WASHINGTON — Environmentalists are swarming to Washington this week to try to break up what was hailed as a "breakthrough" deal to end long wars over Utah wilderness.
On the other end of the political spectrum, Utah counties don't much like that deal either. It calls for protecting 1.1 million acres of land in the West Desert as wilderness. In fact, Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, acknowledges his staff is daily tweaking details and offering incentives to seek counties' support and hold together the fragile deal.
In short, what was supposed to be a relatively easy first step to end wilderness wars is shaping into a battle royal in Congress this year. Hansen says he's even considered attaching it to the annual defense bill to make it harder to kill or veto.
Last May, the unlikely duo of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt announced the deal and Hansen later introduced legislation to implement it.
It was supposed to include areas that everyone essentially agreed should be wilderness and would leave more contentious battles for later.
But environmental groups quickly said it protected too little land as wilderness, while many counties said too much was protected.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance this week is flying in volunteers from 22 states to meet with an estimated 350 of the 535 senators and members of the House of Representatives to fight the deal.
"These folks come to Washington because they truly care about preserving our national open spaces," said Larry Young, SUWA's Washington director.
Hansen, however, charged that SUWA is merely trying to keep alive an issue that has been a good fund-raiser for it, and of constantly moving its goal posts. He noted that SUWA once pushed for 5.7 million acres of wilderness statewide, but when the congressional delegation approached that amount, it then pushed for more than 9 million.
"I honestly say if we introduced a bill with 9.1 million, they'd be in here with (demands for) 12.4 million. If we went with that, they'd say, 'Throw in the forest service, parks, and drain Lake Powell.' This is a non-ending thing," Hansen said.
Meanwhile, he acknowledged it has not been easy keeping together the coalition that supposedly backs the bill. For example, many affected Utah counties also complained about the bill during hearings.
Hansen said he is trying to sweeten the deal for them by working out a way to trade school trust lands buried in potential West Desert wilderness for lucrative land elsewhere.
On top of counties' recalcitrance, Babbitt himself, in hearings last year, opposed the way Hansen had written the bill. Allen Freemyer, staff director of Hansen's Resources Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands, said it has been rewritten since to address all specific concerns that Babbitt raised.
But Hansen said he worries that Vice President Al Gore is under heavy pressure from environmental groups to push the administration to halt initial support offered by Babbitt. That could be intensified as Gore runs for president this year, since he depends on support from such groups.
Hansen can easily push the bill through his own subcommittee and the full Resources committee, and likely succeed in pulling it up for debate on the floor. But with environmental opposition, the battle there could be tough. And a veto might also loom.
Hansen said that may demand some "creativity" to find a way to attach the deal to other popular legislation to improve its chance for survival.
For example, he said he's considered attaching it to the annual defense bill. He said that would be justified because key provisions in the wilderness proposal are needed to protect the Utah Test and Training Range on the West Desert. That would make it a smaller target for opposition by groups that would not want to kill the larger bill.
"It (the wilderness deal) may be a big deal standing on its own two feet. It's an infinitesimal nothing when it's in the defense bill," he said. "There are a lot of ways to do this business."
Mike Matz, executive director of SUWA, says he expects such moves by Hansen. Still, he said, "I'm not so certain in an election year he can control the debate as much as he would like."