Utah Senator introduces Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Areas Act

Beware the ulterior motives of these Utah officials. They have time and again demonstrated that they are on the side of the minerals extraction industry and take any chance they can to take any power possible away from the Federal govt.

I don’t neccesarily agree with the Wilderness bike ban, but when changes are proposed by Utah republicans I would rather err on the side of caution and leave the restrictions the way they are.

I’d rather go hiking in a Wilderness area then have it open to oil and gas extraction and be able to bike in it……

Be careful y’all!!!

YES! we need this and everyone out there should be supporting this!

“In 1984, with minimal public input, the Forest Service overturned a longstanding regulation allowing locally based federal employees to decide where bicycles could be ridden in Wilderness areas”

Um, no. In 1984 there were no regulations governing bicycle use in wilderness, and certainly no longstanding ones–mountain bikes hadn’t been around for very long. Individual agencies may have made independent decisions to ban bikes earlier, but those decisions would have been based on interpretations of the Wilderness Act, not regulations regarding mountain bikes. Plus, any recounting of that history should give credit where credit is due–backroom lobbying from the Sierra Club killed mountain biking in the wilderness (and forever ended my support of that group).

And yes, Gringo nailed it–Lee and Hatch are more interested in taking power from federal land managers than they are in granting it to mountain bikers. True to form, they take the bill too far, adding chainsaws to the list of things that should be okay in wilderness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of chainsaws and what they do for trail-building (which reminds me, I need to sharpen my chain), but if we can’t open wilderness to bikes without bringing in two-stroke tools, then we don’t belong there.

I whole heartedly support the efforts of STC and I thank Sen. Lee for introducing this bill. Is there language in this bill that increases resource extraction ? or allows granting mineral rights ? It doesn’t sound like it. It simply clarifies the W language to allow muscle powered recreation and some allowance for reasonable trail tools. Let’s take our allies as they come and fight for access. You think the Sierra Club or Wilderness Coalition are pure ?

So let me get this straight: The Wilderness Act of 1964 was passed after many years of work and a great deal of compromise between conservationists and private interests, with a primary intent being to preserve untrammeled land for people to enjoy without motorized vehicles and man-made amenities such as cabins and toilets. The Forest Service wasn’t too keen on the Wilderness concept due to loss of forest yields (perhaps), so they decide to regulate these lands like it was 1776. Many people were happy. 20 years later the Sierra Club effectively got these new fangled bikes banned based on semantics and before there was an organized voice in the burgeoning mountain bike community. Another 30 years later, after yet another cherished mountain biking destination was wiped off the map due to Wilderness designation, the mountain bikers organized, researched, found favorable historical documents, consulted with government affairs folks, formalized as a non profit, raised a fair amount of money from mountain bikers, and helped get a somewhat historic bill introduced by a Senator in Utah. But people posting here are saying they can’t support this extremely reasonable and modest bill because it will lead to mining, drilling, fracking, hotels and golf courses in Wilderness? If it were that easy to destroy the Wilderness Act — by allowing local land managers to decide where and when bikes can go — you’d think the Koch brothers themselves would have singlehandedly funded STC from the beginning. But that ain’t so.

After observing the comments above, I say publish teh bills complete text on this website so we cansee for ourselves if it is worthy of out support.

It looks like the Sierra Club has all their minions out in force.

To those of you saying ‘but there is nothing in this proposal about mineral extraction!’ please be aware that an opening of Wilderness to wheeled vehicles (bikes) and motorized tools (chainsaws) would do one very important thing: it would set precedent. In this case one could argue that, ‘hey, why cant we open parcel XXX up for a gold mine, it will just be a little gold mine, and anyway, motorized tools and wheeled vehicles are already allowed here.’

Legal precident is HUGE when it comes to big issues like controversial minerals extraction permiting.

I want more singletrack to ride on, just like the next guy, but I also what to keep that little something that you find no where else on Earth, and that is the wonderful wild lands that we have in the USA.

Don’t believe these Utah reds when they say they want to open up trails for bikers….THERE IS A HIDDEN INTEREST!

Source: http://wildernesswatch.org/images/wild-issues/pdfs/07-2016-WW-Press-Release-Mountain-Biking-Legislation.pdf

New Legislation is an Assault on the Very Idea of Wilderness and the Values of the Wilderness Act

The Sustainable Trails Coalition is attempting to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act

MISSOULA, MONTANA – Last week Utah Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee introduced the so-called “Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Act,” a piece of legislation that would ride rough-shod over the Wilderness Act of 1964 by opening up America’s National Wilderness Preservation System to mountain bikes and other machines. The bill would also allow chainsaws and wheeled devices like carts and wheelbarrows in Wilderness.

For over 50 years the Wilderness Act has protected wilderness areas designated by Congress from mechanization and mechanical transport, even if no motors were involved with such activities. This has meant, as Congress intended, that Wilderness has been kept free from cars, trucks, ATVs, snowmobiles, bicycles, and all other types of motorized and mechanized transport.

“We see this for what it is—an assault on the very idea of Wilderness and the values of the Wilderness Act. Make no mistake, the goals of the Sustainable Trails Coalition are one of the biggest threats to the National Wilderness Preservation System,” said George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch. “At a time when wilderness and wildlife are under increasing pressures from increasing populations, growing mechanization, and a rapidly changing climate, the last thing Wilderness needs is to be invaded by mountain bikes and other machines. “

It’s noteworthy that the Sustainable Trails Coalition had to enlist the help of some of the most anti-environmental and anti-wilderness members of Congress to carry their legislation. According to the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), Senator Orrin Hatch and Senator Mike Lee each have a lifetime environmental voting score of just 10 percent, while the most recent LCV scorecard gave Senator Hatch a zero percent and Senator Lee four percent.

Earlier this year, over 110 conservation and Wilderness organizations from across America wrote all members of Congress urging them to oppose attempts to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act and Wilderness protections by allowing bicycles in designated Wilderness. A copy of that letter is here: http://bit.ly/1VFoL1U

In the letter, the groups wrote: “These mountain bikers erroneously claim that mountain bikes were allowed in Wilderness until 1984, but then banned administratively by the U.S. Forest Service. This claim is simply not true.”

“Mountain bikes are exactly the kind of mechanical devices and mechanical transport that Congress intended to keep out of Wilderness in passing the Wilderness Act. Bikes have their place, but that place is not inside Wilderness areas,” explained Kevin Proescholdt, Conservation Director of Wilderness Watch.

“We believe that this protection has served our nation well, and that the ‘benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness’ would be forever lost by allowing mechanized transport and other machines in these areas.”

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I would bet a book o’ mormon that the STC was formed in 2015 so when this Act was introduced it would seem legit.

Note the”and other purposes” clause in this bill. This is not about opening the wilderness to bikes. It’s a Trojan horse.