Two congressional field hearings on the Utah Republican delegation's controversial wilderness bill will be held this week in Cedar City and Salt Lake City.
The hearings are being convened by the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands, which is chaired by Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah.Hansen will also conduct follow-up hearings in Washington, D.C., next week.
At issue are Utah wilderness proposals and more specifically HR1745, dubbed the "Utah Public Lands Management Act of 1995," which would set aside 1.8 million acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land in Utah as wilderness.
Sponsored by Utah Republicans in Congress, HR1745 is expected to sail through Hansen's subcommittee and then through the full Natural Resources Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.
Utah's lone Democrat, Rep. Bill Orton, is expected to propose his own bill, and discussion will likely include HR1500, a Utah wilderness bill sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., that is supported by environmentalists who want to set aside 5.7 million acres.
The field hearings will be attended by Hansen and three Democratic members of the sub-com-mittee, Rep. Bruce Vento, D-Minn., Del. Eni Faleomavaega, D-American Samoa, and Hinchey. They will take testimony from a variety of pre-selected voices on both sides of the highly polarized wilderness debate.
Each hearing is expected to last three to four hours, said Allen Freemeyer, the subcommittee's staff director.
Hinchey's bill likely will go nowhere in Congress but will be used as leverage in environmentalists' attempts to stop or amend HR1745.
"Utahns are being misrepresented by the (Utah) delegation's bogus wilderness proposal," said Rudy Lukez, chairman of the Utah Wilderness Coalition, which includes 45 national and local activist groups and businesses.
Lukez notes that HR1745 not only sets aside too little wilderness, it would also release all non-wilderness areas in Utah to multiple use and would allow the construction of reservoirs, transmission lines, roads and "other facilities needed in the public interest" in four wilderness areas in southwestern Utah.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Schedule of meetings
Here's a schedule of the congressional hearings on wilderness:
- Friday, June 23, 10:30 a.m., R. Haze Hunter Conference Center on the Southern Utah University campus, Cedar City.
- Saturday, June 24, 9:30 a.m. in the State Office Building auditorium, Salt Lake City.
- Thursday, June 29, in Washington, D.C.
Concerned that their viewpoint won't be adequately addressed in the field hearings, the Utah Wilderness Coalition is holding a "citizens hearing" on Thursday, June 22, 7:30 p.m., at the Indian Walk-In Center, 120 W. 1300 South.
That hearing will be facilitated by Bill Smart, former editor of The Deseret News; Ted Wilson, former mayor of Salt Lake City; and author Terry Tempest Williams.