to drill. Over 97 percent of those permits are located in the Rocky Mountain region. The numbers come in stark contrast to claims made by Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) who introduced legislation in May 2011 that would weaken current environmental and public health protections, opening-up public lands in the West to reckless development.

It is anticipated that Sen. Barrasso may attempt to add amendments to offshore resource assessment or offshore drilling safety legislation, the “American Energy and Western Jobs Act," being heard on Thursday in the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

“Sen. Barrasso clearly has his sights set in the wrong direction. Rather than making improvements, he wants to go back to the days of ‘lease first, think later’,” said Bill Eikenberry, a former director of the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming.

Eikenberry can speak from strong experience. He was responsible for 1,000 employees and managed 18 million acres of public land in Wyoming.

Wyoming data stood out in the analysis, showing that over 53 percent of undeveloped permits nationally are located in the state.

Eikenberry believes that energy development can occur in conjunction with the common sense reforms that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar implemented in 2010 to bring about better planning and proper scientific review.

“Sec. Salazar is right that we can both develop American energy resources and protect water, land, and wildlife habitat. Senator Barrasso should join in that pursuit, not fight against it,” said Eikenberry.

The analysis, conducted by The Wilderness Society and entitled “Sitting Pretty,” also highlights an earlier U.S. Department of Interior report that the oil and gas industry is failing to develop 57 percent of its current onshore leases and even onshore permits where there is a green light to drill.

Sportsmen such as Oscar Simpson of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers in New Mexico affirmed that “Drill, Baby, Drill” rhetoric by politicians and industry failed to take into account the facts on the ground and would lead to needlessly sacrificing land, water, and wildlife resources.

“Industry is demanding we hand over more public lands despite the millions of acres of leased land not being developed or thousands of unused drilling permits.” said Simpson. “We’re told that we have to choose between energy development and protection for water and wildlife. That’s simply unacceptable.”

The analysis also shows that oil and gas drilling development in the West and nationally is now back to pre-recession levels and nearing a 20 year high thanks to oil development in places like the Bakken shale oil play in North Dakota.

“We have high levels of production and drilling, while oil and gas companies are holding on to even more leases and permits than they can use, yet this industry continues to push for more of our public lands, more permits, and shortcuts or full-on exemptions from environmental laws, as do some in Congress,” said Nada Culver, Director of The Wilderness Society’s BLM Action Center, who authored the analysis.

“These statistics tell a compelling story: Oil and gas companies don’t need more giveaways,” continued Culver.

Please read the full analysis by The Wilderness Society for additional statistics by state on oil and gas development and access.

Top five states with permits issued not drilled

(Data in order of: rank; state permits issued not drilled; percentage of permits issued not drilled located in state)

RANK	STATE	Permits issued not drilled	Percentage of permits issued not drilled located in state
#1	Wyoming	3,528	53.7%
#2	New Mexico	1307	19.9%
#3	Utah	775	11.8 %
#4	Colorado	571	8.7%
#5	Montana	203	3.1%
	TOTALS	6, 384	97.1%

This is a joint release by the Wilderness Society, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, and the Checks & Balances Project.

House protects polluters over consumers, jobs, and clean energy

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:11:10 +0000

The following statement from The Wilderness Society Vice President for Public Policy Melanie Beller is regarding the House-passed Energy and Water Appropriations bill:

“Today the House approved a backwards budget that hobbles American innovation on clean energy. At a time when we should be investing in putting people to work building tomorrow’s clean renewable technologies today, a majority in the House voted to continue yesterday’s policies. Policies that continue to line the pockets of big oil companies – even in this economy, they remain some of the most profitable companies in the world.

"In addition, it actively threatens American jobs and American consumers by repealing the sensible efficiency standards for light bulbs – standards that had already spurred innovation and created thousands of American jobs in American manufacturing facilities.

“Nothing is free in today’s marketplace of ideas – we must make investments today to be competitive tomorrow. Without directed investment, American companies will fall further and further off the global pace. Bold investments, coupled with a commitment to put facilities in the right places, will ensure a successful transition to a more sustainable energy economy that safeguards the rich diversity of wild lands and wildlife that make this country great.”

Interior Department Announces Additions to Solar Program’s Environmental Impact Statement to Speed Future Permitting

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:08:15 +0000

The Department of Interior announced plans today to dig deeper with their environmental review as part of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) development of a solar siting and permitting program for public lands in the six southwestern states.

Working to further streamline the process for siting environmentally responsible projects in low-conflict areas, the BLM will be preparing a supplement to the agency’s Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), which was first published in Draft form in December 2010. The supplement will provide additional environmental analysis on the proposed Solar Energy Zones originally identified by the agency as priority areas for solar development, as well as criteria for identifying new Solar Energy Zones and additional details regarding how the zone-based program will operate going forward. The BLM will be taking public comments on the supplement to the PEIS when it is published this fall, and intends to finalize the PEIS in 2012.

The following statement can be attributed to Alex Daue, Renewable Energy Coordinator at The Wilderness Society:

“Today’s announcement shows the importance of clear rules of the road for promoting environmentally-responsible solar energy development on the public lands. We are glad to see a continued commitment by the BLM and the Department of Interior to put in place a solar program that guides projects to low-conflict zones with great solar resources.

As we continue to gather information and build experience with solar on public lands, it is becoming ever clearer that a zone-based approach is the best way to get projects that are faster, cheaper and better for developers, consumers and the environment. We stand ready to help the Department deliver an enduring program for developing solar energy in a manner that treads lightly on our treasured lands – a program that is truly Smart from the Start.”

Bad for Alaska, Bad for Conservation - The Wilderness Society statement on H.R. 1408 and H.R.2150

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:02:52 +0000

The following statement from The Wilderness Society Alaska Regional Director Nicole Whittington-Evans is in response to the House Natural Resources Committee markup of the Southeast Alaska Native Land Entitlement Finalization and Jobs Protection Act , commonly called the Sealaska Lands Bill, (H.R. 1408) and the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska Access Act (H.R.2150).

“The bills passed by the Committee today are steps backward, not forward, for Alaskans. The Sealaska Lands Bill would continue to keep Alaskan villages around the Tongass National Forest dependent on timber boom-and-bust cycles of the past, rather than a sustainable economy based on responsible forestry, restoration, recreation and tourism. The bill also threatens priority conservation lands.

“The National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska Act poses a different set of problems. One of the main purposes of the bill – to hold annual lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska – has already been addressed by the Obama administration, making half of the legislation redundant. The other half of the legislation would mandate unnecessary roads and pipelines to crisscross the Reserve, threatening Special Areas like the critically important Teshekpuk Lake region. Teshekpuk Lake has been recognized for its wildlife values by administrations of both parties going back to Jimmy Carter.

“Neither of these bills will improve Alaska’s long-term economy nor protect its priceless natural resources, like the thousands of birds that nest near Teshekpuk Lake or the multi-million dollar salmon fishery supported by the Tongass National Forest.

Renewable Energy Must be Smart from the Start - Statement from The Wilderness Society

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:38:21 +0000

Statement of Chase Huntley, Director of Renewable Energy Policy for The Wilderness Society on today’s mark-up in the House Natural Resources Committee

“We agree with the committee’s goal of accelerating development of renewable energy on public lands. But unfortunately the committee today voted to move forward with legislation that is simply not needed, because the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is not the roadblock to development the committee seems to think it is.

"If the committee wants to speed up permitting of renewable energy projects on our public lands, it should support a “Smart from the Start” approach that sites renewable energy in the right places, builds what we need, with the right input from the very beginning.

“These bills are a distraction from what is really needed to promote renewable energy development on public and private lands alike. Time and again, we have heard clearly from industry that siting and permitting is not the real barrier to renewable energy deployment. Rather, it is the on-again off-again nature of critical financing like loan guarantees and refundable tax credits, and the lack of policies like a national renewable energy standard that create market demand for renewable power. This is where Congress should be putting its efforts.”

House seeks to mine Grand Canyon, slash spending to protect natural resources

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:43:33 +0000

House seeks to mine Grand Canyon, slash spending to protect natural resources

Embargoed until after House Appropriations Committee vote on Interior spending is complete

There have been a lot of tough moments this year for those who love the great outdoors but the plans to ready the Grand Canyon for toxic mining has got to be one of the toughest. And this proposal is made even worse by the bill it’s a part of – the 2012 Interior Appropriation Bill – which makes deep cuts to programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and yet more cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency.

These attacks made their way through the House Interior Appropriations Committee today and are expected to be voted on by the full House before the month is over.

“The budget for conservation in this country is a tiny sliver of the federal budget, and an area that’s already seen deep and destructive cuts,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “We won’t solve our nation’s financial problems by slashing these programs, but we will put clean water, clean air and the lands we love in peril. This bill even goes after the Grand Canyon itself, one of the most beloved landscapes in our nation and the world. We must turn back this assault.”

Meadows added that he hopes people across the country contact their member of Congress immediately and strongly encourage them to stop the open season on open spaces. He hopes they point to three of the most egregious measures that the House Appropriations Committee passed.

Toxic Mining in Grand Canyon National Park: Though the Grand Canyon is one of America’s most iconic places to experience to the great outdoors, the House proposes to strip this national treasure of a critical protection – opening 1 million acres of the Canyon and surrounding areas to uranium mining. The bill would do so through a provision that eliminates any funding to be used to implement the six-month Department of Interior emergency moratorium on uranium mining claims by foreign corporations at the Grand Canyon. Rep. Jesse Jackson (D-Ill.) called the Grand Canyon “an earmark for the mining industry” in his comments during the hearing today.

Dirty Water, Dirty Air: This bill would eliminate the EPA’s ability to protect air and water from the dangers of pollution. The EPA is the watchdog for the health of the American people, including vulnerable populations like seniors and children. This bill would imperil its ability to enforce Clean Water Act protections for thousands of American streams and wetlands.

Slash and Burn Budgeting: The bill would impose deep, debilitating cuts to critical conservation programs including the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This program makes polluters pay for the damage they do to the environment and uses those revenues to acquire land that is protected forever.

Endangered species: A provision attached to the bill would bar all new listings of threatened and endangered species and critical habitat designations for current species. It would do so by preventing the Fish and Wildlife Service from spending any money on such activities.

A recent Interior department report noted that one program alone – the Land and Water Conservation Fund – spent $214 million on acquiring land in 2010 … generating $442 million of economic activity, including 3,000 jobs. As the House cuts back LWCF by historic levels in the upcoming budget battle, this economic activity and job growth are in peril.

“What this means is that the cuts will soon decimate not just national and state parks, refuges, and Bureau of Land Management lands, but also local businesses and the countless jobs built around the recreation and tourism industries,” Meadows said. “In short, the effort to turn Uncle Sam into the bogeyman is now becoming a boomerang slicing its way through their back yards.”

Better Health, Cleaner Air, and Lower Bills At Risk - The Wilderness Society Statement on the BULB Act

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:45:04 +0000

The following statement from The Wilderness Society Director of Climate Policy David Moulton is regarding today’s House vote on the Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act.

“Only a dim bulb could think that the BULB Act is good for America. The current light bulb efficiency standards help consumers save money, create jobs, and improve overall health and air quality. Eliminating the efficiency standards doesn’t improve anything for consumers, only makes America more dependent on destructive polluting energy sources.”

“The energy savings from the current standard means that we don’t need to build up to 30 new power plants – many that would use fossil fuels that contribute to lower air quality and increased illness and premature deaths, and the costs associated with them. Eliminating the need for these sprawling power plants also helps keep landscapes connected and healthy – in short, saving energy saves lands.
“The improved light bulb efficiency standards were passed with bi-partisan support and signed by President Bush. Undoing them now will cost American industry and consumers across the board, and it’s an effort that should be rejected.”

Congressional Letter is a Deliberate Attempt to Undermine Common Sense Approach to Oil and Gas Management

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:57:39 +0000

Today, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) along with four other members of Congress submitted a letter attacking Master Leasing Plans (MLPs), a key oil and gas leasing reform issued by Sec. Ken Salazar in May 2010 to help reduce conflict and reach certainty on development of oil and gas – for the benefit of industry, job creation, and the many natural resources and uses of our public lands.

The following statement can be attributed to Nada Culver, Director of the The Wilderness Society’s BLM Action Center:

“This attack on master leasing plans is unfounded and undermines an important opportunity to move forward with both development and conservation on our public lands. The conservation community is committed to finding common sense solutions, including in cooperation with industry and all interested parties. The deliberate attempt to discredit master leasing plans is an unfortunate distraction from a real chance to make progress and is part of larger effort to return control of our national heritage to the oil and gas industry.

There are important issues to note:

Industry currently has millions of acres under lease and thousands of unused permits. Master leasing plans will not interfere with development of the many resources that the oil and gas industry has at its disposal.

Master leasing plans require input from all interested parties, so we can have a meaningful dialogue about if, where and how our public lands should be developed, and what other uses should be accommodated. MLPs will allow all stakeholders - the public, local elected, officials, industry, to take a closer look before we leap into leading potentially controversial areas.

The BLM is currently determining where solar energy will be focused on our public lands as well, so we can have a more thoughtful approach to all development on our public lands. This is the best way to really take into account the many values of our public lands and the people who care about them.”

Discover nature writing with renowned author Janisse Ray

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:04:09 +0000

Bring your passion to the Blue Ridge Mountains

It’s no wonder that nature inspires some of the best writing. From a crisp mountain stream to a dazzling sunset, it evokes our keenest emotions. A tranquil escape from the chaos of civilization can be an essential source of mind renewal and the chance to be creative.

