| Summary: | Letter dated 28 June 1972 from Raymond J. Sherman, President of the Sierra Club, to members, urging them to write in opposition to federal legislation affecting public lands, especially H.R. 7211, and support of other bills; Also, a July 1972 "Washington report" from Congressman Vic Veysey regarding saving California desert recreation lands June 28, 1972 Dear Club Member: The House and Senate Interior Committees have considered three bills dealing with the planning and management of both public and private lands. Although the Senate bills as now drafted would move a long way toward providing such reforms, the House measure, the National Land Policy, Planning and Management Act, sponsored by Rep. Wayne Aspinall, would be catastrophic for our public lands. The Aspinall measure has been reported by the Interior Committee, with a floor vote expected after the Democratic National Convention, and we need your help - at once - to kill it. The bill, H.R. 7211, ties together Administration land use planning proposals and some of the principal recommendations of the Public Land Law Review Commission for disposal of public domain land. These two areas should be considered in separate legislation, as the Senate is doing. The bill makes chaos of public land administration by lumping together numerous federal agencies, as disparate as the Department of Defense and the Forest Service, under a common management formula which may not be applicable to their functions. It creates a proliferation of advisory and coordinating boards and councils, miring the public lands ever deeper in bureaucracy. Many sections of the bill are vague and inconsistent with other sections, leading to nothing but enormous confusion. Most importantly, the bill would jeopardize many of the conservation gains of the past half century by diluting present protection of public lands. It would expose national parks, refuges and forests to pressures to have land sold off. If would push commercial use on as much public land as possible, unless prohibited by law. It would make impossible any withdrawals over 25,000 acres, and smaller withdrawals could not be made for longer than ten years. This will rob the federal government of the one tool it has to stop unrestricted mining under the Mining Act of 1872, which is to be left intact. Furthermore, the bill would repeal the Antiquities Act of 1906, under which more than 60 national monuments have been created. The details by which these and other setbacks would be effected are set out on the inside pages. H.R. 7211 is an unprecedented abuse of the separation of powers, for it would put details of the administration of public lands in the hands of Congress, rather than leaving it to the various agencies to w h o m such administration should be entrusted. Conservationists have labored for 80 years to establish a workable system of administration. Each agency, except the Bureau of Land Management, has its o w n organic act, spelling out its function. The Aspinall proposal, however, would throw the management of public lands into chaos, without giving the B L M needed management authority as provided in the Senate version (S.2401). It is an insult to every government agency involved. We need your help, and the help of all your friends, to flood the House with letters of protest. Please tell your congressman you oppose this bill and urge him to vote against H.R. 7211. And ask your senators to support S.632 as reported from committee and a strong conservationroriented version of S.2401, still in committee, as the responsible vehicles for reform. Write today (House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515; U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510). This is the showdown for the future of our public lands. Sincerely, '&4AZACSt4A A Raymond^]. Sherwin President Crucial conservation campaigns like this are enormously expensive and consume much of the Sierra Club's limited financial reserves. Only through your donations and efforts to recruit additional members can we continue the important battle to preserve our environment. We urge you to make a contribution to the Sierra Club to help save the public lands. Use the membership form in the April SIERRA C L U B BULLETIN. Thank you. OBJECTIONS TO H.R.7211 Land Tenure and Withdrawals 1. The bill would leave the vast majority of all public lands in the U.S. unprotected from inappropriate mining and logging. Currently, the one solution to such improper use is executive withdrawal, by which the president or Secretaries of ^Agriculture or Interior withdraw an area for protection from development. H.R. 7211 would curtail this valuable recourse by making it impossible for the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to make withdrawals of more than 25,000 acres, and smaller withdrawals could only be made subject to the approval of the Interior Committees of both the House and the Senate, and then not for more than ten years. In addition, H.R. 7211 would repeal the Antiquities Act of 1906, which has allowed presidents to preserve scenic, historic and archeological areas by creating more than 60 national monuments through executive proclamation. The bill also directs the Secretary of Interior to review existing park and refuge withdrawals within ten years and recommend to Congress "such legislative action as he deems necessary and appropriate to carry out the purposes of each withdrawal." Conservationists see this review as an unnecessary procedure, for it requires the secretary to review areas that there is no question about, and it leaves the future of these lands uncertain indefinitely. H.R. 721 l's most serious flaw leaves the Mining Act of 1872 intact. The Mining Act provides the principal vehicle for unwarranted intrusion onto the public