Obama trying to reserve right to designate wilderness for himself

[ronniehotdogg]

Get your new tee today.



get your tee at xxxmodrods.com

 

[wiley75]

Totally 100% agree. That's what it's come down to. And I've been doing it for a while too. Go right around the sign with dirtbike in summer, never see anyone all day, what the heck am I hurting?

You are hurting yourself, and me, and every other ORV/Motorcycle/Snowmobile rider. Your just getting more areas closed off man. If you want to fight it, do it in the right way. Attend FS meetings, donate like crazy to the Blue Ribbon Coalition (and SAWS), educate your buddies on the topic, be VOCAL about it, pick up your trash, stay on the trail and out of the medows, etc. You guys that promote riding in Wilderness areas are going to be the death of us.

 

[Dogmeat]

You are hurting yourself, and me, and every other ORV/Motorcycle/Snowmobile rider. Your just getting more areas closed off man. If you want to fight it, do it in the right way. Attend FS meetings, donate like crazy to the Blue Ribbon Coalition (and SAWS), educate your buddies on the topic, be VOCAL about it, pick up your trash, stay on the trail and out of the medows, etc. You guys that promote riding in Wilderness areas are going to be the death of us.

I see this from both viewpoints.

In all actuality, no, you aren't hurting a damned thing.

In the perception of uneducated shmucks who have been brainwashed into thinking banning people from everywhere is somehow "saving the world", you're obviously destroying the world and pissing god off and stuff.

And since the religious zealots are who control our laws, unfortunatley we have to play their game. I don't like it either, but its true.

 

[lightweightstickers]

agree

I agree with dogmeat, until we get rid of this mentailty that the goverment needs to take care of the lazy people, nothing is gonna change. Politicians will keep takin bribes, hippies will keep tryin to take our fun away, which makes no sense because we don't try and take away their favorite things from them.

Maybe thats what its gonna take, we need to get up in those a-holes shiz nit. Tell them if we catch them crappin in the woods we are gonna fine em. I think thats fair.

hmmm what to do?

 

[wiley75]

I agree with dogmeat, until we get rid of this mentailty that the goverment needs to take care of the lazy people, nothing is gonna change. Politicians will keep takin bribes, hippies will keep tryin to take our fun away, which makes no sense because we don't try and take away their favorite things from them.

Maybe thats what its gonna take, we need to get up in those a-holes shiz nit. Tell them if we catch them crappin in the woods we are gonna fine em. I think thats fair.

hmmm what to do?

I know what you're saying. But I gotta say, I've certainly never seen any restricted use areas (wilderness) all of a sudden become non restricted use because the motorcycles and snowmobilers were just riding there anyways. That just doesn't happen! In reality, this activity just causes the fines just go up and more areas because restricted. That's the trend.

The "greenies" are showing up at the forest service meetings with pictures and such showing how motorcycles, jeeps, and snowmobilers are riding illegally in areas, and are also leaving trash around, etc. THAT IS NOT HELPING OUR CAUSE.

We've gotta fight these people (Sierra Club, etc) where it hurts. In my opinion our best avenues are the Blue Ribbon Coalition and also SAWS. They get the best bang for the buck because they fight the issues in court, with lawyers. I wonder what percentage of snowmobile riders actually contribute to these organizations? 5%? 10%? We've all got money for the fancy Klim gear, trick pipes/cans, sled trailers, trucks, and that trick helix we just can't live without. Yet hardly any of us donate $$ to keep our riding areas open. What's wrong with this picture?

 

[wheelierida]

I agree with dogmeat, until we get rid of this mentailty that the goverment needs to take care of the lazy people, nothing is gonna change. Politicians will keep takin bribes, hippies will keep tryin to take our fun away, which makes no sense because we don't try and take away their favorite things from them.

Maybe thats what its gonna take, we need to get up in those a-holes shiz nit. Tell them if we catch them crappin in the woods we are gonna fine em. I think thats fair.

hmmm what to do?

Yep it's bs. But don't fine people for crapping in the woods. I'd be in trouble for sure

 

[suitcase]

Wow, lol. And from Oregon.

When I traveled through Oregon and Washington I've never seen so many lefties, you are a rare commodity in that state that's for sure.

LOL, you said a mouth full. I Started working in the woods out of high school, Hate the forest service, grew up on a farm, and love to sled on my own ground, All which have been ruined by the goverment!! Oh and I live on the east side of the state.

We are surrounded by the left in this part of the country. Top and bottom states. It is very sad.

Take back our rights!!!!

 

[MoonFire]

I would like to take Obama, Pelosi and Reid on one of my sledding adventures. Wouldn't be the first time I came back alone.

 

[MoonFire]

I would like to thank MileHighAssassin for the bad rating on my above posting. A real Man would have expressed his displeasure for my posting in public view instead of behind backs.

 

[Dogmeat]

So in other words, yes, now the power to designate wilderness lies with the BLM.

http://www.vernal.com/stories/Abbeys-visit-marked-by-fireworks,1017216

Abbey’s visit marked by fireworks
Mary Bernard, Vernal Express

Kristin Murphy/Deseret NewsGov. Gary Herbert speaks to Bob Abbey, director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, after a meeting Friday in the Senate office building in Salt Lake City.




Angry words, rowdy applause and a walk-out marked Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey’s visit Friday to the state Capitol to discuss a national policy shift on public lands management.

The new policy, announced Dec. 23 by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, directs the BLM to inventory — or in some cases re-inventory — the land it manages to determine if it should be protected under a new “wild lands” designation until Congress can decide whether it wants to permanently protect it as wilderness.

“It is consistent with our obligation to manage public lands for multiple uses,” Abbey said of the policy shift, adding that the public has a “right to protest or litigate decisions with which they disagree.”