The Wilderness Society is extending an invitation for people to find such inspiration September 29-October 2 at The Mountain Retreat & Learning Center in Highlands, North Carolina for a nature writing workshop led by Janisse Ray. She is the bestselling author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood as well as a gifted speaker and teacher of expression and sense of place.

“We are hoping to bring together a group of people to write about place and to build a network of writers to communicate about issues we care about in the Southern Appalachians,” says Brent Martin, director of The Wilderness Society’s Southern Appalachian Program. “We are striving for a marriage between nature writing in its purist sense and approaching it from an activist perspective.”

Writers of all abilities (or even lack-there-of) will have the chance to explore ecologically-rich areas, which The Wilderness Society has identified as "Mountain Treasures" worthy of permanent protection. This is the ideal opportunity for people to experience hands-on, boots-on-the ground training on the power of the written word as it relates to nature.

Beyond helping writers discover their inner Thoreau, Martin hopes that the workshop will stir the hearts of people with a desire to communicate the value of protecting our pristine landscapes, particularly those in North Carolina.

Martin insists that nature writing is an art form like any other and is equivalent to painting on a canvas. “It tells you a story that you wouldn’t get from just walking outside and glancing at something,” Martin says. “The writing is manifested when someone goes out into nature and spends time to reflect on his or her surroundings.”

Ray, who has received national recognition for her ability to write eloquently on America’s vanishing places, will lecture and lead participants through extensive exercises on writing techniques and advocacy in a setting overlooking the breathtaking Blue Ridge Mountains. Even more noteworthy than Ray’s distinction as an author and conservation activist is her incredible capacity for wonder. She has a mojo about her that has attracted countless Americans and inspired them to help rebuild endangered ecosystems.

“We Southerners are a people fighting again for our country, defending the last remaining stands of real forest,” Ray says in the Afterword of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. “Although we love to frolic, the time has come to fight. We must fight.”

To complement Ray’s expertise, evenings will include visits from special guests such as regional authors Thomas Rain Crowe, John Lane and Barbara Duncan.

Anyone wanting to tap into their inner artist should join expert Janisse Ray in the mountains for this invaluable opportunity in a small group setting. And as Martin says, “Don’t forget to bring your passion.”

Workshop Details and Registration: The early registration fee for this workshop is $450 per person, and it includes three nights of double occupancy lodging as well as all meals and workshop materials. Find more information about the Center. For more information or to register for the event, please contact Jill Gottesman at 828-587-9453. Register by July 15 to receive an autographed copy of Ray’s new poetry collection, House of Branches.

Efforts to slash Interior spending will cause boomerang effect

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 14:41:19 +0000

Budget can’t be balanced on the backs of America’s natural resources

The Wilderness Society today warned the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee of the dangerous side-effects of plans to slash Department of Interior funding to lows not seen in years.

“House leadership has made a big show of enacting draconian cuts to agencies and programs that fund conservation and environmental protection – essentially declaring an open season on our open spaces,” said The Wilderness Society’s president, William H. Meadows. “By focusing its ire on the ‘federal’ government, though, House leaders either missed or purposefully chose to ignore the impact their short-sighted thinking would have on jobs and economies in their own states.”

Meadows explained that cuts proposed at today’s subcommittee hearing will be bad news for communities across the country.

“What this means is that the cuts will soon decimate not just national and state parks, refuges, and Bureau of Land Management lands, but also local businesses and the countless jobs built around the recreation and tourism industries. In short, the effort to turn Uncle Sam into the bogeyman is now becoming a boomerang slicing its way through their back yards.”

A recent Interior department report noted that one program alone – the Land and Water Conservation Fund – spent $214 million on acquiring land in 2010 … generating $442 million of economic activity including 3,000 jobs. As the House cuts back LWCF by historic levels in the upcoming budget battle, this economic activity and job growth are in peril.

The Idaho Statesman picked up on that story quickly and that’s just one of the programs House leadership is targeting. The Washington Post explored the unintended consequences angle in a piece illustrating how EPA budget cuts put states in a bind.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ripped the GOP’s plan for massive cuts in The Hill’s energy and environment blog on Wednesday. “It’s not a good day for conservation,” he said. “It is a very painful day for conservation.”

E&E, meanwhile, ran a story highlighting a letter delivered to Vice President Joe Biden from more than 400 businesses, conservation and sportsmen’s groups – a letter that makes it clear that House leadership won’t be able to balance the budget by stampeding over our wild lands and natural resources.

Meadows noted that if Republican leadership is successful, it will cut investments in conservation spending to levels not seen in nearly 10 years.

“This has the potential to lead to widespread closings of national and state parks, big hits to all the businesses and people who rely on them, the loss of protection for clean water and air, and less habitat for wildlife,” he said.

It won’t balance the budget, either.

“You can’t balance the federal budget on the backs of conservation, preservation and recreation,” Meadows said. “Investments in our natural resources comprise roughly 1 percent of the federal budget yet provide a return on investment that far exceeds the cost to the taxpayer. Just ask anyone who has ever enjoyed our great American wilderness, or benefitted from the clean air and water those lands provide, or the local economies they support.”

National Monuments and open spaces are a reminder of our country’s long standing heritage

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Image:

Treasured Places to Celebrate this 4th of July

Millions of Americans make it a tradition to celebrate our country’s independence with outdoor activities. In these troubling economic times, many of those celebrations will take place close to home and on some our country’s most treasured public lands—lands that belong to each and every American.

From National Parks and National Monuments to wilderness areas, our open spaces provide a great opportunity to celebrate America’s heritage as many of our ancestors have. The Wilderness Society encourages everyone to get outdoors, recreate, and enjoy the freedom to roam the outdoors.

“Many Americans will flock to some of our country’s most popular national monuments, like the Statue of Liberty.” said Nada Culver, director of The Wilderness Society’s BLM Action Center. “But people might not realize that there are a lot of historical events that have taken place on public lands across the country. These are spectacular places that belong to all of us, and we hope that many families will make their own memories on these lands and develop stories that can be told for generations to come.”

Below are just a few treasured places to celebrate this 4th of July:

The Colorado National Monument is one of those places where America’s patriotic heritage is alive and well. John Otto is known as the “Father of Colorado National Monument.” He was known for his patriotism and named many of the features in the monument after American events or ideals, such as the towering rocks named Independence Monument and Liberty Cap. Otto climbed peaks in the monument on July 4th and Flag Day to raise flags and celebrate the freedom that our public lands provide. One of his famous ascents happened at Independence Monument on the July 4th, 1911, just shortly after President Taft signed the proclamation that has permanently protected the area. To date, many still climb Independence Monument to raise Old Glory on the 4th of July, and this year’s celebration will be extra special, with the monument celebrating its 100th anniversary.
Devil’s Tower National Monument, in Wyoming, was America’s first national monument. Before it was declared a monument by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, it was known as a 4th of July meeting place for families and ranchers in the area. In 1893 local ranchers Bill Rogers and Willard Ripley climbed to the top of the tower as a Fourth of July stunt. The two built a makeshift ladder up the side and placed a flag pole at summit. A couple of years later, Roger’s wife became the first woman to reach the top. Parts of the ladder still remain today.

Just about one hour northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, sits Gold Butte, a 350,000-acre natural playground with unique geology, fragile wildlife species, and historical petroglyphs and prehistoric dwellings. The region’s spectacular cultural resources, such as prehistoric rock shelters and roasting pits dating back over 4,000 years are considered sacred grounds to our country’s first inhabitants, and pose mysteries, such as what the “Falling Man” might signify. Encompassing the Great Basin, Mojave, Sonoran, and Colorado Plateau desert life zones, Gold Butte is home to a variety of desert animals, such as the desert tortoise, desert bighorn sheep, golden eagles, and plants such as the only pocket of Arizona cypress in Nevada. An effort is underway to permanently protect Gold Butte to ensure families will always have access to this unparalleled experience.
Mule Canyon Wilderness Study Area (WSA) and Fish and Owl Creek Canyons Proposed Wilderness (partially WSA) are all in Utah’s famous Red Rock country and reachable by local roads. The red rock, white clouds, and blue skies that can be viewed on a nice summer morning hike provide a wonderful natural reminder of our American flag’s colors and the spirit of the Fourth.

I ndependence Creek Wilderness Study Area (WSA) in California is located near Scenic Highway 395 in the Owens Valley, between Death Valley National Park and the John Muir Wilderness. It is just eight miles from the town of Independence which got its name from Camp Independence, a military outpost established on July 4, 1862. Despite its many natural wilderness qualities, the BLM has not recommended it as “suitable” for wilderness designation to Congress. For now, you can still enjoy this Independence Day in the Independence Creek WSA while you still have access to clear water streams, brown and rainbow trout, and the other wonders of this wild area.

“It is in the spirit of independence and self-determination that some of our most prized landscapes, such as the Grand Canyon and the Grand Staircase have been designated for the use and enjoyment of both present and future generations of all Americans,” said Culver. “Our public lands allow us the freedom to explore the outdoors. They are home to the resources that make our country prosperous, and are a source of pride that comes from protecting the untamed frontiers of our country.”

Pending Renewable Energy Bills Fall Short

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0000

“Smart from the Start” Is a Better Approach

As a House subcommittee considered renewable energy development issues today, The Wilderness Society (TWS) offered a better way forward – “Smart From the Start.” TWS’s Clean Energy Policy Advisor Chase Huntley testified today before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources about TWS’s “Smart from the Start” approach to developing renewable energy projects, which provides certainty to developers, as well as a need for stable financing and efforts to create market demand for clean energy.

Huntley called the renewable energy bills before the subcommittee today, H.R. 2170, H.R. 2171, H.R. 2172, and H.R. 2173, “the wrong approach” because they are based on the false assumption that National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a roadblock to renewable energy projects on public lands.

“NEPA has helped maximize projects’ energy potential while avoiding impacts that would undermine sensitive environmental resources,” said Huntley during his testimony. “NEPA hasn’t been a roadblock, it’s been a roadmap to guide the approval process to a successful conclusion. Now is not the time to turn our backs on this important law.”

Instead of focusing on shortcutting environmental policy, The Wilderness Society believes the best way to rapidly deploy renewable energy projects on our public lands is to adopt a “Smart from the Start” approach includes the following key principles:

• Renewable energy development should be guided to areas that have high clean energy potential; minimal conflicts with wildlife, wild lands, and other important resources and uses of the surrounding environments; and, wherever feasible, access to existing transmission.

• Before projects are approved, we must have thorough site-specific and landscape-level analysis of the potential environmental impacts of renewable energy projects, including their cumulative impacts.

• We need early and ongoing input and coordination with interested stakeholders, including project developers, regulators, tribes, conservation groups and other members of the public as well as with appropriate federal, state and local decision makers.

• Public lands committed to large-scale renewable energy development must be fully and fairly valued like private lands, and a significant portion of the revenues generated from public lands must be reinvested in conservation.

“We believe that this approach can prevent the conflict and controversy responsible for increased project costs and time delays,” said Huntley. “With a thoughtful planning and siting process for renewable energy, we can conserve our nation’s natural treasures while also reaping the benefits of a new energy economy.”

You can view the full testimony delivered by Huntley to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources here: http://wilderness.org/content/testimony-energy-and-mineral-resources-subcommittee-real-renewable-energy-roadblocks

New Alaska drilling bill undercuts decades of cooperative conservation

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:54:14 +0000

A bill from Rep. Doc Hastings (Wash.) would force unnecessary and costly development in the Bureau of Land Management’s National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska (NPRA) for little benefit to the American people. In this largely untouched area in the north-west Arctic region of Alaska, also known as the Western Arctic Reserve, previous federal legislation recognized multiple uses of the region, including conservation, something Hastings' bill fails to do. NPRA’s 23 million acres provide essential habitat for caribou, breeding birds from all continents, polar bears, grizzly bears, and other species.

Oil companies have been conducting exploratory drilling in the NPRA for years, but no production to date. In 2010, the US Geological Survey projected only approximately 10% of the oil in NPRA compared to its 2002 estimate.

Hastings’ bill would mandate unnecessary roads and pipelines to crisscross the Reserve, threatening Special Areas like the critically important Teshekpuk Lake region. Teshekpuk Lake has been recognized for its wildlife values by administrations of both parties going back to Jimmy Carter.

“Presidents from both parties have understood that within the Reserve, there are areas too ecologically important to drill,” said The Wilderness Society’s Alaska Regional Director Nicole Whittington-Evans. “Fragmenting the Reserve is a lose-lose proposition – it won’t provide much oil for Americans and it will destroy essential habitat for birds and wildlife.”

Under the Hastings bill, the Department of the Interior (DOI) would have to plan for road and pipeline rights-of-way across much of the Reserve, potentially cutting off caribou migration routes and breeding areas and fragmenting habitat, without regard to the impacts that roads and pipelines would have. The bill also would impose artificially-short deadlines for DOI to approve drilling permits, threatening proper consideration of environmental impacts for the sake of unhindered drilling.

“Given the oil industry’s history of accidents, spills, and broken promises when it comes to safety and environmental impacts, properly studying drilling and transportation plans – and rejecting those plans when appropriate - rather than rushing them through is the right course of action,” said Whittington-Evans. “Though the bill has a passing reference to environmental responsibility, the essence of the bill is to ensure that no part of the Reserve is fully protected for wildlife.”

“The conservation community supports a balanced approach to development in NPRA, and Hastings’ bill eliminates that balance,” added Whittington-Evans.

The Pressure Mounts to Protect America’s Wilderness

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Over 100 groups from across the country sign letter in opposition to anti-wilderness legislation

A coalition of over 100 local and national groups sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives today asking them to oppose H.R. 1581, the Wilderness and Roadless Release Act.

