The Department of the Interior recently entered into a settlement with the State of Utah that will allow it to protect wilderness characteristics/values in a way that is consistent with federal law. This settlement will clear the way for on-the-ground experts within the Bureau of Land Management, working with the public, to use all the tools of federal law to protect pristine areas while still allowing opportunities for recreation and resource access in multiple use areas.

Here are some details about the process the Department of the Interior will use to protect wilderness values/characteristics:

(1) All Congressionally designated wilderness areas and formal wilderness study areas will continue to be managed as wilderness.

Interior will continue to protect over 22 million acres identified as part of the congressional designation process.

The law establishes very specific standards for wilderness areas. There are no motorized vehicles, no campgrounds, no invasive species controls, and no proactive fire prevention efforts. Recreational access is generally restricted to hiking and horseback riding. Because wilderness designation, as a practical matter, permanently bars most use or access to these lands, Congress has reserved to itself the ability to designate wilderness areas. No administrative agency has the power to create a wilderness area by itself.

(2) Interior can protect areas in their natural state using other tools besides the wilderness designation process.

Interior plans to consider wilderness inventories and recommendations from wilderness advocates in its planning process, and fully anticipates that many areas will be managed in their natural state to preserve wilderness characteristics. Other areas may be managed in a natural state except Interior plans to consider wilderness inventories and recommendations from wilderness for fire prevention efforts, wildlife habitat improvements, or enhanced recreational access-none of which would be possible under a formal wilderness designation.

There are a wide range of mechanisms for land protection; BLM's non-wilderness land use authority enables it to manage for wildlife, recreation, and protection of natural wonders.

BACKGROUND:

The State of Utah and others sued the Interior Department over the use of the land use planning process to create de facto wilderness by the Bureau of Land Management. The Department agrees with Utah's position that the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) does not allow BLM to use Section 202 areas to create de facto wilderness. Therefore, the Department settled the lawsuit by agreeing to withdraw the BLM handbook and to nut create these Section 202 areas as de facto wilderness. The federal district court approved the settlement.

Under this settlement the Department would continue to review through its planning process its holdings for areas that may possess remote or primitive characteristics. The Secretary has authority, other than the FLPMA Section 603 process for creating congressionally designated wilderness, including the administrative designation of Area of Critical Environmental Concern.
The Department will continue such designations as a component of the land use planning process. The settlement clarifies that BLM has the authority to address wilderness characteristics through the usual land management process; however, BLM does not have authority to extend the 15-year process in identifying areas for Congressional designation as wilderness.

When FLPMA was signed into law in 1976, the Department of the Interior was required to inventory BLM's land holdings to determine which areas would be suitable for congressional designation as wilderness. Specifically, Section 603 of the Act gave the Department 15 years to review the inventory of public lands for wilderness characteristics, determine the suitability of those lands for wilderness designation, and develop a set of recommendations for the President. In 1991, the Department complied with this obligation by transmitting a list of areas that were suitable for wilderness designation to the President. The President, in turn, forwarded that list to Congress.

Unfortunately, Congress has taken little action to designate any of the millions of acres that the Department recommended as wilderness. In the interim, the Department manages all wilderness study areas so as not to impair their suitability for potential designation as wilderness. Interior has urged Congress to move forward and adopt its wilderness recommendations.

This case arose because the statutory time period for wilderness recommendations under Section 603 expired in 1991. However, in the late 1990s, the Clinton administration began relying on Sections 201 and 202 of the Act to identify additional BLM lands not on the 1991 list. (The prior administration's approach to Section 202 areas was memorialized in a BLM handbook that was issued January 10, 2001.)

The Department's internal legal analysis, however, indicates that Sections 201 and 202 may not be used as surrogates for Section 603 wilderness recommendations.

The decision in no way affects the long-standing prerogative of Congress or the states to propose new wilderness areas outside the BLM process.

The Department of Interior's settlement with the State of Utah ensures protection of important environmental, cultural and historical values, while fulfilling our responsibility under the law.