Eco-thug: James Hansen - policies of Utah representative hurt the environment - Priorities - Column

Sierra, Nov-Dec, 1995 by Paul Rauber

The competition is stiff these days, but the hands-down winner of Sierra's new James Watt Act-Alike contest is James Hansen, Republican representative from Utah. While not as outwardly loopy as the former interior secretary, Hansen is doing his best to match the destructive grandeur of Watt's schemes to turn the public lands to private profit.

Since Hansen was first elected to Congress in 1980, his environmental rating from the League of Conservation Voters has seldom risen above 0, and has not topped 6 percent since 1989. Up to now his legislative accomplishments have been undistinguished; in his first 14 years in Congress, he managed to pass only four pieces of legislation--one a bill renaming the post office in Beaver, Utah.

Considering Hansen's agenda, we can only hope that Republican control of the Congress doesn't improve his legislative box score. His "Human Protection Act," for example, would subordinate the survival of endangered species to the financial convenience of neighboring humans. He is pushing a bill to allow states to veto new congressionally approved wilderness areas, and another to run paved highways anywhere a trail of any sort is rumored ever to have existed. ("Rights-of-way" are now being claimed in Hansen's home state for washed-out tracks a Humvee couldn't navigate, and even for creekbeds.) He also wants to turn 270 million acres of federal public lands over to the states. Their upkeep would cost Utah nearly $22 million a year--unless, of course, they were to be sold off for development, which appears to be Hansen's intention.

Hansen is chair of the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands, which under his gavel has dedicated itself to disposing of those entities. He supports decommissioning national parks he deems to be "not worthy," like Nevada's Great Basin National Park. "If you've been there once, you don't need to go again," he says.

Despite his national mischief, Hansen's greatest potential havoc is closest to home in the form of a bill severely limiting the amount of wilderness the state of Utah will ever have, and allowing unprecedented levels of intrusion into what's left (see "Wilderness of Greed," September/October).

Hansen proposes to "preserve" a pitiful 1.8 million acres of Bureau of Land Management wilderness, opening to development nearly half of all wild areas currently protected by the BLM. And since he also redefines the term "wilderness," even his supposed protected areas could include dams, pipelines, communication facilities, and off-road vehicle use. "The West simply wants the chance to decide for ourselves what is best for these lands," he claims--yet three times as many Utahans support a counterproposal to preserve 5.7 million acres of wilderness as support his own miserly bill. If Hansen's bill passes, it will be a model for future efforts in other states. "It's a test case for us," says Hansen.

There's one other sinister element to Hansen's bill, a poison-pill addendum that bars anything not already preserved from ever being considered for future protection. If James Hansen has his way, he will be Eco-Thug not just now, but for all time.

Urge your U.S. senators and representative to oppose Hansen's anti-wilderness Utah Public Lands Management Act, (H.R. 1745 and S.884) and to support America's Redrock Wilderness Act, H.R. 1500, which would save 5.7 million acres of irreplaceable Utah canyon country.