DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Obama plans massive land grab in The West

**johnbeller** · 01-06-2011, 04:49 AM

This is simply a reversal of the Bush administration's controversial abandonment of long-standing wildland preservation policy. That action itself was considered a land grab which essentially handed access to these protected areas over to commercial developers and energy companies.

LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec...rness-20101224

Restoring a policy abandoned by the George W. Bush administration, the top Interior official on Thursday gave the agency that manages 245 million acres of public land the authority to temporarily protect pristine areas of the West.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who issued the order, called it "a new chapter in terms of how we take care of our Bureau of Land Management lands."

Salazar's directive casts aside a Bush policy that was adopted after an out-of-court settlement between then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and the state of Utah. Under that agreement, the bureau lost its ability to manage pristine areas in order to preserve their wilderness qualities, pending congressional action. The move potentially opened the lands to energy development and mining.

The bureau will now compile an inventory of "wild lands" and, as part of its public planning process, has the authority to keep them off-limits to development. But the classification can be modified, meaning the lands will not have the same permanent protection as congressionally designated wilderness areas.

01-06-2011, 04:49 AM	#4
johnbeller Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 488 Senior Member	This is simply a reversal of the Bush administration's controversial abandonment of long-standing wildland preservation policy. That action itself was considered a land grab which essentially handed access to these protected areas over to commercial developers and energy companies. LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec...rness-20101224 Restoring a policy abandoned by the George W. Bush administration, the top Interior official on Thursday gave the agency that manages 245 million acres of public land the authority to temporarily protect pristine areas of the West. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who issued the order, called it "a new chapter in terms of how we take care of our Bureau of Land Management lands." Salazar's directive casts aside a Bush policy that was adopted after an out-of-court settlement between then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and the state of Utah. Under that agreement, the bureau lost its ability to manage pristine areas in order to preserve their wilderness qualities, pending congressional action. The move potentially opened the lands to energy development and mining. The bureau will now compile an inventory of "wild lands" and, as part of its public planning process, has the authority to keep them off-limits to development. But the classification can be modified, meaning the lands will not have the same permanent protection as congressionally designated wilderness areas.
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