Ah - my pet peeve - my biggest pet peeve.
Sorry to say - your republican representatives are NOT your friends.
The forest service and Salt Lake City's councilman, and many others, are working WITH the "takers of our land" - along with - believe it or not - owners who want to enlarge the ski resort business in Utah, in conjunction with ---- wait for it - Sierra Club and Nature's Conservancy.
This is THE one thing I keep track of, in all 50 states.
They call it "compromising" - when the truth is - compromising means ---- we lose.
Whoever said "Clinton and Bruce Babbitt" ---- BINGO!!!!! Bruce Babbitt was the very worst thing that has ever happened to us. He got rid of the Bureau of Mines (for all intents and purposes), so that there was nobody to say that a place was mineralized. Because, the laws say, that wilderness cannot be a mineralized place. Well, the bureau "screwed up", as far as Babbitt was concerned, because they said the California Desert was not only mineralized, but highly mineralized, and had a rich history of mining. I have a copy of that report - it no longer exists. It "accidentally" got destroyed when the Bureau of Mines was "moved" and "de-regulated". So, we ended up with S.21, otherwise known as the "California Desert Protection Act". And, it has gone downhill since then.
It's not just Utah - it is any and all states that have BLM land. I depended heavily on the republicans during that S.21 fight. Unfortunately, they deferred
to Sierra Club (Sierra Club picks all the places they want wildernesses, and even gets to draw the maps for them, just in case someone didn't know).
Now, in fairness - many states are fighting against the BLM - including Utah and Nevada. The problem is - its not state land, and is not under state jurisdiction. However, how the last few court cases went - was not on the unmotorized issue, or the wilderness issue, but, the states have been filing on the "roads" issues, because most roads have a combination state and Federal ownership.
Let's hope Utah's citizens win the fight. In the second link, you will see what I am talking about with the "compromise" situation, and give you some good background on what has happened in Utah so far.
http://www.standard.net/stories/2011/12/02/utah-skilink-backers-speak-house-panel
http://www.protectwildutah.org/about/history.html
Beth