That approach is relevant for those of us working to protect public lands as we confront the equivalent of a massive hemorrhage. It is Congress’ unconstrained use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to destroy management plans that were thoughtfully considered and years in the making.

With only simple majority votes required in each chamber of Congress, bypassing committee review and without the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster, management plans that involved extensive public participation are being thrown out.

The CRA has already been used to undo six resource management plans and one mining prohibition. What replaces these plans is unclear and has plunged public land managers, local communities and even industry into uncertainty that will linger for years.

Last month, Congress used the CRA to remove protections against mining for roughly 225,000 acres at the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This was a major blow to the watershed of America’s most visited wilderness and a grim moment for conservationists. Now, the focus has shifted to Utah.

Senator Mike Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy, both Utah Republicans, have introduced joint resolutions to undo the management plan for the 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. When you think of Southern Utah, Grand Staircase-Escalante is at its heart; its vast landscape of canyons and mesas knits together Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

If this CRA resolution passes, it could devastate the monument, turning it into a place where out-of-control off-road vehicle use, landscape-level clearcutting, and other extractive activities would all be possible. 

The good news is that this fight is one that we, together, can win. When we do, it will set a precedent to protect all national monuments, national parks and beloved public lands that might be next in line.

In the House of Representatives, the ever-changing margins are razor thin—just ask Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, who struggles with vote counts daily. In the Senate, Mike Lee has proved notorious for wasting valuable time with legislation that has little chance of passing.

We know these elected officials have been hearing from their constituents who are unhappy about their previous votes using the CRA. In both chambers, a growing list of Republicans find they need to bolster their public lands and environmental credentialsbefore the mid-terms.

Lee and Maloy’s doomed efforts last year to sell off public lands proved highly unpopular nationwide and in Utah. Knowing that, members of Congress might want to think twice before tying themselves to the duo’s latest attempts to weaken protection for Grand Staircase-Escalante.

At the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, we’re no stranger to an uphill battle. Ever since SUWA was founded in 1983, we’ve sparred with Utah’s anti-public-lands politicians, who show a level of disdain for our national heritage that seems bizarre in its tenacity. A deep-rooted belief that a federal public lands system simply should not exist seems to drive these politicians—defying logic, economic data and poll after poll.

That’s why we are not shy about asking people outside of Utah to join us in speaking up for protecting public lands in Utah. Public lands belong to all Americans, and every day, we urge people across the country to tell their elected officials to speak up for public lands, Indigenous sacred sites and intact ecosystems in Utah—because our politicians won’t.

This is the moment to urge members of Congress to vote “no” on the Grand Staircase-Escalante CRA resolution. A vote could be coming anytime in the next few weeks. Time is of the essence.  

To make the case, everyone who cares about the magnificent red-rock canyons of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Southern Utah needs to act now. The more our voices are raised and registered, the stronger our message urging Congress to listen to the people who want protection and stewardship, not short-term exploitation of our public land.

Scott Braden is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is the executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).

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We were young professionals and bought a cute one-bedroom crackerbox in a small Montana town for less than $50,000. Today on Zillow, that house lists for more than $300,000. There’s no way salaries have kept up with that kind of inflation. Clearly, rising costs are hitting the working class hard. The escalating prices of fuel, food and shelter squeeze families like a vise.

But that doesn’t excuse people who would use the national housing crisis to advance their agenda to strip Americans of their public land heritage. While there are some rare opportunities for public land sales to help ease the tight housing market here and there, wholesale liquidating of public land is a false promise.

People should know that the folks who ideologically oppose public land are exploiting the housing crisis to push their unpopular agenda.

Recently, some pundits have suggested that a fix for America’s housing problem is to sell off the public estate, thereby increasing the supply of available land. After all, the federal government managed hundreds of millions of acres.

In a few widely scattered places, it makes sense to allow careful urban development on limited public lands. Clark County, Nevada, has done just that on the outskirts of Las Vegas. But that scenario has been collaboratively developed over the years through legislation pushed through by the late Nevada Democratic Senator Harry Reid.

A crop of mostly Republican politicians in the West resent the public estate simply because they dislike the idea of federal land ownership. They use both the courts and Congress in their attempts to reduce the public estate. In their vision, Western states should be more like Missouri or Kansas, with almost no public land.