The Act is a “wholesale assault to provisions of law that protect tens of millions of acres of roadless and wilderness-quality National Forests and public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management,” the letter states.

The letter continues, “By eliminating these protections and opening up these lands to development, H.R. 1581 would rob the American people of their national heritage and would deny future Americans the opportunities to visit these undeveloped lands.”

The letter comes as momentum is building across the country for greater protection of our natural places. Last week, former-Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, called on the Obama administration to take a stronger stance on conservation. His calls were answered by the current Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, sending his own letter to Congress pushing for a bipartisan Wilderness agenda.

“The American people have had enough of these attacks on our wild places,” said Paul Spitler, National Wilderness Campaigns Associate Director at The Wilderness Society. “This bill jeopardizes some of the most special landscapes in America. We are asking Congress to reject this shortsighted proposal and preserve our shared lands so our kids can enjoy them as we do today.”

To view the letter and the opponents of H.R. 1581, please visit: http://wilderness.org/content/groups-oppose-wilderness-and-roadless-release-act

Statement from William H. Meadows on Secretary Salazar’s call to Congress to pass wilderness bills

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Statement from William H. Meadows on U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s charge to Congress for wilderness bills:

“Secretary Salazar’s call on Congress to pass wilderness bills comes at a critical moment when some in Congress, including Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Senator John Barrasso, have declared that it’s open season on our open spaces.

“Congress should stop that assault and heed Secretary Salazar’s call to protect more of our wild places. These bi-partisan wilderness bills have broad community support on-the-ground, and lawmakers should listen to their constituents and make these measures law.

“Still, President Obama and Secretary Salazar cannot rely solely on Congress to protect our public lands. The administration should work with local communities to create national monuments by using the Antiquities Act and other tools, including administrative protections, as recommended in the America’s Great Outdoors report. We need both Congress and the administration to act to protect our wild places.”

To view wilderness bills primed for passage this Congress that The Wilderness Society supports, please visit: http://wilderness.org/content/112th-congress-and-wildlands.

Two leading conservationists receive The Wilderness Society’s highest honors

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:00:05 +0000

Philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss and former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt receive awards

WASHINGTON, DC (June 9, 2011) – Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt – who created the National Landscape Conservation System – will receive the Ansel Adams Award this evening. On the same evening, Hansjörg Wyss – a prominent philanthropist whose company, Synthes, is being bought by Johnson & Johnson – and the Wyss Foundation will receive the Robert Marshall Award for leadership on land conservation in the American West.

The Ansel Adams Award is presented to a current or former federal official who has shown exceptional commitment to the cause of conservation and the fostering of an American land ethic. This year we honor Bruce Babbitt, who as secretary of the interior during Bill Clinton’s administration, worked to protect scenic and historical areas of America’s public lands. He led the effort to create the 26-million-acre National Landscape Conservation System.

“Bruce guided the Clinton administration in establishing bedrock conservation protection measures,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “While serving as secretary of the interior, he worked with local groups, Congress and the administration to ensure that our iconic lands were protected for perpetuity. Today as a private citizen, he continues to be a leader in the conservation community by working to expand the National Landscape Conservation System that he helped create.”

The Ansel Adams award is named for the celebrated photographer who, until his death, was an outspoken advocate for safeguarding the nation’s natural heritage. Other winners of the Ansel Adams Award include former Congressman Mo Udall (D-NM), Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, President Jimmy Carter, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME), Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and former Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus.

The Robert Marshall Award is presented to a private citizen who has never held federal office but has devoted long-term service to, and had a notable influence on, conservation and the fostering of an American land ethic. Marshall founded The Wilderness Society in 1935 along with A Sand County Almanac author Aldo Leopold, Appalachian Trail creator Benton MacKaye, and five other conservation leaders. Marshall was a prominent thinker and leader in the wilderness movement in the 1920s and 1930s. This year we honor Hansjörg Wyss and the Wyss Foundation for protecting over four million acres through their sponsorship of partnerships between non-governmental organizations and the federal government.

“Hansjörg and the Wyss Foundation have worked tirelessly to protect America’s natural heritage,” Meadows continued. “After experiencing the wild wonders in the American West as a young graduate student, Hansjörg has been steadfastly committed to keeping our public lands pristine for future generations. Hansjörg has supported on-the-ground efforts to protect our wild places, and this award is an acknowledgement of all he has done and the achievements yet to come.”

Wyss is the 26th winner of the award, joining an elite group that includes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams, David Brower, former EPA head Russell Peterson, and Mardy Murie.

Tennessee Wilderness Act Reintroduced in Congress

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:07:56 +0000

Conservationists Hail Senators Alexander and Corker Commitment to Land Protection

Chattanooga, TN – Tennessee Wild, a broad coalition of conservation organizations, applauded Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker for reintroducing legislation to designate new wilderness areas on the Cherokee National Forest. This measure could result in the first new wilderness for Tennessee in 25 years.

“We are thrilled with the Senators’ continued commitment to see our special wild places protected,” said Jeff Hunter Tennessee Wild campaign coordinator. “The Cherokee National Forest is popular with locals and tourists alike. It helps sustain local economies here in east Tennessee as well as provide clean drinking water and important wildlife habitat.”

The Tennessee Wilderness Act of 2011, introduced May 24,will protect nearly 20,000 acres of public land, expanding five existing wilderness areas and creating the new Upper Bald River Wilderness Area. All of these areas were recommended for wilderness designation in the US Forest Service’s 2004 management plan.

Widespread support for additional wilderness in the Cherokee forest includes hikers, hunters, business owners, local lawmakers, members of the faith community, and others who endorse the bill.

“Wilderness is not only important for providing a place where you can explore nature at its finest, but it is vital to new business,” said Ed Mcalister, owner of River Sports in Knoxville. “As companies look to locate, one factor they rank highly is opportunities for their employees and families to recreate in the great outdoors. Wilderness ensures that these areas will stay protected for the future.”

Hiking is a top activity in the proposed wilderness areas, which contain sections of the nationally popular Appalachian and Benton MacKaye trails.

“The Appalachian Trail Conservancy continues to believe that wilderness is the best protection available for the A.T.,” said Morgan Sommerville, regional director of the organization that protects the A.T. “We endorse new wilderness designations along the A.T. as long as enough volunteers are available to help maintain the trail. Happily, regarding the Big Laurel Branch Wilderness and Extension in the Cherokee National Forest, new volunteers are rising to the challenge.”

The proposed wilderness additions are also havens for sportsmen and sportswomen. Mike Campbell, a Chattanooga-based attorney, expressed support for wilderness: “As a hunter and horseman, I believe it is imperative to go and be where there are no vehicles, no roads, just trails and the quiet forest.”

Senators Alexander and Corker first introduced the bill last year. “Time ran out last Congress for this bill,” added Hunter. “We hope the legislation moves quickly this Congress to provide the safeguards these lands to richly deserve.”

Tennessee Wild is dedicated to protecting wilderness on the Cherokee National Forest for the benefit and enjoyment of current and future generations. We aim to educate the public about the benefits of wilderness and promote volunteerism and the sound stewardship of Tennessee's wild place.

Wild Lands Announcement Heightens Importance for BLM to Protect Wilderness Quality Lands in the West

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:41:14 +0000

In a disappointing move today, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a revised approach to managing wilderness-quality lands in light of the funding limitation placed on Secretarial Order 3310, also known as the Wild Lands Policy.

The following statement is from William H. Meadows, President of The Wilderness Society:

“We are deeply disappointed in Secretary Salazar’s decision today to undermine his Wild Lands policy. This policy helped provide the guidance needed by the Bureau of Land Management to properly manage lands as required by the Federal Land policy and Management Act of 1976. Today’s memorandum ignores the BLM’s obligation to protect wilderness values and effectively lets stand former Secretary Gale Norton’s deeply flawed decision to prohibit the BLM from properly managing those public lands that harbor wilderness values. Without strong and decisive action from the Department of Interior, wilderness will not be given the protection it is due, putting millions of acres of public lands at risk.

It’s important to keep in mind that these lands belong to all Americans. This apparent capitulation to opponents of wilderness protection is deeply disturbing – we hope the Secretary will reassert his previous leadership in recognizing the Interior Department’s responsibly to protect our most sensitive landscapes for future generations.”

For more information related to this topic and the need for Wild Lands policy, visit:

Conservation Groups Urge Congress to Help Move Large Scale Renewable Energy Projects Forward

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:46:37 +0000

House Natural Resources Committee to hold 2nd hearing on “roadblocks” to renewable energy development on public lands

A coalition of environmental groups working on renewable energy development told a congressional committee today that the unprecedented expansion of wind, solar and geothermal generation over the past two years represented real progress toward a clean energy future and was the result of coordination between their groups, renewable energy companies and federal agencies.

In a statement to the House Committee on Natural Resources the groups pointed out that in 2010 nine solar energy projects, one wind project and two geothermal projects were permitted on public lands in the West – totaling some 4,000 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity. Before 2009, fewer than 500 megawatts had been permitted on public lands.

The “real roadblock” to renewable energy development on public lands, they said, is the lack of certainty for financing and the use of first-of-a-kind technology at this scale.

Read the full letter here

The following are statements from the Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council and The Wilderness Society:

“Over the past two years, we’ve made an extraordinary commitment to developing clean, renewable energy projects in the right places,” said Chase Huntley, Clean Energy Policy Advisor with The Wilderness Society.

"Conservation organizations have joined developers and key utilities to overcome some of the challenges to getting these projects and technologies approved. And thanks to this collaboration, many projects permitted to date have been improved, and consensus is emerging around rules of the road that will afford greater certainty that projects permitted will be projects built. There are still challenges and we believe a healthy dialogue and commitment from Congress and the Department of the Interior can move us past some of those barriers.”

“Without a sustained commitment of federal funding to develop renewable energy, the solar, wind and geothermal industries will struggle to secure necessary capital while oil and gas reap the benefits of permanent tax breaks,” said Jim Lyons, Senior Director for Renewable Energy with Defenders of Wildlife. “We continue to make progress in working with the Obama administration and the solar and wind energy industries to improve project siting and identify ways to accelerate permitting. But the lack of a long-term commitment to capital continues to work against us and will thwart progress in building the clean energy economy.”

“Financial uncertainty is the real roadblock to clean energy development on public lands,” said Bobby McEnaney, Public Lands Analyst. “We’ve never made the same financial commitment to renewables as we have to more mature energy sources. Renewable energy developers aren’t asking for special treatment – only a level playing-field with other industries. In just two years, we’ve seen how much progress they can make when funding is available. ”

The Wilderness Society condemns bill by Sen. Barrasso rolling back protection for millions of acres of wilderness

Thu, 26 May 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Legislation would wipe out favorite places for hunting, fishing and more

WASHINGTON (May 26, 2011) The Wilderness Society today condemned the introduction of a bill by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) that would roll back existing protections and place at risk tens of millions more acres of wilderness-quality but unprotected National Forest and BLM public lands.

"Like its twin brother that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) introduced in the House last month, this is another punch from Congress in what has been the biggest attack on wilderness we have seen in the history of The Wilderness Society,” The Wilderness Society’s Paul Spitler said of the Senate version of the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act. "These proposals fly in the face of values Americans hold dear with respect to the stewardship of our American lands. It also flies in the face of nearly fifty years of legislation designating new wilderness areas.”

Spitler, a policy analyst, said the twin bills pose great risk to everything from supplies of cleaning drinking water to favorite destinations for hiking, camping, fishing and hunting.

If passed, this legislation would open wilderness-caliber lands to destructive threats, including oil and gas development, uncontrolled off-road vehicle use and other unchecked development. It would essentially prohibit the Forest Service and BLM from managing pristine lands to protect their wilderness values.

Read more about the attacks on our public lands and natural resources on The Wilderness Society’s Web site at: http://wilderness.org/content/open-season-open-spaces-biggest-attack-his....

Sustainability and long-term economic viability for Southeast Alaska at risk under new timber bill

Wed, 25 May 2011 21:00:14 +0000

The following statement from Austin Williams, Alaska Forest Program Manager for The Wilderness Society, is in response to the hearing on S. 730, the Southeast Alaska Native Land Entitlement Finalization and Jobs Protection Act, or Sealaska bill.

“We recognize and support Sealaska Corporation’s right to claim its outstanding acreage from the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, but it should not be allowed to re-write the rules and force American taxpayers to foot the bill.

“The Sealaska bill would undermine efforts to move toward a more stable, viable economy for Southeast Alaskan communities. The US Forest Service has already made a commitment to transitioning to a more secure and sustainable economy, and research shows that this transition will improve the economic opportunities for the future.

“Only by transitioning away from the boom-and-bust old-growth timber economy and by taking advantage of the Tongass National Forest’s strengths – restoration, recreation, fishing, and tourism – will the communities in Southeast Alaska be strengthened.

Resources:
Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Economics of Transitioning to Sustainable Forest Management

Major Conservation Plan Unveiled to Preserve the Essence of Arizona

Wed, 25 May 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Initiative will add economic value to western Maricopa County communities

PHOENIX – A broad coalition of communities, organizations, developers, military interests and citizens today unveil a proposal to conserve and protect additional public lands in western Maricopa County. Called the Sonoran Desert Heritage Proposal, the conservation initiative requires action and approval by Congress.

“This endeavor is about preserving the history, the heritage, and the legacy of Arizona,” says Marshall Trimble, Official Arizona State Historian. “For me, in anticipation of our state’s centennial next year, there is no higher calling.”

