Mark Hatfield: “I support the omnibus lands bill before the Senate today. I speak as one of the few Senators without a single item in…”

“I support the omnibus lands bill before the Senate today. I speak as one of the few Senators without a single item in this large package. Let me focus for a moment on the most controversial component of the package--title XX, the Utah Public Lands Management Act. As a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I have followed the divisive political debate that has raged for decades over the question of how much land in the State of Utah should be designated as wilderness. This debate has now spilled outside the boundaries of the Utah delegation and the State they represent. It is now a national debate in many ways outside their complete control. As a Senator who has seen this same thing happen in his own State, I can appreciate the difficulties of my colleagues from Utah. I have also followed the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] over the last 15 years as it has spent in excess of $10 million analyzing vast tracks of land in Utah to more precisely determine their suitability for wilderness designation. In 1991, Interior Secretary Lujan identified 1.9 million acres as suitable for wilderness designation. The bill before us, which recommends 2 million acres for designation, reflects the technical information gathered by BLM as well as input from over 75 formal public meetings and thousands of letters.”