These folks insist they aren’t targeting national parks or even national forests. They know that’s political suicide. Instead, they focus on Bureau of Land Management property as a precedent, which most people have never heard of. And what are these lands like?

First, the vast majority of BLM land is remote and rugged. Think of the tundra of Alaska, the basin-and-range desert of Nevada, and the Missouri River Breaks of northern Montana. These are history’s leftovers, and not where most people want to—or even can—live. 

Second, these areas tend to be arid. Developments require water, and Western water rights already tend to be oversubscribed. Local climate alone means that human habitation in these places can’t be very dense.

These lands also are often prone to wildfire. Loading these “wildland-urban interfaces” with more homes could lead to future disaster. Managing fire risk in the interface grows more difficult and costly as they are developed. When the fires do come, damages can climb into the billions, rather than the millions. The tragic 2025 fires of Los Angeles would have been even more catastrophic had the adjacent Angeles National Forest been full of homes.

One more value is worth pointing out. Even if these public lands don’t have houses on them, public lands are being used.

Undeveloped canyons help control floods. Open lands provide habitat for wildlife—not just rare species—but also the deer and elk we like to hunt and the birds we like to watch. Public lands are valuable for recreation that’s good for our souls and are the goose that lays the golden egg for many rural economies.

The bottom line is that this debate has virtually nothing to do with the price of homes, which are high for a complex mix of reasons ranging from local growth policies, wealth disparity, and high interest rates.

There’s a shortfall of millions of homes nationwide, but most of the demand simply isn’t where the public lands are. The BLM already has a process to liquidate lands when it needs to or when it makes sense. There is no screaming need for reform of that process, even if there is a screaming need for affordable housing.

To a local eye with any perspective, it’s clear that the argument to sell public lands for housing is a Trojan horse to take public lands out of public hands.

Ben Long is a contributor to Writers on the Range, Writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is senior program director for Resource Media in Kalispell, Montana.

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This place of destruction was what some locals called “Carnage Canyon,” roughly 30 acres off Lefthand Canyon in Boulder County, Colorado.

It was a shocking sight, but was it unique? Think about your own nearby public lands.

This canyon’s history began with mountain biking. Sometime in early 2000, a mountain biker discovered the canyon and developed a trail through it. Then, more bikers came in droves and “motocrossers” also loved it, particularly because nobody was around making rules or telling them what to do.

Nobody complained to the Forest Service, the managing federal agency.

After them came people in Jeeps who liked to plow through mud, crawl over big rocks and climb up the sides of the canyon.  They also widened the trail into a one-lane, eroded dirt road.

Still other folks figured the canyon was a great place to dispose of junk cars and appliances until the place began to resemble an open landfill. Target practice came next. Still, no one complained.

What else happened to this much-abused canyon? A murder and manhunt followed by a homeless people whose encampments were not healthy for what was left of the woods. Yet none of this was the cause for restoring the canyon to its original state.

Hey, there were no complaints! 

But here’s how erosion changed things. It brought water carrying large amounts of silt down past the canyon’s mouth and into Lefthand Creek. After the silt killed all the aquatic insects, the trout left. It was people who liked fishing for trout who demanded that the steam be fixed, and that meant the canyon had to be restored.

The Forest Service invited two nonprofit groups — Wild Lands Restoration Volunteers and Trail Ridge Road Runners — and Walsh Environmental Services to restore the canyon.

Over seven years, bullet-ridden debris was hauled away and the squatters discouraged. But it took hundreds of volunteers to dam the erosion channels — one 20 feet deep — and replant grass, shrubs and trees in the trashed roads and open areas. 

Some areas had eroded so steeply that a person could stand upright, reach out and touch the ground. Hay bales used to mulch grass seeds would tumble down the slope like bison stampeding over a cliff. 

But one problem remained and it was a big one: target shooting. A number of “near misses” made many shooters uneasy. There were also five documented shootings involving Forest Service employees and 10 complaints from area residents about flying bullets too close for comfort.

When the Forest Service erected signs closing the area to recreational shooting, their signs became targets riddled with bullet holes. But after the canyon was damaged by flooding in 2013, motorized access became blocked and target shooting was phased out.

These days, the canyon no longer looks lunar, fish are finally back and silt traps at the bottom of the canyon are almost empty. Mountain bikers are welcome on designated trails.