The public lands encompassed by the proposal are primarily in western Maricopa County, and form a rough crescent shape from the northern to the southern portions of the county. All of the lands envisioned in the proposal are west of the White Tank Mountains, and are public lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). There are no private lands included in the proposal.

“The Sonoran Desert Heritage Proposal envisions a network of protected public lands that will ensure the viability of nearby military facilities, foster economic development through enhanced tourism opportunities, and consider future renewable energy development for these lands,” says Matt Skroch, executive director of the Arizona Wilderness Coalition. “Most importantly, it preserves the natural, cultural, and recreational resources of the land and protects important wildlife habitat and migration corridors.”

Considering Current and Future Residents by Preserving Open Space

Much of the area identified in the Sonoran Desert Heritage Proposal can be found within a short driving distance of Greater Phoenix. It is the area’s proximity to the West Valley’s growing urban center that creates the need to manage the impact of residents and tourists on wildlife and habitat of this iconic Arizona landscape.

“We need to provide a legacy of open public lands,” says Mayor Jackie Meck, of the Town of Buckeye. “I believe the Sonoran Desert Heritage plan is one of the answers. Once the land is developed, we can’t get it back, and we know the good Lord isn’t making any more land.”
Larry K. Yount, a principal at LKY Development Company, Inc., noted that Belmont’s 20,000- acre master planned community near the Belmont Mountains would be surrounded by the Sonoran Desert Heritage proposed wilderness in this area.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with this proposal, as it gives added natural value to why prospective buyers want to live in western Maricopa County,” says Yount.

The proposal has been carefully crafted to balance growth with preservation of quality-of-life and the landscapes that make Arizona famous.

“Communities will be better equipped to develop economic strategies that take advantage of their proximity to scenic beauty, outdoor fun, and cultural education on these public lands,” says Dave Richins, Director of the Sonoran Institute’s Sun Corridor Legacy Program. “And, managing the landscape as a coordinated whole will help protect wildlife that migrate through many different BLM and military lands, as well as the rich historical and archaeological sites they contain.”

The proposal also accommodates the military installations in the area. The Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range and Luke Air Force Base, in particular, both need open space for flight training.

”We all know what kind of economic engine Luke Air Force Base is for Arizona’s economy. The lands proposed in the Sonoran Desert Heritage plan, combined with the current flight paths at the Base, show incredible overlap; it’s very easy for us to support this project because it’s supporting the mission of the Base,” says Ron Sites, executive director and president of Fighter Country Partnership. “Fighter Country Partnership supports the Sonoran Desert Heritage proposal because it protects the air space that Luke Air Force Base and other installations in Arizona need to continue their missions now and going forward.” The Partnership is an advocacy organization supporting the men, women, families and mission of Luke Air Force Base.

An Opportunity to Preserve Land That Defines Arizona

The western Maricopa County region identified in the proposal includes rugged terrain that provides an escape for hikers, hunters, and outdoor enthusiasts of every kind. It is also home to a wealth of wildlife, from the bighorn sheep to the desert tortoise and the Gila monster, bobcat, and more than 300 species of native birds.

"Landscape-scale habitat conservation is an important component of wildlife management,” says Tom Mackin, president of the Arizona Wildlife Federation. “The Arizona Wildlife Federation will continue to work to ensure that responsible wildlife management remains at the forefront of this proposal and is inclusive of management tools necessary for wildlife to continue to thrive in the Sonoran Desert.”

The land also bears a colorful history; prehistoric Hohokam people, Spanish explorers, U.S. Army expeditions, hard-riding cowboys, ranchers, and hard-rock miners all converged here across generations to shape the area’s rich cultural heritage.

“From prehistoric times to the present, this region has always been a significant travel corridor—a cultural crossroads,” says Andy Laurenzi, with the Center for Desert Archaeology in Tucson.

The public lands in the proposal also embrace an amazing variety of terrain: black basalt piles formed by ancient volcanic eruptions; desert basins thick with creosote and bright-green palo verde; jagged mountain ranges and sweeping cliffs along the banks of the Gila River.

“This is some of the most unique geology in the country,” says Craig Weaver, who has been hiking in the Saddle Mountain area for more than 30 years. “There are a lot of great canyons that provide solitude and remote areas that are within 10-15 minutes from where you park your car. You can be quickly immersed into areas with spectacular scenery and solitude in just a short drive from Phoenix.”

Working Towards a Congressional Endorsement

Supporters of the proposal indicated that today’s announcement is an important first step in a public process to discuss the value of conserving our open spaces in western Maricopa County.

"Our outreach efforts so far have included discussions with developers, business interests, cities and towns in the West Valley, utilities, environmental conservation organizations, landowners, and others to identify important public lands and to craft this draft proposal," says Mike Quigley, Arizona representative for The Wilderness Society. "Now, we're casting a wider net and asking our fellow Arizonans to join us in this process. We want to refine the proposal to best preserve the heritage of the West Valley and to make this the best proposal it can be."

Supporters indicated that the goal is to develop a finished proposal before the end of the year. To become law, it will require legislation in Congress; supporters hope it will be considered in the 2012 session.

The proposal is supported by a diverse group of local communities, civic leaders, businesses, landowners, and organizations. For more information about the proposal, visit www.sonoranheritage.org.

Senate Misses Opportunity to End Giveaway to Oil Industry

Wed, 18 May 2011 13:31:43 +0000

Statement from The Wilderness Society President William H. Meadows, on the Senate vote on S. 940, The Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act. “Oil and gas companies are making record profits on the backs of American consumers, and still reaping billions of dollars in unnecessary subsidies from taxpayers as well. With S. 940, the Senate could have signaled the beginning of the end of the the oil industry's habit of dipping into taxpayers' pockets every April 15th.

“Major oil companies have made tens of billions of dollars in profits in just the first quarter of 2011 alone – a clear sign that they do not need additional handouts from American taxpayers to further pad these profits. BP, which was partly responsible for the worst oil spill in US history – a spill that is still having effects on the Gulf economy – posted earnings of more than $7 billion in three months; this is not the type of company that needs help from American taxpayers.

“Rather than handing out billions of dollars to companies that do not need it, we should be investing in energy efficiency, and clean energy sources like wind and solar that can provide America with clean, renewable power. The Senate did no favors today to the millions of Americans that are suffering from high prices at the pump, while continuing to underwrite the lavish bonuses and shoddy environmental records of the oil industry.”

112th Congress breathes new life into wilderness protection

Wed, 11 May 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Conservation bills brought before Senate Committee

Numerous bills that failed to pass before Congress adjourned last Congressional session are receiving their first hearing today in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on National Parks.

From California to New York, the bills being reviewed would protect historical, cultural and natural treasures, such as wilderness areas and precious water supplies.

“These bills almost made it over the finish line last Congress,” said Paul Spitler, National Wilderness Campaigns Associate Director at The Wilderness Society. “This hearing is a reflection of the perseverance on-the-ground for wilderness protection, and it represents a fresh start for them in the 112th Congress.”

The hearing will review 20 bills, six of which are wildland and wilderness protection measures that The Wilderness Society supports:

• Pinnacles National Park Act (S. 161), introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and cosponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), would designate Pinnacles as a National Park, while also adding nearly 3,000 acres of the monument to the National Wilderness Preservation System.

• The Chimney Rock National Monument Establishment Act (S. 508) would create the Chimney Rock National Monument in southwest Colorado. The legislation will designate the 4,726 acre area as a National Monument and protect the region which contains watershed, scenic, archeological and cultural resources. The Act was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and cosponsored by Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO).

• Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Conservation and Recreation Act (S. 140) would protect 32,557 acres of Wilderness. This act was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and cosponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). A companion bill (H.R. 977) has been introduced in the House by Rep. Bill Huizenga (R, MI-2) with numerous cosponsors.

• The Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act (S. 564), would transfer management of the Valles Caldera from the Valles Caldera Trust to the National Park Service, which has the resources and experience to better manage the Preserve. The Act was re-introduced in March by Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Tom Udall (D-NM).

• The Molalla River Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (S. 403) would protect 15.1 miles of the Molalla River as components of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, among other protections. This Act was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and cosponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), with companion legislation in the House (H.R. 752) introduced by Rep. Kurt Schrader (D, OR-5) with numerous cosponsors.

• The Oregon Caves Revitalization Act of 2011 (S. 765) would expand Oregon Caves National Monument. This Act was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and cosponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), with companion legislation in the House (H.R. 1414) introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D, OR-4) with numerous cosponsors.

To view a complete list of bills The Wilderness Society would like to see move forward this Congress, please visit: wilderness.org/content/112th-congress-and-wildlands.

The Wilderness Society Testifies on Upstream Oil Technologies

Tue, 10 May 2011 17:05:02 +0000

Highlights spill threats from poorly-regulated infrastructure among other issues

The Wilderness Society’s Arctic Program Director and Alaska-licensed engineer Lois Epstein testified today before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in a hearing on new developments in oil and gas drilling technologies.

Epstein’s testimony focused on problems associated with poorly-regulated onshore and offshore infrastructure, options to keep the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System viable without drilling federal lands and waters, and describing how directional and conventional oil drilling have similar impacts on ecosystems.

“Oil drilling has a troubling history of spills and pollution,” said Epstein. “Even the best-financed operators cannot ensure that they will not have leaks or major spills. Directional drilling will not change that.”

Epstein gave a realistic assessment of the impacts that directional drilling, and associated exploration activities, would have on ecologically-important areas. “Seismic exploration done prior to directional drilling for oil production can leave impacts on Arctic landscapes for decades,” said Epstein. “The bottom line with directional drilling is that it allows a region to become industrialized and adversely impacted to essentially the same extent as conventional drilling.”

A proposal to allow directional drilling underneath the extremely sensitive Arctic National Wildlife was met with concern from The Wilderness Society’s President William H. Meadows.

“The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is far too sensitive a landscape to open to oil drilling – even directional drilling. The refuge’s wilderness and wildlife values are a global treasure. The refuge was established fifty years ago to conserve fish and wildlife populations and habitats in their natural diversity.”

Colorado environmentalists urge support for wilderness bill

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:15:46 +0000

Hidden Gems organizations back Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act

Four major Colorado environmental groups today praised Congressman Jared Polis for his leadership in introducing legislation that would protect more than 160,000 acres of public lands in Eagle and Summit Counties.

“Congressman Polis has worked hard to gather citizen input and craft a wilderness proposal that reflects the desires and needs of his district,” said Steve Smith, assistant director of The Wilderness Society in Colorado. “He has created a proposal that deserves to be moved through Congress with bipartisan support.”

Rep. Polis announced reintroduction of the Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act on Earth Day, April 22, 2011.

The Wilderness Society, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Wilderness Workshop and Colorado Mountain Club—the four groups that comprise the Hidden Gems Wilderness Campaign—are urging their members and the public at large to support the Polis proposal. They note the overwhelming public backing for more wilderness, as shown in polling last year that found 72% of voters in Rep. Polis’s district favor protecting additional public lands as wilderness in Colorado. Additionally, County Commissioners in both Summit and Eagle counties have written official letters in support of the wilderness proposal.

Once passed into law, it will result in significant additions to the Eagles Nest, Ptarmigan and Holy Cross Wilderness Areas in Eagle and Summit counties, which are part of the Second Congressional District that he represents. The legislation also protects a number of new standalone areas either with wilderness designation or, in areas where military helicopter training occurs, special management status with wilderness-quality land protection that also ensures training can continue.

“As Colorado’s population increases and pressure on our backcountry grows, common-sense proposals like this one from Congressman Polis will ensure wild places remain available to the public,” said Bryan Martin, director of conservation at the Golden-based Colorado Mountain Club, Colorado’s premier outdoor recreation organization. “As outdoor enthusiasts and recreationists, we applaud this effort,” he added.

The Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act comprises areas in the White River National Forest and surrounding Bureau of Land Management lands that have been identified by federal authorities
as appropriate for wilderness designation. It also includes additional wilderness-quality roadless lands identified through years of work by local conservationists.

Hidden Gems advocates are particularly excited with the prospect of securing protection for places like Castle Peak north of Eagle, Red Table Mountain between Gypsum and the Fryingpan River and Spraddle Creek outside Vail. Wilderness designation is valuable to recreationists and local economies for its ability to preserve clean air, water, wildlife and outdoor business opportunities.

“We urge all members of Colorado’s congressional delegation to quickly get behind this effort and work for prompt passage of this legislation,” said Kurt Kunkle, wilderness campaign coordinator for the Colorado Environmental Coalition.

“This is a great step forward in protecting our most treasured landscapes in this part of Colorado. said Sloan Shoemaker, executive director of the Wilderness Workshop. “Please, call, e-mail or write the Congressman and our Senators with your support.”

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For more information:
Rep. Jared Polis’ proposed Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act -
http://polis.house.gov/Wilderness/

Hidden Gems Wilderness Campaign –
www.whiteriverwild.org

For additional assistance, or for photos and video roll, please contact Allyn Harvey at (970) 618-2342

One year after the BP tragedy – No more business as usual

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:59:48 +0000

One year after the worst oil spill disaster in U.S. history, there are still many legislative, regulatory and other changes which need to be made before oil drilling in “frontier” offshore areas like deepwater in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean is allowed to proceed, according to The Wilderness Society.

“Without needed protections in place, a major spill in the Arctic Ocean could result in destruction of critical marine and coastal resources,” according to Lois Epstein, a licensed engineer who serves as Arctic Program Director at The Wilderness Society and serves on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement’s Offshore Energy Safety Advisory Committee. “At a minimum, Congress needs to step forward and increase liability and financial responsibility requirements and regulators need to issue important new regulations before allowing offshore drilling in frontier areas. Tragically, the offshore drilling industry continues to pressure the federal government to issue its permits yesterday without needed safety and environmental protections in place.”