Speaking before the usually reserved body of stakeholders on the Governor’s Council on Balanced Resources, Abbey was repeatedly blasted as he defended Salazar’s order.

“When is enough enough?” Gov. Gary Herbert asked, clearly frustrated with the shift that scraps a 2003 agreement crafted between then-Gov. Mike Leavitt and the Bush administration’s BLM that said the agency would stop trying to have public lands in Utah considered for congressional designation as wilderness.

“How many times are we going to inventory the same thing?” Herbert asked, drawing loud applause from attendees sporting “Stop the Land Grab” stickers as others wearing yellow “Wild Utah” buttons sat silent.

So many people turned out for Abbey’s meeting with Herbert and his council that two additional overflow rooms had to be opened to accommodate the session.

Herbert went on to criticize “ad nauseum litigation over public lands management that has had a negative impact on rural economies.” Specifically, he said, rural economies who rely on public lands access and face “the lack of finality” and no way to plan for the future.

Similar sentiments were voiced by council member Kathleen Clarke, who held Abbey’s job for five years during the Bush administration. She noted in the absence of certainty, “We will cause industry to flee this state.”

Council member Mike Noel went on to angrily denounce Salazar’s order as “erroneous.” The Republican state representative from Kanab said the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 guarantees Westerners responsible access to resources on public lands.

Instead, Salazar’s order is a step backward, possibly foreclosing on the state’s effort to engage different points of view to resolve challenges without legal action, council members told Abbey.

Herbert cited the “landmark agreement” between Bill Barrett Corp. and conservationists that will allow the company’s energy development program in Nine Mile Canyon to move forward as an example of the progress that was being made before Salazar’s announcement.

Locked in seemingly endless litigation, industry and conservation groups crafted a compromise to continue energy extraction and conserve public lands, the governor said.

“The agreement demonstrates the state’s appetite for collaboration” added council member Julie Mack, the Utah director for the Wilderness Society, who also pointed to the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act as further evidence of grassroots efforts to protect wilderness lands in Utah.

“We’ve tried to bring people together in a reasonable and rational approach,” said Herbert, who was clearly irked by the federal government’s lack of openness in formulating its new policy.

“Process counts and when a major policy change is announced two days before Christmas after Congress is out of session, something is wrong,” the governor said. “If we have to somehow do it in the shadows, then it probably isn’t the right thing to do.”

Still smarting from the last minute phone call on the morning Salazar announced his order, the governor said the state was “caught blind” by the policy change.

Many committee members, including Lt. Gov. Greg Bell, asked Abbey to explain how the implementation of the new policy will effect the six BLM resource management plans that were painstakingly drafted for Utah, some of them as recently as 2008.

“Each of the plans inventoried lands determined to have wilderness characteristics,” said Bell, who asked whether, under the new order, those lands will have to be managed as wild and questioned whether Salazar’s order was intended to automatically elevate lands with wild characteristics to wilderness status.

“The secretarial order gives lands with wilderness character due process,” Abbey said. “The decision protects lands with potential value.”

Of the 2 million acres of land in Utah identified as having some wilderness characteristics, only 400,000 acres were accepted in the BLM’s resource management plans for the state. Wilderness character is defined in the 1964 Wilderness Act as land of 5,000 or more acres, primarily natural in character, without man-made features and with outstanding opportunities for solitude.

“The RMP inventories all used the same criteria,” Abbey said, “but, at the end of day, if 400,000 acres are designated as natural areas, they will be managed for their wilderness characteristics.”

Re-inventory, according to Abbey, will determine whether the appropriate application of the criteria was used.

“I too, wish we had land use plans that would be static, but I’m not sure we’ll ever get there,” Abbey said.

A request to hear from former Rep. Jim Hansen, a 22-year veteran of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, was met with a protest by council member Pat Shea.

Shea — director of the BLM for a brief time under President Bill Clinton and current defense attorney for Tim DeChristopher, the man charged with monkey-wrenching a 2008 BLM oil and gas lease auction in Salt Lake City — stormed out of the proceeding when Hansen, a non-member of the council, was given the floor to speak.

“The BLM is protecting fake wilderness,” Hansen said. “Only Congress can create a wilderness.”

Abbey countered Hansen’s assertion that Salazar’s order bypasses congressional authority saying, “We are not creating de facto wilderness.”

The response — interrupted by boos from the audience — focused on the BLM’s responsibility to operate as a multiple-use agency. The new policy, he explained, will not remove the energy extraction industry from public lands.

“There are 5 million acres leaseable for development in Utah with only 1 million acres in use for energy development,” Abbey said.

It is not the goal of the Obama administration, the BLM director added, to cause economic instability, but rather to protect the wild lands of the state for future generations.

Does anyone else find it curious the only people who support horse **** like this are all from heavily populated ubran areas?

 

[MoonFire]

A few years back, about 6 or so now I guess. I had the then Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton and her hubby at my house for a couple days. They were friends of our friends that brought them up. I took her out in the Gunnison National Forest on an ATV. Talk about a city slicker with not much knowledge of the outdoors, yep, that is usually the way it is. The top dog doesn't know crap. At least she is a Republican however.

 

[Dogmeat]

A few years back, about 6 or so now I guess. I had the then Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton and her hubby at my house for a couple days. They were friends of our friends that brought them up. I took her out in the Gunnison National Forest on an ATV. Talk about a city slicker with not much knowledge of the outdoors, yep, that is usually the way it is. The top dog doesn't know crap. At least she is a Republican however.

At least Bush had one person in the white house who actually understhood how the rocky mountain states were.

I'm sure he had a hand in Gale Norton's policy decisions, thank god.

Too bad the communists are trying to revert all that now