Locals liked to blame tourists, newcomers and outsiders for the illegal dumping, vandalism and unregulated shooting in the mountains. But Carnage Canyon’s problem areas were not tourist destinations, and most of the broken appliances and shot-out signs were problems well before the surge of newcomers.  

The truth is that when damage occurs over the decades, it is usually done by people who live in the area. We have to put the blame where it belongs, and that’s on us. We are the yahoos who do this, not Californians or Texans.

It’s also true that no government agency will act unless we complain. So when there’s an opportunity to participate in planning for what the agency calls “travel management,” we need to get involved.

I was one of the volunteers who worked several summers to help restore the battered landscape once called Carnage Canyon. The work was rewarding, as all improvements were better than what was there, but volunteers shouldn’t have to be called in to clean everything up.

Federal agencies need to be better protectors of the public lands they manage for us. And when we see rampant abuse, we need to blow the whistle to protect the lands we all own.

Rob Pudim is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is a cartoonist and public-land advocate in the Denver area.

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Biden’s action reversed the Trump administration’s shrinkage of these protected areas in southern Utah, and once again put those spectacular canyons off-limits to mining and energy development. The victory was confirmed in August, when a federal court dismissed Utah’s lawsuit attempting to overturn Biden’s action.

But in some ways, the crucial work of preserving these places has just begun. The proclamations establishing and restoring the two national monuments are lofty documents that make the case for wielding the Antiquities Act to protect the landscapes in question. But the real test is always what happens on the ground.

We have a clearer picture of that now, because this August, the BLM released its draft resource management plan and environmental impact statement for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The public has until Nov. 9 to make its wishes known.

The local environmental community sees the agency’s “preferred” alternative, which “emphasizes the protection and maintenance of intact and resilient landscapes …” as a vast improvement over the status quo. Though it’s less restrictive than one of the other four alternatives, this approach would significantly limit grazing, motorized vehicle use, and target shooting across the monument.

State and local politicians who subscribe to the Sagebrush Rebel ideology have been attempting to dismantle the national monument ever since then-President Bill Clinton established it in 1996. Neither Congress nor even the George W. Bush administration would accede to their demands, but over the years the monument has been starved of funds, lost valuable staff and its management has been influenced by the local culture, which is generally hostile to federal land management.

Then two decades after Grand Staircase-Escalante was established, Republican Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch convinced President Donald Trump to drastically shrink it. The legality of the move was questionable at best: The Antiquities Act gives the president the power to establish national monuments, but not to rescind or dismantle them. The Trump administration’s management plan also gutted protections for what remained — especially relating to grazing.

The livestock industry has long claimed that the national monument’s grazing rules would destroy local ranching. Yet Clinton’s proclamation clearly stated that grazing would continue under the existing BLM rules. In fact, the national monument helped a handful of ranchers who were ready to get out of the marginal business of running cows in inhospitable — yet beautiful and sensitive — terrain. The ranchers struck a deal to retire their grazing permits along the Escalante River and some of its tributaries in exchange for a generous cash payout from the nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust.

Even after the buyout, more than 95% of the monument remained open to livestock, and the number of cattle — or animal unit months — permitted on the monument is about the same now as it was in 1996. Today, though, fewer cattle run on nearly every permitted grazing allotment. It is clear that the livestock operators themselves are the ones limiting the number of cattle.

But here’s the problem: Biden’s restoration of the monument did not repeal the Trump-era plan that opened up retired grazing allotments. Now the public has an opportunity to do that.

The agency’s “preferred” alternative — which the document is quick to point out is merely a starting point for discussions — would divide the monument into four management areas, with different levels of development and access in each. Grazing allotments not currently under permit would be permanently closed to livestock. New range improvements would be limited or prohibited. And off-road vehicles would be banned from the Primitive Area and selected other areas and limited to designated routes in the rest of the monument. 

It’s a lot less than most conservationists were looking for. It would leave 85% of the monument open to tens of thousands of grazing cattle trampling fragile cryptobiotic soils. But Scott Berry, board president of the Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, a nonprofit founded to protect and preserve the monument, urges the environmental community to get behind the plan.

“Political forces in Utah are going to do everything in their power to prevent the new plan from being adopted,” he said, “which would leave the Trump (plan) the controlling authority.”

To comment, visit the Bureau of Land Management’s planning site by Nov. 9: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2020343/510 

Jonathan Thompson is a contributor to writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. His newsletter The Land Desk covers the region.