domain, and to curtail the withdrawal authority without reforming this law is like turning the fox loose in the chicken coop. The bill takes the minor step of repealing most of the obsolete disposal laws, many of which have not applied outside of Alaska since 1934 as a result of the Taylor Grazing Act. Their existence is not the pressing issue. The Mining Act must be repealed, or at least drastically reformed. Land Use Planning and Management 2. H.R. 7211 would make the issue of property disposal, which is only pertinent in a limited sense with respect to the B L M and the Defense Department, also apply to the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. As such, it opens a Pandora's Box of pressures for land disposal in completely inappropriate cases. There is no need to do this. The bill also establishes the requirement that "land use plans shall be developed for all public lands [including parks and refuges] regardless of whether such lands have previously been classified, withdrawn, set aside or otherwise designated for one or more uses." It fixes as national policy procedures for disposal if "it is determined that disposal of a particular parcel, or an interest therein, will achieve a greater benefit for the general public than the retention thereof." This means, for example, that during a so-called energy crisis, a secretary could decide that oil deposits in a national park will "achieve a greater benefit for the general public" and dispose of "an interest therein" to Standard Oil. Any land management plan that fails to provide for any one multiple use in a tract of 25,000 acres or more would be subject to a veto by either the House or Senate Interior Committee. A veto can be achieved by a majority of a quorum - on the 17-member Senate Interior Committee, that may consist of as few as five Senators, and on the 38-member House Committee, 11 Congressmen can make such a majority. This provision, then, means that if logging, mining or grazing were to be excluded from any management plan for a tract of this size, five senators or 11 representatives could intervene to overrule whatever agency is proposing the plan. Thus, these commercial uses could be effectively forced on to all public lands, except where clearly prohibited by law. A related provision requires that all uses be permitted on public lands, unless one of the Interior Committees approves their exclusion, if they are at all compatible. Thus, grazing could be forced on more high mountain meadows, and selective logging in camp grounds. Finally, the bill creates a proliferation of advisory coordinating boards composed partly of private citizens for the management of public lands. These would be both cumbersome and an unnecessary federal expense, and would be effective only in creating more red tape than already exists. While citizen participation is a goal worth pursuing, these boards would not truly represent the public. Appropriations 3. The bill would require new authorizations from Congress for all appropriations where dollar limits are not now specified with respect to public land programs. In effect, this would set up a two-step appropriation process that would require all public land management agencies to clear their spending with both the Interior Committees and the Appropriations Committees. It would give the Interior Committees the power of the purse to enforce their control over agency planning, and again, five senators or 11 representatives would have the power to veto appropriations. Sustained Yield 4. Managing forests under the concept of "sustained yield" maintains the quantity and quality of the timber for two reasons: first, it can be produced in perpetuity using selective cutting equal to or less than the growth of the forest; and second, the quality of the timber growth is not lower than the quality of that harvested. The Aspinall bill, however, would change the definition of sustained yield in such a way that the forests and grazing lands could be seen as "profit centers." In place of the perpetuity concept, the new definition would allow a quick liquidation of old-growth timber (the most valuable) on the national forests, with a subsequent drop-off in production. It would then be argued that the foreseeable needs of the American public were for pulp rather than dimensional lumber, and the land would be in better condition to produce pulp. In fact, it might be capable of producing only pulp. H. R. 7211 ivould leave the vast majority of public lands unprotected from inappropriate mining and logging. RESPONSIBLE BILLS S. 2401 Land Management The Sierra Club supports S.2401, the National Resource Lands Management Act of 1972, because it gives the Bureau of Land Management an organic act for managing the public domain on principles emphasizing outdoor recreation and esthetic values. The principles of S.2401 include: 1. A declaration of national policy for management of resource lands under the principle of multiple use and sustained yield to protect their environmental quality, including preservation and protection of certain areas in their natural state and for fish and wildlife habitat. 2. Full review of all roadless areas of 5,000 acres or more for possible inclusion in the National Wilderness System and maintenance of the wilderness character until Congress has acted on results of the review. 