Prior to the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion which occurred on April 20, 2010, Shell planned to move forward with drilling in the Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort Sea last summer. Due to problems with its federal air permit application, Shell’s Beaufort Sea drilling will not occur before 2012 at the earliest. A recent BOEMRE analysis of the Chukchi Sea leasing area showed that a well blowout could take months to plug and could spill from 58-90 million gallons depending on the type of relief well drilling capacity utilized.

“Conditions in the Arctic Ocean are some of the most extreme on Earth,” said Epstein. “High winds, fog, and shifting sea ice are just the beginning. Additionally, unlike the Gulf of Mexico, the nearest Coast Guard facilities which could respond to a major accident are hundreds of miles away.”

Epstein added that “there still is no proven method for cleaning up a spill in icy Arctic waters. In addition to The Wilderness Society’s spill prevention concerns, cleanup techniques need to be improved and proven before proceeding with Arctic Ocean drilling.”

The Wilderness Society condemns bill rolling back protection for millions of acres of wilderness

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:23:25 +0000

Cherished places like Tongass National Forest, Utah red rock country, and much more at risk

WASHINGTON - The Wilderness Society today condemned the introduction of a bill by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) that would roll back existing protections and place at risk tens of millions more acres of wilderness-quality but unprotected National Forest and BLM public lands.

"This is the biggest attack on wilderness we have seen in the history of The Wilderness Society," Wilderness Society policy analyst Paul Spitler said of the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act. "This proposal flies in the face of values Americans hold dear with respect to stewardship of our public lands. It also flies in the face of nearly fifty years of legislation designating new wilderness areas. Your favorite places where you love to hunt, fish or hike? Gone. Protection for our drinking water and habitat for wildlife? Gone".

If passed, this legislation would open wilderness-caliber lands to destructive threats, including oil and gas development, uncontrolled off-road vehicle use and other unchecked development. It would essentially prohibit the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management from managing pristine lands to protect their wilderness values.

"That this proposal comes from the Republican leadership in Congress makes it more alarming," Spitler said. "An attack of this magnitude does not represent the vision of Theodore Roosevelt or all the other great Republican leaders who love our public lands."

Background on the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act

Rep. McCarthy introduced the bill today. The proposal would:

Remove existing legislative protections from millions of acres of Bureau of Land Management “Wilderness Study Areas.”
Remove existing protections on tens of millions of acres of unroaded national forest wild lands by terminating a decade-old policy that protected those places.
Repeal recent BLM policy that assures the agency will identify and protect lands harboring wilderness values when it prepares its land use plans.
Prohibit future administrations from ever protecting the wilderness characteristics on tens of millions of acres of wilderness-caliber lands

Environmental Rider Attempts to Undermine Wilderness

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:41:48 +0000

The last minute Continuing Resolution that was agreed to by Congressional leaders last week included an environmental rider that attempts to roll back the clock and open our wildest lands to drilling and destruction by blocking the Department of Interior’s Wild Lands policy. The continuing resolution bans Interior, including the Bureau of Land Management, from using any budget funds towards implementing this policy in 2011.

The following statement can be attributed to William H. Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society.

“Wilderness has always been and will continue to be an important part of America’s public lands. We will continue to fight for, and expect to see protection of, places like Otero Mesa in New Mexico and South Shale Ridge in Colorado for their wilderness values. We are very disappointed by the restrictive language regarding the Wild Lands policy. The fact is that the BLM has a legal obligation to protect America's most sensitive public lands, and we will continue to work to make sure those lands are protected by Congressional or administrative decisions.”

Frontier Airlines partners with The Wilderness Society

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:53:01 +0000

Commits to protect wilderness and connect people with wild places

DENVER (April 12, 2011) - In further support of the communities in which it flies, Frontier Airlines is pleased to announce a partnership with The Wilderness Society, a leading public-lands conservation organization working to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. Frontier Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of Republic Airways Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: RJET), will serve as the official airline of The Wilderness Society and support its ongoing efforts to protect America’s great places.

Frontier’s partnership with The Wilderness Society will support wilderness and wildlife protection in communities across the United States, including areas within the White River National Forest region of Colorado, the San Gabriel Mountains in California, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, among others.

“Frontier is more than an airline with animals on its tails, we are a Company with an intense passion for the communities we serve and a real responsibility to help protect the incredible wilderness habitats our guests travel to each and every day and in which our ‘spokesanimals’ call home,” said Bryan Bedford, chairman, president and CEO of Frontier Airlines. “We are so pleased to work together with The Wilderness Society in their effort to protect the nation’s wilderness and inspire people to connect with these great places.”

“The partnership between Frontier Airlines and The Wilderness Society enables people to experience first-hand nature’s treasures,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “Together we can protect the places we love by connecting people to iconic American landscapes that sustain Frontier’s ‘spokesanimals’.”

Frontier Airlines and The Wilderness Society will be celebrating America’s wilderness through the my wilderness campaign. An interactive campaign launching on April 18, my wilderness asks individuals to share their favorite stories of experiences in their own wilderness – from hiking in a national park, fishing on a favorite river, camping with friends or simply throwing a ball with their daughter in a neighborhood park. With my wilderness, people can participate in contests to visit wild locales, watch videos featuring wild places of the month, get outdoors tips and learn more about the places they love.

Frontier will support The Wilderness Society through financial contributions, creative fundraising efforts and employee volunteerism. For more information, please visit FrontierAirlines.com and wilderness.org.

Congress stands common sense on its head” - Statement from The Wilderness Society

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:40:19 +0000

The Wilderness Society President William H. Meadows issued the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from using good science to protect public health from dangerous pollutants.

“The attempt today to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from using good science to make regulatory decisions stands common sense on its head. Congress should be prohibiting regulatory action UNLESS if follows good science, not IF it does. Instead, the House has swung over to an extreme view that vilifies the nation’s chief protector of public health and champions exemptions for polluters.

“Americans have benefited from the Clean Air Act for four decades – enjoying increasingly cleaner air as well as healthier ecosystems and lower risks of asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema. In addition, by repealing increased fuel efficiency standards, this bill makes Americans more dependent on foreign oil and threatens our wild landscapes with unnecessary fossil fuel development that fouls the air, the water, and the lungs of our children.

“The President’s threatened veto shows that this bill is not one designed to improve the lives of Americans, but to appease big polluters. The House seems determined to stick its feet in the air and its head in the sand, but at least the United States Senate yesterday rejected the extreme position that the Environmental Protection Agency should be prohibited from using the best science to protect the public health. The McConnell/Inhofe permanent ban lost on a 50-50 vote (60 votes needed to pass), and three other attempts to limit the EPA from Senators Baucus, Stabenow and Rockefeller were all defeated by lopsided margins. These votes in the Senate, and President Obama’s threatened veto, mean that the tide of vitriol heaped on EPA may have crested and common sense can re-emerge.”

Controversial Murkowski/Young Bills Would Harm Southeast Alaska Jobs

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:48:57 +0000

The Wilderness Society strongly opposes legislation that was proposed by Senator Lisa Murkowski yesterday in the United State Senate and by Representative Don Young in the House. Commonly called the Sealaska Lands Bill, the proposed law would threaten the real economic engines of Southeast Alaska—fishing, recreation, and tourism—and would gut the U.S. Forest Service’s vision for the Tongass, America’s largest national forest.

“Privatizing thousands of acres of old growth forest at the expense of salmon habitat and clean water will do nothing to sustain rural communities in the Tongass,” said Austin Williams, Alaska Forest Program Manager for The Wilderness Society. “In fact, these Southeast Alaska communities will pay for increased old-growth harvest and export through declines in revenue and jobs from fisheries and recreation.”

In a recent study, The Wilderness Society found that restoration-based management of the Tongass will actually have greater long-term economic benefits than old-growth logging, with little short-term economic impact. Under a management plan based on restoration, federal money would support riparian and forest restoration while timber production would come from already-disturbed second-growth stands without the need for continued subsidization of unsustainable old-growth logging.

“Recreation, tourism and commercial fishing provide much more revenue than logging in Southeast Alaska today,” said TWS Resource Economist Evan Hjerpe, who authored the report. “If the Sealaska bill is passed and new sections of old-growth forest are opened to logging, these important industries would be threatened.”

The forests and streams of the Tongass provide a host of vital services, including clean water, salmon and deer habitat and carbon storage. Recognizing the value of these resources, in May 2010 the U.S. Forest service committed to developing a Transition Framework for the Tongass that would diversify economic opportunities through restoration, recreation, fisheries, and renewable energy, while conserving important old-growth forest stands.

“Unfortunately, the Sealaska bill ignores the Forest Service’s vision and the economic realities of Southeast Alaska,” said Williams. “It is a step backward in forest management, and will force future generations to live without the economic and ecological benefits of a healthy Tongass.”

Resources: TWS Report: Seeing the Tongass for the Trees: The Economics of Transitioning to Sustainable Forest Management

Vitter-Bishop Bill Puts “Foxes In Charge Of the Henhouse”

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:03:51 +0000

WASHINGTON – The following statement is from The Wilderness Society Senior Policy Advisor David Alberswerth in response to the 3-D, Domestic Jobs, Domestic Energy, and Deficit Reduction Act of 2011 introduced by Sen. Vitter (LA) and Rep. Rob Bishop (UT).

“This legislation puts the foxes in charge of the henhouse. Under this bill, the oil and gas industry would essentially run the Interior Department’s offshore oil and gas program and the BLM’s oil shale program. It also mandates the destruction of the fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, eviscerates the Endangered Species Act, allows polluters to continue dumping greenhouse gases and endangering the public without any EPA oversight under the Clean Air Act, and restricts the right of Americans to use the federal courts to enforce environmental laws.

“Another needless part of the bill reinstates a number of old Utah leases, even though those leases were deemed invalid in federal court. The Utah oil and gas industry doesn’t need more leases -- it is sitting on millions of acres of idle leases it isn’t using. According to BLM data, 4,855,833 acres of BLM lands are under lease in Utah, while only 1,088,431 acres of these leases are in production. In addition, last year the BLM issued 402 drilling permits (APDs) in Utah, while the industry only drilled 172 new wells on them.

“The bill is based on the myth that Administration policies are inhibiting oil and gas development on federal lands, while tens of millions of acres of federal leases lands sit idle in Utah and elsewhere, and thousands of drilling permits issued by the BLM go unused by the industry.”

Bill to Protect New Mexico’s Rio Grande Gorge introduced

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Senator Bingaman reintroduces Rio Grande del Norte

Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation led by U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman yesterday re-introduced legislation cosponsored by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) that would protect roughly 236,980 acres of the most scenic and ecologically significant lands in northern New Mexico. A House version was introduced by Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D, NM-3), cosponsored by Rep. Martin Heinrich (D, NM-1).

The legislation, the Río Grande del Norte National Conservation Area Establishment Act (S. 667/H.R. 1241), would protect over 21,000 acres of Wilderness and roughly 236,980 acres as a National Conservation Area. It would ensure protection of some of the most ecologically significant lands in the state of New Mexico and help secure traditional ways of life in Northern New Mexico for local residents as well as hunters, ranchers, and outfitters. The legislation was first introduced in April 2009, but did not pass before the 111th Congress adjourned.

One of the most striking features of the area is Ute Mountain, the highest point on New Mexico Bureau of Land Management land. Ute rises up from the surrounding sage plain to an elevation of 10,093 feet.

The legislation would protect the upper reaches of the Rio Grande Gorge, known as one of the world’s great avian migratory routes. Eagles, falcons and hawks nest on the walls of the Gorge and numerous species -- including majestic sandhill cranes -- migrate through the area. Wilderness protection assures the ecological future of these incredible birds, as well as important game species like pronghorn and elk.

The legislation would also safeguard world-class recreation opportunities, such as hiking, hunting and fishing. Grazing and vehicle and utility access would continue in already-existing areas, and water rights would not be affected.

“This important bill would keep New Mexico’s most treasured natural resource pristine and protected,” said Michael Casaus, the New Mexico State Director at The Wilderness Society. “The El Río Grande Del Norte National Conservation Area Establishment Act would protect our wild lands that New Mexico communities have enjoyed for generations.”

Through efforts with our local partners -- such as New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and New Mexico Wildlife Federation, hunters and anglers, business leaders and outfitters and state and federal elected officials --The Wilderness Society hopes to see the Río Grande Del Norte National Conservation Area Establishment Act finally enacted this Congress to protect our lands and waters for New Mexico’s future.

Flying squirrel glides back on to endangered species list

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:17:11 +0000

Image:

Federal court decision would stop clearcutting project on Monongahela

The West Virginia northern flying squirrel may have eye-popping ability to glide from tree to tree but it needed a federal court decision on March 25 to help it land back on the endangered species list where it belongs.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia vacated the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service move that resulted in the poster critter of the state’s mountaintop forests being removed from the list. Sullivan’s decision came in response to a suit filed by conservation organizations including Friends of Blackwater Canyon and The Wilderness Society. They contended that the Bush administration removed the flying squirrel from the list after the Fish and Wildlife Service completely ignored their own procedures and the population data for the squirrel.

“The squirrel is now back on the list – and not a moment too soon,” said Judy Rodd, director of the West Virginia-based Friends of Blackwater Canyon organization. The Monongahela National Forest has proposed a project spanning almost 70,000 acres with lots of herbicide use and over 20 million board feet of timber harvest. This Upper Greenbrier North project would have devastated flying squirrel habitat. This project wouldn’t have been allowed when the squirrel was listed and shouldn’t be now.” (Read more about the decision and listen to the flying squirrel’s song at the Friends of Blackwater Canyon site.)

