WASHINGTON — The Bush administration gave lukewarm support Thursday to adding some alternative routes used by early Western pioneers to the National Trail System.
But it said funding for studies to do that should stand in line behind 40 or so other National Park System studies previously approved — and some needed National Park maintenance. That could delay any new designations for years.
Meanwhile, oil and gas producers in Wyoming also complained that government officials are making it difficult to drill in any place that may be seen from a national trail — and worried expanding the trail system may make oil development tougher.
Those comments came in a hearing before the Senate Energy Subcommittee on National Parks, Historic Preservation and Recreation.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is pushing a bill that calls for the National Park Service to study a number of alternate paths used by early immigrants along the Mormon, Oregon and California trails, and by riders on the Pony Express Trail. The House passed an identical bill last year.
He told the subcommittee that the National Trail System originally allowed only one "point-to-point" trail to be chosen for each of those trails, even though emigrants often used many variants as they left from and ended up at different points.
For example, "The Mormon trail was defined as the route taken by Brigham Young in 1846 through Iowa to the Salt Lake Valley" in 1847, Hatch said.
Patrick Henry, a South Jordan resident who is chairman of the National Pony Express Association, said, "An estimated 70,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came west on the emigrant trails prior to 1869 and the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The present Mormon Pioneer Trail adequately tells the story of less than 200."
Hatch said among many variant routes he thinks should be added to the official Mormon Trail are some used by the ill-fated Willie and Martin Handcart companies of 1856 — who were stranded and starving in Wyoming, leading to a massive rescue effort.
"These trails are the highways of our history. They are central to the great story of the West," Hatch said.
Katherine Stevenson, associate National Park Service director for cultural resources, said the Bush administration supports the bill — but did not request funding in its budget for the feasibility studies it would order.
"We believe that any funding requested should be directed towards completing previously authorized studies. Presently, there are 40 studies pending" ordered by Congress of sites that might be added to the Park Service, she said.
Besides that, she said, "It is important to focus our resources on working down the deferred maintenance backlog at existing parks." All that could delay new trail designations for years.
Meanwhile, Dru Bower, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, did not oppose the bill but said new government actions to protect trails is making it tough to drill for oil — and adding more trails could complicate it further.
She complained that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is now allowing no mining or drilling within five miles of either side of a national trail — complicating mineral development in Wyoming where numerous national trails crisscross.
She asked the committee to force the BLM to revert to old practices, having only a quarter-mile protective zone on each side of a trail.
Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, said he considers the bill noncontroversial, and expects it to pass quickly.
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