3. Grants the Bureau of Land Management authority to insure that the land management policies are enforced. S. 632 Land Planning 1. Establishes an Office of Land Use Policy Administration in the Department of the Interior. This office would maintain a continuing study of land resources and their use; cooperation with states in the development of standard methods and classification for collection of land use data; develop and maintain a Federal Land Use Information and Data Center; and administer the grant-in-aid program established under the provisions of the Act. 2. Grants $100 million annually in federal funds to the states to cover 9 0 % of the cost of developing state land use programs. Each state would be required to develop an adequate statewide land use planning process within three fiscal years in order to qualify for continued state grant eligibility, and after five fiscal years, they would be required to develop an adequate land use program to avoid being penalized by having federal funds withheld for highway and airport programs. A Crisis for Our National Parks, Forests, Wildlife Refuges and Other Public Lands Millions of Acres of the Nation's Public Lands are Threatened 'Write your Congressman today urging that H.R. 7211 be defeated Write your Senators to urge support of S. 632 and S. 2401, strong Senate alternatives SIERRA CLUB 1050 Mills Tower San Francisco, Calif. 94104 Among its disastrous provisions, H.R. 7211 repeals the Antiquities Act, which in the last half century has provided for the establishment of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, Glacier Bay National Monument, Death Valley National Monument, and 57 others. J&BSGih-S___9_-____-i IB™ ^^_______raM___WR__-F Crisis in our public lands! BULK RATE U.S. POSTAGE PAID San Francisco, Calif. Permit No. 5127 10296609 C -0606 OR * MRS LORENZO A RICHARDS 445 5 5TH ST RIVERSIDE CALIF 92501 WASHINGTON REPORT 3 8 t h D i S t r i C t , C a l i f o r n i a Riverside, Imperial, and San Bernardino Counties (Not Printed at Government Expense) •4Kfr> *<• July 1972 CAN WE SAVE DESERT RECREATION LANDS? Secretary of Interior Rogers C. B. Morton came to Imperial Sand Hills in May to dedicate 2.7 million acres of Southern California desert land as Federal "Desert Recreation Areas." This event marks a new emphasis in the handling of public desert lands. Gone is the view that the desert is a boundless, inexhaustible antagonist. In the future there will be more planning, more development of recreational potential, and more restrictions on uses of desert lands. Restraint For All To those of us who have been free to use public desert lands without restriction all of our lifetime, this comes as a bit of a shock. Reflection tells us that rapid population growth in Southern California, increased time for recreation and travel, and the recent discovery by city dwellers of the joys of recreation on the desert, all add to enormously increased usage of the lands, with resulting pressure of over-use and abuse which could spoil the fun for all of us. One's senses are revolted by litter-strewn desert campsites, uprooted plants, thirsting desert animals driven from their watering places, and denuded and rutted slopes scarred by motor vehicles. Sharing the limited recreational potential of the desert requires planning, restraint, regulation, and enforcement lest we destroy our irreplaceable asset. To accomplish these ends, I have co-authored with Congressman Bob Mathias and 23 other California Congressmen H.R. 10155 to protect, develop and administer public lands of the California desert. It would cause the development of plans for use of public desert lands, the regulations under which they will be used, and for administration by the Department of Interior. Actually, Secretary Morton's announcement moved as far as possible by administrative act to carry WASHINGTON OFFICE RIVERSIDE DISTRICT OFFICE BRAWLEY DISTRICT OFFICE 1227 LONGWORTH BUILDING 4075 MAIN ST. SUITE 275 202 E. ST. SUITE D WASHINGTON, D. C. 20515 RIVERSIDE CALIFORNIA 92502 BRAWLEY 92227 Page 2 out the goals of the proposed law, although it has not yet been enacted by the Congress. How To Enforce Rules? Further, I have introduced H.R. 7284 with Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr. and 20 other co-authors to give the Bureau of Land Management personnel the power to enforce by arrest and trial before United States Commissioners or Magistrates the regulations for conduct on public lands and the usage of these lands. Obviously, someone must do this job, and the local sheriff would be hard pressed to cover the scene. This year there have been serious incidents of gang fights, use of narcotics, and destruction of public lands, with BLM personnel powerless to intervene. Some desert areas, through the planning program, will be reserved and improved for vehicular activities (for example, the Imperial Sand Hills) while others will be restricted against damaging use by jeeps or motorcycles. Mining developments and exploration will be protected. Geothermal vs. Recreational It is not certain at this time how designating Desert Recreation Areas might affect the development of geothermal resources. Large tracts of desert have been identified as "known geothermal areas", and presumably under Federal legislation of 1970 will soon be available for lease and exploration by private capital hoping to develop the power and water needed for a growing Southern California. There could be incompatability between geothermal development and some recreational uses. For example, it would be impossible to operate desert vehicles through a maze of pipes linking the wells of a geothermal field. The Secretary of the Interior would make a determination of the highest and best use of various areas, and by letter I have requested that he clarify the procedure by which this would be done. So the California desert faces a new era in which recreational use will be planned for and protected along with other uses. It is the only way we can accommodate the great population pressure coming on the land in the next decade. Secretary Morton and his Department of Interior appear to have the right instincts and abilities to do the job.
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