Of the 136 cosponsors, not a single one is from Utah
On Thursday, October 1, 2009, the National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee will hold a hearing on America's Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2009 (H.R. 1925), a bill to establish 9.5 million acres of wilderness land in Utah. This is the latest attempt by Democrats (NREPA, Omnibus Public Lands Act) to lock up public lands from public access, even though the entire Utah congressional delegation and majority of locals oppose this legislation.
Get the Facts:
This bill would lock up nearly 20 percent of Utah land from job creation and economic development. Recreational activities, farming, ranching and real estate development would no longer be allowed on these new wilderness areas – significantly impacting job opportunities and state and local revenues. In a letter from 16 County Commissioners in Utah, they write that this bill would “devastate our local economies during this economic recession and render impossible any long-term economic opportunities for the people in our counties…”
This bill would eliminate American jobs by prohibiting energy production on 9.5 million acres of public land. The inability to use this land for mining and oil and natural gas production will only further increase our dependence on foreign sources of energy. This bill would also block off energy corridors that are used to move oil and natural gas to other parts of the country.
This bill contains no official maps of where the wilderness areas will be designated. It calls for “approximate” acreage numbers to be designated, but the final decision on where this land would go would be determined by unelected federal bureaucrats.
There is bipartisan opposition to this bill from the entire Utah Congressional delegation. In fact, most co-sponsors are not even from the inter-mountain state region and a disproportionately large number are from the urban areas of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston. The experience of public officials from Utah should be given greater weight than the opinion of urban Representatives who want to dictate land use policies in rural America.
