Nada Wolff Culver, the principal deputy director of the BLM, said in prepared testimony for the committee that the new rule would help the agency “responsibly manage energy development, grazing, mining, recreation, conservation, and other uses” that are part of the bureau’s responsibility.īut Jeff Eisenberg, policy director at the Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association, said assurances from the BLM ring hollow when the agency’s past actions have damaged rancher’s livelihoods. The BLM promises the designation would not preclude the areas from also being used for mining, forestry, ranching or any other uses currently allowed under the existing framework. The new rule, proposed in April, would add conservation as a category by which land can be classified for protecting landscapes and restoring habitat. He pointed to his own experience as a county official, saying that people’s anger at conservation plans always subsided when they saw how beneficial the plans were. “The West has changed, the dynamics are different,” he said. He described the “mythology” that Western states have always been a certain way and that will never change. “It doesn’t change the fundamental ground we’re working with, but it provides an opportunity for the future.” Raúl Grijalva, D-Tucson, said at the hearing. “This rule provides an opportunity for local communities to look at restoration and conservation as a legitimate use of BLM lands. They said Republicans who are concerned about restrictions on land use like mining and ranching have nothing to fear. They say the rule will merely bring balance by introducing conservation as a consideration when deciding on land usage. John Curtis, R-Utah, who said he was “having a hard time literally having my head not explode” at the rule.Ĭurtis, the sponsor of the bill that would block the rule, said that bureaucrats in Washington who “have hardly been to the West other than to fly over it on their way to California, tell us that they know better than we do how to manage these lands.”īut others defended the rule, saying that its classification of lands for “protecting intact landscapes and restoring degraded habitat” would not keep those lands from also being used for mining, forestry or any other uses. “For decades and decades and decades the good people of Utah have managed these lands in a responsible way,” said Rep.
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