Flying squirrels live in mature and old growth interior forest habitat. Logging, road building and oil and gas development are quite injurious to them. Fighting to protect the squirrel has been one of the most effective ways to protect these wildest lands on the Monongahela National Forest.

“This decision means the flying squirrel is back on the Endangered Species list and all of the protections it affords to endangered species are back in place to help the squirrel recover,” said Mary Krueger, a forest policy analyst with The Wilderness Society. “It also means the Fish and Wildlife Service has to follow its own rules and should help the cause of other species that have been unceremoniously and we believe, illegally dropped from the endangered species list.”

Krueger adds that the federal court decision means that the Monongahela project as its proposed shouldn’t be able to move forward because “the project makes it pretty clear that the squirrel would suffer harm or death if it did.”

The tiny squirrel who appears to fly with a brown cape when in flight is dearly loved throughout its Appalachian Mountain homeland. Local protectors have even rallied around a mascot representative of the species they affectionately call “Ginny.” The effort has caught the attention of some powerful allies. U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources and long time supporter of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), conducted two hearings on the issue during the past few years. At a 2007 hearing on the ESA, Rahall said that the U.S. Interior Department “seems bent on abdicating its mandated responsibilities” under the law “to protect God’s creatures for future generations.”

An attorney for the groups who successfully obtained the federal court ruling, meanwhile, said the impact of the ruling will go well beyond the flying squirrel.

“This ruling is important not only to conservation of the flying squirrel, but for the proper implementation of the Endangered Species Act,” said Jessica Almy of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, a Washington, D.C. public interest law firm. “The ruling means that scientifically-based recovery criteria for endangered and threatened species, once having been adopted in the Fish and Wildlife Service's formal recovery plan, cannot be ignored due to political motivation or simple bureaucratic expediency -- in the Service's haste to remove a species from the protections of the Act. Rather, if the agency believes that such recovery criteria are in need of revision (which was not established for the squirrel) then the agency must do so pursuant to the publicly and scientifically accountable process embodied in the law.”

The organizations defending the flying squirrel are: Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of Blackwater, Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, The Wilderness Society, and Wild South.

Photos Available: Photographs of the flying squirrel are available for press use. Contact Judy Rodd for them.

Additional Contacts: Judy Rodd, Friends of Blackwater Canyon, (304) 345-7663; Jessica Almy, attorney, Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, (202) 588-5206

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Dave Matthews Lending Voice to Wilderness As Board Member of TWS

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:11:41 +0000

As one of the newest members of The Wilderness Society’s Governing Council, Dave Matthews is lending his voice to help preserve America’s treasured wilderness—including legislation to protect Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness expansion efforts near his home in Seattle. He is also calling on Congress to avoid short-sighted cuts in programs that preserve land, wildlife, and clean water.

“We are thrilled that Dave has joined our board,” said Doug Walker, the Governing Council’s chairman and himself a Seattle resident. “We have a tremendous opportunity today to make major strides in wilderness protection and to inspire the American people to action on behalf of the lands we all love. Dave’s creativity, energy, and perspective will provide a fabulous boost to these efforts.”

Matthews has championed environmental causes for many years. His band’s first public performance occurred at the 1991 Earth Day Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia. Over the years, Matthews has contributed to a series of environmental learning programs for children, worked on mountaintop mining issues, and taken steps to create a more environmentally friendly tour.

"I am honored to be associated with the work of The Wilderness Society,” said Matthews. “I look forward to learning more through this association and hope that I am able to bring greater attention to their efforts."

Given its close proximity to his Seattle home, Matthews has a special interest in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in the North Cascades. Legislation introduced in Congress earlier this year would add 22,000 acres to the existing wilderness and protect nearly 30 miles of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and 10 miles of the Pratt River as wild and scenic rivers.

Featuring wild mountain vistas, lush old-growth forests, and more than 700 mountain lakes and tarns, the Alpine Lakes Wilderness offers world-class recreation opportunities such as rafting, kayaking, hiking, and horseback riding.

In addition to Alpine Lakes, Matthews is urging Americans to take action to protect one of our wildest places: Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Running along the Beaufort Sea in northeastern Alaska, the coastal plain is the biological heart of this sanctuary. It is vital to polar bears, wolves, muskoxen, millions of migratory birds, and a hundred-thousand strong caribou herd that treks hundreds of miles to the coastal plain each spring to give birth to the next generation.

Legislation to designate the coastal plain a wilderness area has been introduced by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) and many co-sponsors.

With Congress in the midst of a heated debate over the federal budget, Matthews is asking his fans to reach out to their representatives and insist that they protect and improve America’s national parks, wildlife refuges, and forests. Millions of acres of wildlands hang in the balance without proper funding.

“Dave Matthews has long demonstrated a sophisticated and creative commitment to protecting our environment,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “Our work to preserve the nation’s last wild public lands will benefit greatly from his guidance and his ability to inspire millions of Americans.”

During The Wilderness Society’s 75-year history, the council has included some of the nation’s most prominent conservationists: founders Bob Marshall (a passionate wilderness activist and leader), Aldo Leopold (renowned author of A Sand County Almanac), and Benton MacKaye (“father of the Appalachian Trail”); award-winning writers Wallace Stegner and Terry Tempest Williams; and Mardy and Olaus Murie (driving forces behind protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge).

Multiple Attacks on Clean Air Act

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:30:13 +0000

The following statement from The Wilderness Society’s Director of Climate Policy David Moulton is in response to Congressional attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The attacks on the EPA today in Congress – the planned one by the House, and the sneak attack by the Senate – are driven by a commitment to ideology, an allergy to science, and a disregard for the public health. We need long term energy solutions that don’t poison our air and water. Instead the Republicans in the House and Senate are doing the most extreme bidding of corporate polluters.

“The Republicans leading these attacks appear to have lost touch with what most concerns average families, channeling instead the desires of polluting industries. Clean air and clean water require following science not politics. EPA's implementation of the Clean Air Act has saved $21 trillion since 1970, according to nonpartisan estimates. EPA should be thanked, not vilified, for this remarkable result.

“Congress should adopt a “more of what’s above, less of what’s below” energy policy that focuses on more clean energy from wind and solar, and less from the dirty fossil fuels that pollute our air.”

Conservationists redefine what makes Mama Grizzlies

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 07:00:00 +0000

The Wilderness Society honors Mama Grizzlies during National Women’s History Month

THE WILD (Wednesday March 2, 2011) The Wilderness Society is redefining what makes a Mama Grizzly during Women’s History Month, which occurs in March. We will be honoring women who work every day, at home or on the job, to protect our shared wild places that are homes to grizzly bears and other wildlife.

This campaign, The Real Mama Grizzlies redefines Sarah Palin’s “mama grizzly” as women who stand up for our wild places and defend our treasured lands from threats like oil and gas drilling and over-development.

“Our Mama Grizzlies are the women who are standing up for our kids by conserving our natural treasures for the next generations,” said Amy Vedder, senior vice president for conservation at The Wilderness Society. “Our Mama Grizzlies may be liberal, moderate or conservative, but we share a strong common love of wild places and the wildlife that brings nature alive. And they take action every day to ensure America’s wilderness is protected for those who follow in their footsteps.”

The campaign also highlights the woman’s voice that is often overlooked in historical and modern-day memory.

“When the wheels of the conservation movement were turning in the 1950s and 60s, it was men who were often in the spotlight,” Vedder continued. “But women were vital partners and leaders in that movement, and this March, as we celebrate National Women’s History month, we recognize their historic work.”

The campaign will feature several components:

• Grassroot Mama Grizzlies: Through stories and blogs, The Wilderness Society is honoring women whose lives and actions have contributed to protecting our vulnerable wildlands and wildlife. The series will profile Mama Grizzlies, past and present, working to protect the environment on-the-ground in precious places like Alaska, the Arizona desert, the Colorado mountains, the canyons of Nevada and more!

• Mama Grizzly Pledge: The Wilderness Society is asking people, female and male, to take the Grizzly pledge to protect wildlife habitat. The aim is to help set the record straight on who is the Real Mama Grizzly by having 20,000 Grizzlies take the pledge. Or visit www.wilderness.org/grizzlies

• Mama Grizzlies Blog: The Wilderness Society will feature a blog series during National Women’s History month by a real Mama Grizzlies writing about the ways they protect our shared treasured lands and waters.

The campaign will continue throughout the month of March, so stay tuned for updates!

Hearing Denies Wild Lands Policy Supporters Chance to Voice Opinion

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:58:43 +0000

Wilderness Society Submits Statement for Congressional Record

Despite growing support for a recent Secretarial Order that restored guidance for protecting some of America’s most treasured western lands, the level of this support unfortunately was not reflected in the limited number of witness slots allotted to supporters at today’s House Natural Resources Committee hearing on Secretary Salazar’s Wild Lands policy. Groups like The Wilderness Society, as well as organizations representing businesses, outfitters and guides, sportsmen’s organizations, and local elected officials, have expressed their support for the new policy via letters to both Secretary Salazar and the House Natural Resources Committee.

National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee Chairman Rob Bishop said in a statement that the hearing was requested due to “so many unanswered questions surrounding the creation of the new Wild Lands designation.” Yet several westerners who support the new policy were unfortunately denied the opportunity to talk through those questions with the committee.

William H. Meadows, President of the Wilderness Society, released the following statement:

“Part of the Congressional Record from today’s hearing will now include a letter from The Wilderness Society showing our overwhelming support, on behalf of more than 500,000 members, for the leadership and management decisions for Wild Lands that Secretary Salazar has laid out. It is important that the committee recognize that an important responsibility of the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management is to identify and protect public lands harboring wild land values.”

In addition to the support letter from The Wilderness Society, you can also view letters from elected officials across the west (including 73 from Colorado alone and another 20 from California), members of the National Association of Counties, outfitters who make a living from supplying goods to the outdoor community, and others, by viewing the “related content” here. You can also listen to a recent tele-press conference where participants discussed the economic benefits of our public lands as well as the religious community’s spiritual connection to our wildest places.

Otero Mesa Targeted by Mining Industry

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:51:54 +0000

Hardrock mining considered the “highest and best use” for public lands regardless of impacts on watersheds, wildlife, landscapes or local communities

For nearly a decade, the Coalition for Otero Mesa has worked to safeguard the fragile grasslands, abundant wildlife, and freshwater resources of Otero Mesa from full-scale oil and gas drilling. Now, a new and more volatile threat has emerged for America’s largest and wildest grassland – hardrock mining.

During the months of October and November 2010, over 50 new mining claims were staked in the heart of the Otero Mesa region, by Geovic Mining Corp, based in Denver, Colorado, and also majority owner of the largest cobalt-producing operation in the world, based in Cameroon, Africa. The company is seeking to mine for cobalt nickel magnesium, and has staked claim to a surface area equivocal to 2,178 football fields. This type of hardrock mining operation could significantly alter the landscape and have serious impacts on wildlife habitat, soil composition and underground aquifers in Otero Mesa.

“Without the permanent protection that it deserves, Otero Mesa is always going to be one drill bit, one mine shaft, or one spill away from being lost to us,” said Nathan Newcomer, Associate Director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. “This new threat of hardrock mining in Otero Mesa, underscores the urgency of providing permanent protection for this wild and beautiful grassland.”

Hardrock mining on public lands is governed today by the General Mining Act of 1872 – a law that has changed little since it was first signed by President Ulysses S. Grant to encourage development of the West. Under this Civil War era statute, hardrock mining is considered the “highest and best use” for public lands, regardless of the impact on watersheds, wildlife, landscapes or local communities.

“Hardrock mining is a significant cause of water contamination across the West and New Mexico,” said State Senator Steve Fischmann. “In 1979, 94 million gallons of radioactive, acidic mine tailings spilled into the Rio Puerco. Thirty years later, the impacts of that spill still linger. At the very least we must protect habitat and minimize pollution risks to the Salt Basin Aquifer from hardrock mining activities.”

Otero Mesa is an ecologically rich area home to 1,000 native wildlife species, including mule deer, mountain lion, black-tailed prairie dogs, golden and bald eagles, over 200 species of migratory songbirds, and boasts the state’s healthiest and only genetically pure herd of pronghorn antelope. Otero Mesa sits above the Salt Basin Aquifer, which is suspected to be the largest, untapped, fresh water aquifer left in the state of New Mexico. The area also has a long history of cultural use and significance, which includes the estimated 20,000 petroglyphs on Alamo Mountain, historic ruins of the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach, and numerous archeological sites.

Speaking on behalf of the Apache Advocates for Otero Mesa, Ted Rodriguez said, “To us Apaches, Otero Mesa is sacred. It holds a very special place in our history and must be treated as a Holy site, not a mining site. It deserves no less than national monument status.” Mr. Rodriguez is also the Headman of the Mescalero Apache Traditional Elders Council.

Protection for Otero Mesa enjoys broad support locally and nationally. Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson previously proposed a more than 600,000-acre National Conservation Area and has called on the BLM to conduct a new inventory of the area’s wilderness potential. Resolutions of support have come from the cities of Las Cruces and El Paso, Dona Ana County, and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Tribe. Permanent protection has also been endorsed by former Lt. Governor Diane Denish, former State Secretary of Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources Joanna Prukop, and many state representatives, state senators, county commissioners, city councilors, archaeological societies, religious leaders, and local residents. Furthermore, Governor Bill Richardson asked the Obama administration to designate the area a national monument before leaving office.

