The great outdoors giveaway

Congressman Stevan Pearce is an original co-sponsor of risky legislation that would result in the worst sell-off of our nation’s most scenic treasures in living memory

In celebration of our state’s wild public lands, last month many New Mexican hunters, anglers, hikers, horseback riders, and elected officials participated in New Mexico’s Great Outdoors Week, which featured a series of outdoor activities highlighting the importance of public lands in New Mexico.

As part of the celebration, Congressman Ben Ray Luján, State Land Commissioner Ray Powell, Questa Mayor Esther Garcia, and other leaders issued proclamations and statements supporting our state’s public lands. Their actions echo the bold vision of President Theodore Roosevelt when he created the National Park System, and remind us of the appreciation we hold for America’s immeasurable public lands.

And immeasurable they are.

More than two-thirds of Americans participate in outdoor recreation activities annually on our public lands – including hiking, hunting, camping, horseback riding, kayaking, fishing, and cross-country skiing – contributing $730 billion to the U.S. economy and $3.8 billion annually to New Mexico’s economy.

Many of our wildest public lands enjoy protections as wilderness because of their beauty and uniquely wild characteristics. In particular, roadless national forest areas act as critical watersheds for communities throughout the state. These watersheds recharge aquifers for many of our large cities and provide crucial water sources to acequias in northern New Mexico.

Our great state, the Land of Enchantment, is defined by the remarkable quality of our wild public lands. In Southern New Mexico we have treasures such as Carlsbad Caverns National Park, the Organ Mountains, and the Gila Wilderness, of which all of us are proud – except for Congressman Stevan Pearce.

A blank check for polluters

Congressman Pearce is an original co-sponsor of the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act, or more aptly put, the Great Outdoors Giveaway Act. This risky legislation would open tens of millions of acres of protected public land to full-scale development, including 2 million acres in New Mexico. The legislation gives polluters and developers, who already have access to 76 percent of all national forests and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, access to even more of America’s vanishing wilderness.

This bill is a blank check for polluters to ruin the air we breathe and water we drink.

The Great Outdoors Giveaway would undermine decades of land protection in one fell swoop, and if signed into law would leave only 12 percent of our national forests and BLM lands off limits to development.

If Congress were to pass this legislation, the American public would witness the worst sell-off of our nation’s most scenic treasures in living memory.

Over 50 million acres of roadless national forests would be opened up to commercial logging, mining, road building, and other development. Close to 7 million acres of Wilderness Study Areas would have their protections tossed out the window and be opened to oil and gas drilling and mining.

The Great Outdoors Giveaway goes even further in erasing America’s longstanding conservation land ethic by prohibiting future administrations from ever protecting Wilderness Study Areas or roadless national forests.

Furthermore, the legislation would overturn a decades-old policy of balancing the myriad uses of public lands. Under this policy, known as “multiple use,” land managers analyze public lands to determine the best uses for each landscape. Under this approach – enshrined in bedrock laws such as the National Forest Management Act and Federal Land Policy and Management Act – wilderness protections are balanced with other uses such as energy development and motorized recreation.

The Great Outdoors Giveaway would gut these bedrock laws by preventing land managers from even considering protecting the wilderness qualities of public lands.

A senseless piece of legislation

Since 1964, Congress has made determinations on which areas of our national public lands and national forests should, or should not, be designated as wilderness under the Wilderness Act. Similarly, the Forest Service and BLM have included considerations of which lands should be managed to protect wilderness values as one of the host of uses of our public lands.

These determinations are best made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account a variety of factors including the values of the lands at issue, agency recommendations, and the views of local and national stakeholders.

The Great Outdoors Giveaway is a senseless piece of legislation that would only benefit industrial timber and mining corporations. It would degrade backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities, increase fire risk, destroy recreation economies, impose increased water treatment costs, and add to the Forest Service’s maintenance backlog.

It would terminate time honored and successful Wilderness Act procedures for lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, and in the end the losers will be the American public, our children and grandchildren and generations to come.

Newcomer is associate director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.