All sources indicate leadership in the House of Representatives is intent on moving a so-called "Utah Wilderness" bill this fall: Yet HR 1745, passed by the House Resources Committee in August, would forever deny wilderness protection for 90 percent of the 22 million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land in the state. Compared to the 5.7 million acres urged by conservationists and contained in HR 1500 (Maurice Hinchey D-NY), HR 1745 and its companion Senate Bill 884 designates just 1.8 million acres (equal to the areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined) as wilderness. By allowing dams, cars, power lines, and roads into what the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance's Executive Director Mike Matz calls "unroaded land," H.R. 1745 undercuts protections spelled out in the Wilderness Act of 1964. "adding insult to injury, the [Utah] delgation's bill will not even protect the minimal acreage in their own bill," Matz points.

There is broad public support of Hinchey's HR 1500 in Utah. Nevertheless, Rep. James Hansen (R-UT), who has also introduced legislation that would set up a parks closure commission (HR 260), is sponsoring a bill that would give 200 million acres more BLM land to the states (HR 2032) and Sen. Craig Thomas (R-WY) has created a similar bill (S 1031, which is apparently especially infuriating to sportsmen faced with the likely loss of public access.) Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) also seems to endorse the public land giveaway: adopting Burns' measure (S 1151) would create a commission to identify specific national forests and other public lands for disposal, though the results would be delayed by government study.

Clearly these bills orignate from the mood out west to reduce governmental regulation and intervention in state's affairs, but public reaction to disbursing the wilderness lands that federal stewardship has preserved as national treasures runs counter to the pleasure of special interests and their legislative sponsors.