“Sportsmen and their families have a long legacy of using Otero Mesa and every acre we lose to development, of any kind, robs us of passing on that legacy,” said John Cornell of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. “The long term values of its cultural, recreational, hunting, and ranching and water resources far outweigh any short term benefits of mining.”

This is a joint release by: The Wilderness Society, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, Southwest Environmental Center, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, The Audubon Society, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Restoring Eden, Environment New Mexico, Apache Advocates for Otero Mesa

House passes historic cuts to conservation

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:59:02 +0000

Fight to protect wild lands moves to local districts over congressional recess, then on to the Senate

WASHINGTON - The U.S. House of Representatives today passed devastating cuts to conservation programs that endanger both our economic and public health. The move came as part of the bill (continuing resolution, also known as H.R. 1) to keep the government running through the rest of fiscal year 2011. The fight now moves to local districts over the congressional recess, where members of Congress will hear from the American people about the damage these cuts would cause at the local level. Then the Senate will consider these cuts and have the opportunity to save key conservation funding and other domestic priorities from the budget axe.

“The House has passed dangerous cuts across the board to public health, jobs, and wild lands,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society. “This is a historic assault on America’s lands, and it’s a critical moment for people in communities nationwide to stand up for our wild lands, and the benefits they provide for our economy and for public health. We look forward to working with the Senate to undo the terrible damage done by the House this week.”

Learn more: For a wealth of commentary and quotes on a wide range of issues discussed during the House debate, visit the live blog that The Wilderness Society ran throughout the proceedings.

America’s Great Outdoors can keep Colorado’s money local

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 23:56:01 +0000

Local ski-guide sees green in conservation plan

COLORADO - Colorado conservationists and outdoor recreation professionals applauded the release of the America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) report, a conservation initiative aimed at reconnecting Americans to nature. The report has been nearly a year in the making; President Obama established AGO last April to support local efforts to conserve outdoor spaces. Administration officials traveled across the country, including two stops in Colorado, listening to every-day-citizens’ best ideas about conservation as they prepared to draft this report.

“Our local economy, outdoor recreation and health are sustained by the Yampa River and other shared lands and waters,” said Kent Vertrees, a backcountry ski guide with Steamboat Powdercats. “Our continued protection of these places through initiatives like America’s Great Outdoors will ensure that our jobs and recreation activities stay local.”

The report, “America’s Great Outdoors: A Promise to Future Generations,” reflects what Americans care about: protecting our lands and waters for healthy, economically strong communities now and for future generations. Working with local communities and using all available tools, such as the Antiquities Act and the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), AGO will protect the places that define our natural and recreational legacy. AGO provides funding for hugely successful programs that connect our young people to nature through jobs and education and provide critical technical assistance to private working lands. Many needed and overwhelmingly supported programs are under threat, and Congress should continue to fund them, for America’s great outdoors is our common ground.

The Wilderness Society welcomes the following recommendations from the report:

Establishing a 21st century Conservation Service Corps: Reconnecting our young people to our public, private and working lands promotes a new generation of conservation stewards, and boosts local economies by providing jobs that partner a healthy economy with a healthy environment.
Provide full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund: LWCF fosters conservation on private lands that keep wildlife habitat intact, connect wild areas and protect lands around lakes, rivers and streams. Coordinating LWCF investments across shared landscape-scale conservation goals is an important step toward collaboration and alignment.
Manage Federal lands with larger landscape context to conserve and restore ecosystems and increase their resiliency to climate change: Protecting, connecting and restoring our public lands helps protect clean water supplies and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Establish AGO National Recreational Blueways Trails: Protecting our rivers at the local level will keep clean drinking water running throughout communities, while providing bountiful recreational opportunities.
Establish an interagency AGO Council and non-governmental Partnership for AGO: Improved collaboration and cooperation amongst agencies is vital to achieve the conservation and recreation goals across large landscapes. Too often, agency plans and project implementation stop at agency borders, failing to coordinate with adjacent public land agencies or private landowners.

“It is foolish in a time of belt tightening to neglect our forests, rivers and deserts that supply us with clean air and water for free,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, who was at the White House for President Obama’s speech today and at the unveiling of AGO last April. “I have seen firsthand how investing in our parks and rivers protects our communities now and pays long-term dividends with billions and billions of dollars. America’s Great Outdoors will ensure that families have places and opportunities to fish, picnic, and take vacations now and forever, whether they go to a city park or a national park.”

The cornerstone of the AGO report is protecting our shared public lands and waters by connecting people – especially our youth – with nature. And every year, people from across the United States visit Colorado for its spectacular outdoor recreation opportunities. By protecting our public lands and waters, America’s Great Outdoors will help to ensure that these opportunities continue to exist to benefit our health and wellbeing.

Colorado is home to some of America’s most breathtaking scenery, such as the San Miguel River corridor, Western Colorado’s Gateway area and the Wildlands of the Arkansas River Watershed. Protecting these public lands and rivers will provide our best hope for addressing loss of species and open space, preserving water quality and adapting to climate change while preserving the wildlife and lands we enjoy today. This will give us the opportunity to reconnect our children to their incredible natural heritage.

America’s Great Outdoors will reconnect kids to nature

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 23:21:53 +0000

Diversity in our public lands is key to success

SEATTLE, WASH. - Washington conservationists and youth advocates applauded the release of the America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) report, a conservation initiative aimed at reconnecting Americans to nature. The report has been nearly a year in the making; President Obama established AGO last April to support local efforts to conserve outdoor spaces. Administration officials traveled across the country, including a stop in Seattle, listening to everyday citizens’ best ideas about conservation as they prepared to draft this report.

“America’s Great Outdoors can give underserved youth a better chance of having meaningful contact with our parks, forests and wilderness areas,” said Saul Weisberg, executive director of the North Cascades Institute. “By connecting the next generation with nature, they will learn more about their public lands, each other and themselves.”

The Wilderness Society welcomes the following recommendations from the report:

Establishing a 21st century Conservation Service Corps: Reconnecting our young people to our public, private and working lands promotes a new generation of conservation stewards, and boosts local economies by providing jobs that partner a healthy economy with a healthy environment.
Provide full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund: LWCF fosters conservation on private lands that keep wildlife habitat intact, connect wild areas and protect lands around lakes, rivers and streams. Coordinating LWCF investments across shared landscape-scale conservation goals is an important step toward collaboration and alignment.
Manage Federal lands with larger landscape context to conserve and restore ecosystems and increase their resiliency to climate change: Protecting, connecting and restoring our public lands helps protect clean water supplies and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Establish AGO National Recreational Blueways Trails: Protecting our rivers at the local level will keep clean drinking water running throughout communities, while providing bountiful recreational opportunities.
Establish an interagency AGO Council and non-governmental Partnership for AGO: Improved collaboration and cooperation amongst agencies is vital to achieve the conservation and recreation goals across large landscapes. Too often, agency plans and project implementation stop at agency borders, failing to coordinate with adjacent public land agencies or private landowners.

The cornerstone of the report is protecting our shared forests and parks and connecting people – especially our youth – to nature. The lands that make up the North Cascades, accessible by a quick 30 minute drive from Seattle, are great for connecting kids to nature. Every year, people come from all over the world to hike, camp, raft and fish in the North Cascades. Perhaps more importantly, urban youth visit their natural “backyard” and have the opportunity to experience nature. By protecting our cherished lands and waters, America’s Great Outdoors will keep our young people healthy and active while ensuring that much needed recreation dollars enter the local economy.

Washington is home to some of America’s most iconic public lands including Mt. Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park and North Cascades National Park. We should leave the next generation healthier and better connected to the natural world. We can give our kids the opportunity to learn about and experience our treasured wild lands.

America’s Great Outdoors will keep Utah’s money local

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 23:14:48 +0000

Local business owner sees green in conservation plan

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - Utah business leaders and conservationists today applauded the release of the America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) report, a conservation initiative aimed at reconnecting Americans to nature. The report has been nearly a year in the making; President Obama established AGO last April to support local efforts to conserve outdoor spaces. Administration officials traveled across the country, including a stop in Utah, listening to everyday citizens’ best ideas about conservation as they prepared to draft this report.

“Our public lands not only provide unparalleled outdoor recreation opportunities, but they also provide a $730 billion dollar economic generator that can’t be done more cheaply in China or copied in Bangladesh,” said Peter Metcalf, CEO/president and co-founder of Black Diamond Equipment in Utah. “America’s Great Outdoors can help ensure that our children and grand children always can enjoy this timeless and unique American legacy.”

The Wilderness Society welcomes the following recommendations from the report:

Establishing a 21st century Conservation Service Corps: Reconnecting our young people to our public, private and working lands promotes a new generation of conservation stewards, and boosts local economies by providing jobs that partner a healthy economy with a healthy environment.
Provide full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund: LWCF fosters conservation on private lands that keep wildlife habitat intact, connect wild areas and protect lands around lakes, rivers and streams. Coordinating LWCF investments across shared landscape-scale conservation goals is an important step toward collaboration and alignment.
Manage Federal lands with larger landscape context to conserve and restore ecosystems and increase their resiliency to climate change: Protecting, connecting and restoring our public lands helps protect clean water supplies and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Establish AGO National Recreational Blueways Trails: Protecting our rivers at the local level will keep clean drinking water running throughout communities, while providing bountiful recreational opportunities.
Establish an interagency AGO Council and non-governmental Partnership for AGO: Improved collaboration and cooperation amongst agencies is vital to achieve the conservation and recreation goals across large landscapes. Too often, agency plans and project implementation stop at agency borders, failing to coordinate with adjacent public land agencies or private landowners.

“It is foolish in a time of belt tightening to neglect our forests, rivers and deserts that supply us with clean air and water for free,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, who was at the White House for President Obama’s speech today and at the unveiling of AGO last April. “I have seen firsthand how investing in our parks and rivers protects our communities now and pays long-term dividends with billions and billions of dollars. America’s Great Outdoors will ensure that families have places and opportunities to fish, picnic, and take vacations now and forever, whether they go to a city park or a national park.”

The cornerstone of the report is protecting our shared public lands—and Utah is primed to reap the economic benefits. Every year, people from across the United States visit Utah for its spectacular outdoor recreation opportunities. By protecting our public lands and waters, America’s Great Outdoors will help to ensure that tourism dollars continue to flow freely in Utah.

Some of America’s most iconic natural places call Utah their home, such as Cedar Mesa, the San Rafael Swell, Wasatch Mountains, Beaver Dam Wash and Red Cliffs. These large areas provide our best hope for addressing loss of species and open space, preserving water quality and adapting to climate change while preserving the wildlife, recreation and lands we enjoy today. Protecting these lands will give us the opportunity to actively reconnect our children to their incredible natural heritage.

America’s Great Outdoors wins bipartisan support

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 23:07:28 +0000

Protecting our natural heritage is conservative value

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - New Mexico conservationists of all political stripes today applauded the release of the America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) report, a conservation initiative aimed at reconnecting Americans to nature. The report has been nearly a year in the making; President Obama launched AGO last April to support local efforts to conserve outdoor spaces. Administration officials traveled across the country, including a stop in Albuquerque, listening to every-day-citizens’ best ideas about conservation as they prepared to draft this report.

“Having the opportunity to experience the many values of places like Otero Mesa is the greatest legacy we can leave future generations,” said Marie Vallejos, the Otero Mesa Outreach Coordinator at the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. “As a conservative conservationist, I believe that we have the responsibility to leave our children a healthier world, and America’s Great Outdoors can help us achieve that.”

The Wilderness Society welcomes the following recommendations from the report:

Establishing a 21st century Conservation Service Corps: Reconnecting our young people to our public, private and working lands promotes a new generation of conservation stewards, and boosts local economies by providing jobs that partner a healthy economy with a healthy environment.
Provide full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund: LWCF fosters conservation on private lands that keep wildlife habitat intact, connect wild areas and protect lands around lakes, rivers and streams. Coordinating LWCF investments across shared landscape-scale conservation goals is an important step toward collaboration and alignment.
Manage Federal lands with larger landscape context to conserve and restore ecosystems and increase their resiliency to climate change: Protecting, connecting and restoring our public lands helps protect clean water supplies and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Establish AGO National Recreational Blueways Trails: Protecting our rivers at the local level will keep clean drinking water running throughout communities, while providing bountiful recreational opportunities.
Establish an interagency AGO Council and non-governmental Partnership for AGO: Improved collaboration and cooperation amongst agencies is vital to achieve the conservation and recreation goals across large landscapes. Too often, agency plans and project implementation stop at agency borders, failing to coordinate with adjacent public land agencies or private landowners.

“It is foolish in a time of belt tightening to neglect our forests, rivers and deserts that supply us with clean air and water for free,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, who was at the White House for President Obama’s speech today and at the unveiling of AGO last April. “I have seen firsthand how investing in our parks and rivers protects our communities now and pays long-term dividends with billions and billions of dollars. America’s Great Outdoors will ensure that families have places and opportunities to fish, picnic, and take vacations now and forever, whether they go to a city park or a national park.”

The cornerstone of the AGO report is protecting treasured lands and connecting people – especially our youth – with nature. New Mexico is primed to reap the health and economic benefits from the initiative. Every year, New Mexicans – and people from across the United States – visit the state’s natural places to hike, fish, hunt, bird watch and to experience solitude. By protecting our public lands and waters, America’s Great Outdoors will keep our young people healthy and active while ensuring that much needed recreation dollars enter the local economy.

New Mexico is home to some of America’s most iconic natural places, such as Otero Mesa, Ute Mountain, the Organ Mountains and the Manzano Wilderness. Protection of these areas provide our best hope for addressing loss of species and open space, preserving water quality and adapting to climate change.

