{"id":25851,"date":"2011-02-08T07:50:52","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T14:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=25851"},"modified":"2011-02-10T12:48:42","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T19:48:42","slug":"pearce-says-he-wants-to-protect-dona-ana-county-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/02\/pearce-says-he-wants-to-protect-dona-ana-county-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearce says he wants to preserve land in Do\u00f1a Ana County"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Though he has opposed Do\u00f1a Ana County wilderness legislation in the past, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a>, R-N.M., says he wants to work with New Mexico\u2019s U.S. senators to \u201cpreserve the beautiful lands and open spaces\u201d here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not calling for these sensitive areas to be opened to development,\u201d Pearce said in a statement released by his office. \u201cI believe that we need to strike the right balance between conservation and economic growth. I look forward to working with Senators Bingaman and Udall to preserve the beautiful lands and open spaces in Do\u00f1a Ana County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sens. Jeff Bingaman<\/a> and Tom Udall<\/a>, both Democrats, proposed a bill<\/a> last year that Pearce didn\u2019t support. It would have designated hundreds of thousands of acres in Do\u00f1a Ana County as wilderness \u2013 the federal government\u2019s most restrictive conservation designation.<\/p>\n

Pearce wasn\u2019t in Congress at the time, and the legislation died in the Senate<\/a> without ever having gained the support of then-U.S. Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., who Pearce replaced in office last month.<\/p>\n

Some wilderness proponents believe that, with Teague\u2019s loss, they\u2019ve missed what may have been their best chance to get a wilderness bill approved. Pearce, who served in the House from 2003 to 2008 before leaving to run unsuccessfully for Senate, has a long history of criticizing Do\u00f1a Ana County wilderness proposals.<\/p>\n

Pearce\u2019s staff points out that he doesn\u2019t oppose the wilderness designation entirely. He supported the New Hampshire Wilderness Act of 2006<\/a>. That legislation \u2013 related to a Senate bill<\/a> that later became law \u2013 added 10,800 acres to a small, existing wilderness area<\/a> in a remote area of New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s much different than what has been proposed in Do\u00f1a Ana County \u2013 hundreds of thousands of acres, much of it around the largest city in Pearce\u2019s district.<\/p>\n

Pearce\u2019s proposal<\/h3>\n

In 2008, while he was running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Udall, Pearce proposed an alternative<\/a> to wilderness.<\/p>\n

The legislation would have created new designations to protect the land that would be less restrictive than wilderness. Pearce\u2019s bill would have eliminated the eight wilderness study areas<\/a> in the county \u2014 comprising about 220,000 acres \u2014 and instead designated \u201cspecial preservation areas\u201d and \u201crangeland preservation areas\u201d to give some protection to approximately 300,000 acres, including the Organ, Do\u00f1a Ana and Robledo mountains and Picacho\u00a0Peak.<\/p>\n

The designations would have allowed grazing and some motorized- and mechanical-vehicle access. Grazing is allowed in wilderness areas. So is some motorized- and mechanical-vehicle access under a handful of exceptions to the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0wilderness road-less rule.<\/p>\n

Still, proponents of the wilderness proposal said Pearce\u2019s legislation would have downgraded the status of the land because the wilderness status comes with federal funding to ensure compliance with the law. Pearce\u2019s new designations might not have come with such funding, they said.<\/p>\n

Pearce\u2019s bill, which the House never voted on, would have also required the sale of federal land in the county that the BLM identifies as available for disposal. That\u2019s currently tens of thousands of acres.<\/p>\n

Still concerned about wilderness<\/strong><\/p>\n

NMPolitics.net recently asked Pearce if he saw the potential for compromise between what he proposed in 2008 and what Bingaman and Udall proposed last year. In response, the congressman said he wants to preserve the land, but expressed deep concerns about wilderness.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my concerns with creating a wilderness designation in Do\u00f1a Ana County as it has been proposed is that wheeled vehicles are not allowed in designated wilderness areas,\u201d Pearce said. \u201cThis would prevent Border Patrol agents from conducting the necessary operations to secure the border.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law enforcement agents are allowed to enter wilderness areas with motorized or mechanized vehicles if they are in pursuit of a suspect, but not for routine patrols.<\/p>\n

To try to further address those concerns, Bingaman and Udall revised their proposal<\/a> last year to free up a larger area along the border for law enforcement access. Apparently, that wasn\u2019t enough to satisfy Pearce.<\/p>\n

Pearce also said wilderness \u201climits the flexibility of use for firefighting and other emergency services, creating a safety concern for residents of the county.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Pearce didn\u2019t say he won\u2019t support any wilderness in Do\u00f1a Ana County. Instead, he said, \u201cno private land should be designated as wilderness,\u201d and that there should be \u201cextensive dialogue with state and local governments as to which pieces of their land they are willing to designate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must have all parties on board before we take such a step,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Most local governments support wilderness<\/h3>\n

As to Pearce\u2019s point about getting government agencies on board, the City of Las Cruces, Town of Mesilla, City of Sunland Park and Do\u00f1a Ana County have all passed resolutions supporting a wilderness plan similar to that proposed by Bingaman and Udall.<\/p>\n

So did the Village of Hatch, but it later withdrew its support. The new Town of Anthony has not taken a position on the issue.<\/p>\n

You can view a full list of groups that support the wilderness plan here<\/a>. A list of those who support legislation more like what Pearce proposed in 2008 can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Pearce\u2019s 2008 bill would have required the sale of tens of thousands of acres of land that\u2019s current in wilderness study areas.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though he has opposed Do\u00f1a Ana County wilderness legislation in the past, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., says he wants to work with New Mexico\u2019s U.S. senators to \u201cpreserve the beautiful lands and open spaces\u201d here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[115,147,138,116],"class_list":["post-25851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-environment","tag-growth-and-development","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}