Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1745 - Utah Public Lands Management Act

(House)
(Reps. Hansen (R) UT and 38 others)

If H.R. 1745 were presented to the President in its current form, the Secretary of the Interior would recommend that the bill be vetoed.

H.R. 1745 fails to protect sufficient areas as wilderness and would severely impede the Federal Government's ability to manage the designated public areas as wilderness and manage properly the surrounding public lands. Specifically, the bill would prohibit the management of other public lands that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers in the State of Utah, including lands that BLM may acquire in the future, for their wilderness value. Instead, the bill would require that the lands be managed for "non-wilderness multiple uses" only. This could preclude any BLM management action that could have the incidental effect of protecting any characteristic or quality of an area that resembles designated wilderness. Such action is unprecedented and inappropriate given that these lands could warrant wilderness designation now or in the future.

In addition, the bill would:

— Permit activities within the designated wilderness areas that, under the current wilderness designation, would be either prohibited or restricted. This would frustrate wilderness management efforts, and calls into serious question the value of the designation, as it would be impossible to guarantee the integrity of a designated wilderness area and could result in less protection inside the wilderness area.

— Mandate land exchanges between the United States and the State of Utah where Federal land values may be five to ten times more than State land values. The Administration cannot support such a restrictive and inequitable exchange.

— Eliminate the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to close or limit access to any road located within designated wilderness areas, except for public safety concerns.

Pay-as-You-Go Scoring

H.R. 1745 would increase direct spending; therefore, the bill is subject to the pay-as-you-go requirements of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990. OMB's preliminary scoring estimate of this bill indicates that its enactment would increase the deficit by less than $500,000 per year during FYs 1997-2001. Final scoring of this legislation may deviate from this estimate.