America’s Great Outdoors shows that conservation is by the people, for the people

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 22:51:35 +0000

Initiative lays out 21st century, bipartisan conservation

WASHINGTON - The Wilderness Society today welcomed America’s Great Outdoors’ (AGO) focus on community-based conservation initiatives that support economic stability and community health. AGO reflects what the public—during more than 50 listening sessions across the United States—said they wanted: invest in protecting our natural and cultural resources so that the next generation has clean air, clean water, and places to experience nature.

“It is foolish in a time of belt tightening to neglect our forests and rivers that supply us with clean air and water for free,” said William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, who was at the White House for President Obama’s speech today and at the unveiling of AGO last April. “I have seen firsthand how investing in our parks and waterways protects our communities now and pays long-term dividends.

“America’s Great Outdoors will ensure that families have places and opportunities to fish, picnic, and take vacations now and forever, whether they go to a city park or a national park.”

The report, “America’s Great Outdoors: A Promise to Future Generations,” reflects what Americans care about: protecting our lands and waters for healthy, economically strong communities now and for future generations. Working with local communities and using all available tools, such as the Antiquities Act and the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), AGO will protect the places that define our natural and recreational legacy. AGO provides funding for hugely successful programs that connect our young people to nature through jobs and education and provide critical technical assistance to private working landowners. Many needed and overwhelmingly supported programs are under threat, and Congress should continue to fund them, for America’s great outdoors is our common ground.

The Wilderness Society welcomes the following recommendations from the report:

Establishing a 21st century Conservation Service Corps: Reconnecting our young people to our public, private and working lands promotes a new generation of conservation stewards, and boosts local economies by providing jobs that partner a healthy economy with a healthy environment.
Provide full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund: LWCF fosters conservation on private lands that keep wildlife habitat intact, connect wild areas and protect lands around lakes, rivers and streams. Coordinating LWCF investments across shared landscape-scale conservation goals is an important step toward collaboration and alignment.
Manage Federal lands with larger landscape context to conserve and restore ecosystems and increase their resiliency to climate change: Protecting, connecting and restoring our public lands helps protect clean water supplies and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Establish AGO National Recreational Blueways Trails: Protecting our rivers at the local level will keep clean drinking water running throughout communities, while providing bountiful recreational opportunities.
Establish an interagency AGO Council and non-governmental Partnership for AGO: Improved collaboration and cooperation amongst agencies is vital to achieve the conservation and recreation goals across large landscapes. Too often, agency plans and project implementation stop at agency borders, failing to coordinate with adjacent public land agencies or private landowners.

“The Administration’s approach is refreshing because it allows for people from both urban and rural areas to tailor conservation and recreation initiatives to meet the specific needs of their communities,” continued Meadows. “For example, in Montana’s Blackfoot Valley, ranchers, timber interests, conservationists, and hunters have worked with the Forest Service to collaborate on a proposal that includes protecting communities and forests, as well as wildlife and recreational opportunities.”

America is primed to reap the economic benefits from the initiative. Every year, millions of people enjoy the spectacular outdoor recreation opportunities these places offer. By protecting our public lands and waters, America’s Great Outdoors will boost local economies, creating tourism, recreation and restoration jobs.

America’s Great Outdoors could reconnect kids to nature

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 22:38:06 +0000

Protecting and restoring public lands is also key priority

LOS ANGELES - California conservationists and youth advocates applauded the release of the America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) report, a conservation initiative aimed at reconnecting Americans to nature. The report has been nearly a year in the making; President Obama established AGO last April to support local efforts to conserve outdoor spaces. Administration officials traveled across the country, including Los Angeles, listening to everyday citizens’ best ideas about conservation as they prepared to draft this report.

“America’s kids need to get outdoors and experience all that our San Gabriel Mountains have to offer,” said Charles Thomas, a board member at Outward Bound Adventures in Pasadena, California. “America’s Great Outdoors is the perfect recipe for connecting our urban youth with wilderness, themselves, their families and their communities, while protecting our shared backyard.”

The Wilderness Society welcomes the following recommendations from the report:

Establishing a 21st century Conservation Service Corps: Reconnecting our young people to our public, private and working lands promotes a new generation of conservation stewards, and boosts local economies by providing jobs that partner a healthy economy with a healthy environment.
Provide full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund: LWCF fosters conservation on private lands that keep wildlife habitat intact, connect wild areas and protect lands around lakes, rivers and streams. Coordinating LWCF investments across shared landscape-scale conservation goals is an important step toward collaboration and alignment.
Manage Federal lands with larger landscape context to conserve and restore ecosystems and increase their resiliency to climate change: Protecting, connecting and restoring our public lands helps protect clean water supplies and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Establish AGO National Recreational Blueways Trails: Protecting our rivers at the local level will keep clean drinking water running throughout communities, while providing bountiful recreational opportunities.
Establish an interagency AGO Council and non-governmental Partnership for AGO: Improved collaboration and cooperation amongst agencies is vital to achieve the conservation and recreation goals across large landscapes. Too often, agency plans and project implementation stop at agency borders, failing to coordinate with adjacent public land agencies or private landowners.

The cornerstone of the report is protecting our shared public lands and connecting people – especially our youth – to nature. The San Gabriel Mountains, located close to downtown Los Angeles, serves as a model for connecting kids to nature. Every year, urban youth visit their natural “backyard” to hike, swim, bike, picnic and experience nature. By protecting our public lands and waters, America’s Great Outdoors will keep our young people healthy and active while ensuring that much needed recreation dollars enter the local economy.

Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains would benefit from implementing the recommendations in the AGO report. The San Gabriel Mountains are in need of restoration projects that improve fish and wildlife habitat and watersheds on damaged lands. Restoring the San Gabriels would not only create urban jobs, but would also improve Los Angeles’ backyard for generations to come.

Budget Amendment Opens Forests To Off Road Vehicle Abuse

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:36:28 +0000

Late Monday, amidst the ongoing budget chaos in Congress, California Representative Wally Herger (R-CA-2) quietly introduced an amendment that threatens to tie the hands of forest managers across the country trying to protect public safety and recreational experiences for everyone. It also endangers drinking water resources, big game species, and other key forest resources. Herger’s Amendment 177 to the FY 2011 Continuing Resolution would prevent the Forest Service from using any of its budget to enforce or implement the off-road vehicle management plans recently completed for nearly every national forest in the country.

“Imagine if we stopped enforcing traffic rules in our communities and didn’t have any road signs or traffic signals. This amendment does the equivalent on our National Forests,” said Vera Smith with The Wilderness Society’s National Forest Action Center.

The Forest Service has spent the last six years intensively engaging the public to develop off-road vehicle management plans that protect resources while also providing recreational access. The purpose of these plans is to designate access for motorized vehicles on a system of roads, trails and areas while reducing conflict and environmental damage and ensuring the safety of forest visitors. Under these plans, motorized vehicles no longer can drive off-trail except in discrete, designated areas.

The off-road vehicle management process was started by the Bush Administration because damage and conflict from off-road vehicle use was out of control. Unmanaged off-road vehicle use was identified by the Forest Service as one of the top four threats facing America’s national forests. Though perhaps reluctantly, many off-road vehicle riders agreed that it was time to establish some rules for motorized recreation.

“Representative Herger’s amendment is a return to the lawless west,” said Bethanie Walder, Executive Director of Wildlands CPR. “Off-road vehicle trespass and abuse is a continuing problem in National Forests and it’s not just a few bad apples. Multiple studies have shown that many motorized recreationists ride off the designated route even when they know it’s against the rules. Now they’ve asked Representative Herger both to rescind the designations and to prevent the agency from enforcing the rules.” Herger’s amendment echoes the language in H.R. 242, a bill he introduced earlier this year.

Representative Herger’s amendment prohibits the Forest Service from spending funds to enforce or implement the motorized road, trail, and area designations made in off-road vehicle management plans. Stopping implementation of these management plans means road signs will not be installed, maps showing the public where the roads and trails are located will not be printed, and roads that are eroding and causing drinking water pollution and harming fish populations will not be fixed. In addition, funding would no longer be available to construct trailheads that accommodate ORV trailers, or other beneficial amenities to improve the off-road vehicle recreational experience.

Wildlands CPR, The Wilderness Society, and many other conservation organizations, recognizing the importance of having well-designed road and trail systems for recreation, have consistently advocated for increased funds for the Forest Service to implement and enforce the off-road vehicle management plans. In the FY 2011 budget, for example, conservation groups advocated for $115 million to implement and enforce off-road vehicle plans.

“One of the smartest moves the Forest Service has made in the last few decades was to develop these off-road vehicle management plans so people can enjoy motorized recreation while providing better forest stewardship,” concluded Smith. “It makes no sense to throw these plans out and return to the days of drive-anywhere and do-anything.”

Press Releases from The Wilderness Society

Senate Hunting Bill Would Allow Motor Vehicles in Protected Wilderness Areas

Companion legislation threatening tens of millions of acres of wilderness already introduced in the House

Sacrificing Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a Running-On-Empty Strategy

Hollywood's 'Big Miracle' reminds Americans of the special nature of the Arctic Ocean

The Wilderness Society Statement on Obama Administration’s Release of Forest Planning Rule

Clean energy – not a drilling frenzy – will keep the State of the Union strong

API continues to mislead American public and lawmakers

Report: Wilderness Under Siege

The Wilderness Society releases a report on the congressional assault that would threaten nearly half a billion acres of public lands

Obama makes the right decision, blocks the Keystone XL pipeline

Natural Gas from Federal Lands Hits Reported Record High

The Wilderness Society joins nation in mourning slain Mt. Rainier Park Ranger

Sonoran Solar project approval means much needed clean energy can help power Arizona homes

XL-sized poison pill puts Canadian oil agenda ahead of American working families

Republicans’ “Drilling for Highways” initiative doesn’t add up

Deceptive Hunting Bill Heads to Committee Threatening Tens of Millions of Acres of Protected Wilderness

The Wilderness Society urges anti-wilderness provisions struck before passage

"Securing America’s Future and Environment" bill will help create jobs and protect communities

The Wilderness Society Statement on Keystone XL Delay

Wilderness bills pass out of Senate committee with bipartisan support

The Wilderness Society urges Congress to pass key wilderness legislation

Obama Administration following Bush’s lead too closely in the Arctic Ocean

Report: New National Forest Program a Success

First Year of CFLRP Reveals Big Forest, Jobs, Water and Wildlife Benefits; More Investment Needed So More Communities Can Benefit

The Wilderness Society Statement on Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act of 2011

Interior’s New Solar Plan Aims to Build a Balanced Solar Energy Program

Exporting America’s Heritage - New report shows increasing amount of domestic fossil fuels going overseas

Hearing on wilderness bills underscores bipartisan support

Committee holds first wilderness hearing in the 112th Congress

Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals protects 49 million acres of national forests

Conservationists hail end to decade-long legal battle over Roadless Area Conservation Rule

Message to deficit supercommittee: protect rural jobs

Final Little Snake plan prioritizes drilling over wildlands and wildlife

Vermillion Basin protected, but wildlife habitat and Yampa River at risk

Growing support for Interior Department’s zone-based approach to solar development is key component of Smart Solar report

New report: Conservation, recreation and preservation generate $1 trillion a year for U.S. economy

America’s Great Outdoors report shows progress and potential

Report highlights next steps in conservation

Wilderness Society President Announces Transition To Advisory Role as Counselor in the Next Year

Controversial border bill is nothing more than a land grab

Statement from The Wilderness Society on the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act

Politics trump science in latest Obama decision on Arctic Ocean drilling

County Commissioners, Conservationists and Local Citizens Praise Senators Udall and Bennet for Reintroducing San Juan Wilderness Bill

Bill would protect lands in San Miguel and San Juan counties

Department of Energy's loan guarantee should not be cut

The Action Plan for Public Lands and Education Act is a public land giveaway

Western states could be stuck in financial gridlock while corporate polluters profit

Latino Congressional Environmental Leaders Honored at Great Outdoors America Week

Reception Celebrates Representatives Raúl M Grijalva, Grace F. Napolitano and Ben Ray Luján

Land Management Plans Put Wilderness Quality Lands at Risk

The Wilderness Society applauds Senator Barbara Boxer for protecting San Diego’s Wilderness

Senator Boxer introduces the Beauty Mountain and Agua Tibia Act of 2011

The Wilderness Society unites with skiers and snowboarders to fight climate change

The Wilderness Society condemns hearing to block Antiquities Act

Hearing comes amid unprecedented attacks on America’s recreation economy

Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities bill harbors anti-Wilderness attack

Bill could lead to destruction of quality hunting and fishing habitat

Drilling in the Arctic Ocean? Really?

Statement from William H. Meadows on National Wilderness Month 2011

Proclamation from President Obama begins significant month for America’s public lands

Celebrating the Harris River Restoration

Final, Deficient Environmental Analysis for Chukchi Sea Lease Sale 193 Released

Fish and Wildlife Service Considers Wilderness for Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain

Imperiling Alaska’s Arctic

Wilderness Bills Move Forward in the Senate

Debt ceiling deal puts U.S. on brink of defaulting on environmental debt

The Wilderness Society condemns the “Great Outdoors Giveaway”

Bill to give away our great outdoors to corporate polluters receives hearing

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True Grit: FUNDamental Misunderstandings- The Truth about the Land and Water Conservation Fund

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True Grit: Monumental Lies

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True Grit: Multiple Truths About Multiple Use

True Grit: Overwhelmed with Opportunity

Mining Puts New Mexico Grasslands and Sacred Native American Lands At Risk

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True Grit: Can Your Community Afford
the Oil and Gas Industry? It’s more expensive than you think…