Michelle Merlin, E&E
reporter
Published: Monday, May
20, 2013
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert
(R) recently signed a bill demanding that the federal government cede its
lands, which make up roughly two-thirds of the state's area, to the state.
Herbert, who also chairs
the Western Governors' Association, will be on Capitol Hill tomorrow to tell a
House Natural Resources subpanel that he thinks Utah and other states manage
their lands well, perhaps even better than the federal government.
The testimony could
highlight the differences between members of the conservative Western Caucus,
who believe the federal government should stay out of state land management,
and environmentalists, who worry that states will sell their protected lands
for oil and gas drilling.
Herbert is going to
"emphasize state- and local-based management techniques and practices are
effective," said Cody Stewart, Herbert's energy adviser and a former aide
to Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah). "The federal land management structure is an
outgrowth of 50 years of ideas. It may be well-intentioned, but the result is a
system that is inflexible, a system that is bureaucratic, a system that does
not encourage or even allow for innovation or flexibility."
Bishop, the chairman of
the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, which is holding
the hearing, has often questioned whether the federal government should be
involved in land management, especially when the federal and state partnership
can be unwieldy.
The hearing will examine
"why not just let the states who have more of a vested interest in the
health and viability of the lands in the first place [manage them] ... [and see
if] it makes more sense for the states to have the authority and sole
responsibility to manage the land instead of it being a state-federal-type
situation," said Bishop spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin.
Environmentalists tend
to oppose these viewpoints because they fear states would open up the protected
lands to development.
"If somehow the
state would wrest control over public lands, it's clear they would be sold or
leased to the highest bidder," Steve Bloch, an attorney and energy program
director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said about Utah's land
transfer bills.
Environmentalist groups
from outside the state also argue that the federal lands aren't just Utah's.
"The federal lands
are lands that belong to all Americans, and the notion that the American people
take this wonderful resource and hand it over to a single state to do what they
want with it is simply nonsensical," said Paul Spitler, the director of
wilderness policy for the Wilderness Society. "These lands are a national
treasure, and they belong to all Americans, and they should stay that way for perpetuity."
Schedule: The
hearing is Tuesday, May 21, at 10:30 a.m. in 1324 Longworth.
Witness: Utah
Gov. Gary Herbert (R), chairman of the Western Governors' Association.
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