"The Bureau of Land Management this afternoon is expected to overturn a George W. Bush administration policy barring the agency from temporarily protecting lands with wilderness qualities...
Conservation groups for years have lobbied Interior to overturn the Norton settlement -- known as the "no more wilderness" policy -- arguing that it blocked the agency from its statutory duty to protect pristine landscapes in its resource management plans.
The lawsuit with the state of Utah barred BLM from taking stock of wilderness quality lands on all of its 256 million acres, reaching far beyond the few oil and gas leases in Utah that had been at issue in the case, groups contend.
The new policy will "give back to BLM the authority to conduct wilderness inventories, identify lands with wilderness character, set them up as wildlands for interim protection until Congress has to act," said a source familiar with the new policy. "And it'll allow BLM to do these assessments in Alaska, too..."
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/1...urn-bushs-no-more-wilderness-polic-14341.html
Conservation groups for years have lobbied Interior to overturn the Norton settlement -- known as the "no more wilderness" policy -- arguing that it blocked the agency from its statutory duty to protect pristine landscapes in its resource management plans.
The lawsuit with the state of Utah barred BLM from taking stock of wilderness quality lands on all of its 256 million acres, reaching far beyond the few oil and gas leases in Utah that had been at issue in the case, groups contend.
The new policy will "give back to BLM the authority to conduct wilderness inventories, identify lands with wilderness character, set them up as wildlands for interim protection until Congress has to act," said a source familiar with the new policy. "And it'll allow BLM to do these assessments in Alaska, too..."
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/1...urn-bushs-no-more-wilderness-polic-14341.html