Got this from today's Fairbanks Daily News Miner. As if there was not enough land already locked up, now they want to relook at what else can be put off limits. Remember they said all the wilderness designations under ANILCA would not lock up the land. They said ANWR would be set aside but drilling would still be permitted. Now they are looking at the National Patrolium Reserve Alaska to lock it up as well. Anyway, this is the first time in a long time I have agreed with anything Dermot Cole has said.
Federal land directive signals major policy shift in Alaska by Dermot Cole Dec 30, 2010
The announcement by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to conduct a "wilderness inventory" of BLM land in Alaska and to create a new category called "Lands with Wilderness Characteristics" signals the biggest change in federal land policy in years.
While Salazar said his plan "does not 'lock up' western lands from other uses, as I am sure some people will claim," the move may lead to new restrictions on the use of millions of acres in Alaska managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
The 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is subject to this new level of regulation.
"The BLM must inventory the lands in NPR-A and may designate Wild Lands in NPR-A as part of its integrated activity planning for the area. Consistent with controlling law, the BLM will continue to conduct an expeditious program of competitive oil and gas leasing in the reserve," an Interior Department statement said.
The addition of "Wild Lands" in NPR-A could create a new tool to oppose oil and gas development in that part of Alaska. It could also have implications for development on various other parts of the other 50 million acres under BLM management.
Salazar, who announced this change just before Christmas, has given new marching orders to the Interior Department to overturn the planning approach that has been in place since 2003 on BLM land in Alaska.
There has been an off-again, on-again planning system for BLM land in Alaska over the past 30 years.
In 2003, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the Bush administration wanted to accommodate the views of Alaska's political leaders, who opposed additional restrictions on federal land. She reversed the position taken by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in 2001. Babbitt, for his part, had reversed the position that had been in effect for 20 years.
In dumping the Babbitt approach, Norton concluded that BLM wilderness study proposals could only proceed if they had "broad support among the state and federal officials representing Alaska." They didn't have broad support, so they didn't take place.
The federal stance has changed again under Salazar, who says that the Obama administration "accepts the invitation extended by Congress" in 1980 to "identify public lands in Alaska suitable for designation as wilderness."
His department released a Q&A on the new policy that says, "There has never been a statewide wilderness inventory in Alaska."
However, the BLM and other federal agencies have released many reports over the years that say, "Alaska lands were exhaustively inventoried, reviewed and studied for their wilderness values under the Wilderness Act criteria, beginning in 1971, when Congress enacted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act."
Most of the 1970s were consumed by reviews of Alaska land to determine which should be called wilderness and which should be placed in parks, refuges, forests, etc.
Congress settled the future of Alaska land, or at least it was thought to be settled, when it chose to put 150 million acres in "conservation units." This is more than 40 percent of the land in Alaska and 60 percent of the federal land.
A total of 57 million acres was designated as wilderness, which means that there is to be no lasting sign of man's presence on the land.
The Interior Department said that before new "Wild Lands" are named in Alaska, there will be "robust public comment and involvement."
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - entry Federal land directive signals major policy shift in Alaska
