HR 2016; 26 Million Acres of our public land in Jeopardy

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HR 2016; 26 Million Acres in Jeopardy
On Wednesday, March 12, the House Resource Committee will meet to mark up HR 2016 in preparation for a full House vote. HR 2016, the National Landscape Conservation System, would place 26 million BLM acres under the watchful eye of the National Park Service and could lead to the end of multiple use of those lands that Americans have enjoyed for many years. Proponents say the legislation merely codifies a system that former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt put into place in 2000, and would not change current management practices. However, in his opening remarks before the House Subcommittee on Parks, Forests and Public Lands in June 2007, Rep Rob Bishop (R-UT), Ranking Member, expressed reservations about the bill, saying: "This appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to insert restrictive National Park Service management methods in order to lock up public lands which were intended to be multiuse…[S]ome of these lands are remarkable, but were created at the whim of special interest groups by a sympathetic president." Section 3 of HR 2016 reads; "In order to conserve, protect, and restore nationally significant landscapes that have outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values for the benefit of current and future generations, there is established in the Bureau of Land Management the National Landscape Conservation System." The term "values" is troublesome, believes Mr. Bishop, as The National Park System (NPS) has struggled with the definition for years. "In the NPS a value is now interpreted to include such subjective things as sound-scapes, view-sheds and the occasional smell-shed." He continued; "After this bill has become law, we should expect an onslaught of bills for new units of the National Landscape Conservation System." The Senate companion bill is S 1139. "We should consider this proposal carefully because the special interests have already put 'multiuse' in jeopardy,"

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