HB 78 will be back in Committee Again, we need support at the committee for this bill.  

DATE: Tuesday,
February 12, 2019
TIME: 3:40 PM
PLACE: 445 State Capitol

This bill has some serious opposition from those who dislike our sport and love being able to convert land to wilderness without going through the state process.   You know it's a good bill when the wilderness society, save our canyons, and the Sierra Club oppose the bill.   There are also county commissioners who oppose this because they feel it encumbers their ability to do whatever they want.  

I encourage you to attend and I encourage you to stand in support of HB 78.   Here are a few thoughts.

Although the Emery County lands bill is a good one to connect to t his bill, let's not make this bill directly about the  Emery County Lands Bill, this bill was written almost 2 years ago, prior to what happened with ECLB.  This is about what is right for the public lands in Utah.  

Public Lands, Features, waterway, canyons, vistas, buttes don't pay attention to county lines.   Public land designations shouldn't carve out protections simply within a county boundary, neither should it be done in a vacuum by 3 county commissioners.   I would remind the committee that the public land portfolio is a statewide issue and needs statewide oversight.  

Another consideration to point out that anytime you put yourself out there for senators and representatives from across the nation to decide the fate of lands within our state we are asking for trouble.   We may ask for one thing and get something entirely different, house floor and senate floor amendments are easy and frequent.  In addition we need to be very careful about placing Utah public lands on the docket as a bargaining chip for other pork and abuses that occur in Washington DC.   The Washington county lands bill is an example of this, where much of the language was changed in DC and Washington county has since been involved in legal action to resolve many of the issues created in the bill.

Encourage politely the Utah Legislature to do their job and provide oversight of their political subdivisions and history has shown that there are numerous political subdivisions who are willing to do anything to drive their agenda regardless of the impact to users and neighboring political subdivisions.