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After a few decades of hiking and mountain biking the West, I’ve learned the trick is to search out the obscure, the not-quite-as-beautiful, the off-season or the remote. If I’ve chosen well, I may not see another human all day.

But this approach means you can’t just plug into some top-10 list of must-see natural attractions. Instead, you need to study maps.

What you’re looking for are blank spots — still-wild places whose names you don’t recognize. There are lots of them. The National Park Service manages 423 units, totaling 84 million acres of land, but more than half of the system’s total annual visitation takes place in just 20 of its most popular parks. That leaves a lot of less-visited destinations to explore.

Or, broaden your horizons to consider national forest or Bureau of Land Management lands, and you will discover millions of acres that only locals are canny enough to visit.

I realize not everyone is as crowd-averse as I am. Linda Merigliano, wilderness program manager for the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Jackson, Wyoming, says most visitors — even those in busy places — enjoy their experiences despite lots of people.

That’s a good thing, because scientific studies show that it doesn’t take much for nature to work its magic. Spending as little as two hours a week in green spaces —even a crowded city park — has health benefits, from lowering blood pressure to improving self-esteem and mood.

I don’t think about health outcomes when I plan my outdoor excursions, but I know I get antsy and grumpy if I don’t get outside. A few quiet hours surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells of the natural world are what I crave. But I’ve learned that if everyone is going to the latest hotspot, I’m itchy to go somewhere else.

One such place is Rawlins, Wyoming. For years, I’ve raced through Rawlins, noticing little more than a dusty stop for gas and gummy bears on I-80. But then I studied the map. A couple of hours southwest of town there’s a wilderness study area called Adobe Town.

It features a maze of pinnacles, arches, buttes and craggy badlands. It also contains archaeological remains from 12,000 years of human habitation, and wild horses and pronghorn roam above the rim. Even better: Most people have probably never heard of Adobe Town.

This is blank spot nirvana.

Another gem is the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which receives roughly 10 percent of Grand Canyon National Park’s 5.9 million annual visitors. Ditto for the North Rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in western Colorado. It’s just as spectacular as the South Rim, but with only a handful of tourists.

Or try starting at the edges of popular places like Arches National Park in Utah or Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming and checking out what’s nearby. A national forest adjacent to a national park may share the same landscape that a park boasts. Once there, you’ll get a feel for the wonders protected by the park but you’re likely to see a fraction of the people.

Above all, avoid sites featured in social media posts and skip the must-see view.

If you want personal opinions – and I tend to trust those in the know – check in with outdoor shops, public land managers or conservation nonprofits close to where you’re headed. Often, a passionate local who knows the best hiking or mountain biking will be happy to talk to you. Chances are that they’ve explored it all and helped restore some trails to boot.

What’s the big payoff when you get to be mostly by yourself in the backcountry? You swap out ringtones for the resonance of a true blank spot – the sound of birds and the feel of a brisk wind. No overheard conversation. And any number of insects will remind you that in this place you’ve entered nature’s domain.

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It has since become clear that Trump cared more about freedom for government and corporations — and for that matter, COVID-19 — to run rampant.

Perhaps nowhere was Trump’s approach more thorough than when it comes to the Earth. He removed limits on mercury and methane emissions, incapacitated the Clean Water Act and gutted protections for the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, to name just a few of nearly 100 rollbacks. All purportedly to help the economy, achieve “energy dominance” on public lands and make him look good — energy-efficient light bulbs, he said, “make you look orange.”

President-elect Joseph R. Biden has indicated that he’ll quickly roll back the rollbacks as soon as he’s inaugurated. Yet a reset is not enough. In fact, many of the rules didn’t cut it under President Obama, and though Obama tried to fix many of them, his efforts often fell short. Here are a few examples of policies and rules that Trump obliterated, and that Biden — hopefully with Congress’s help — could now rebuild, making them better and stronger than before.

Clean Power Plan: President Obama’s plan mandated a cut in power sector carbon emissions by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030, which essentially would have forced coal out of the energy mix while leaving room for natural gas. Before it went into effect, Trump gutted the plan, though it was hardly necessary: Economics forced coal plant retirements after Trump’s election, coal mining jobs continued to wane and emissions dropped even more than the Obama plan would have required. The plan was obsolete before it was finalized.

Biden’s plan must include more ambitious emissions cuts and, equally as important, provide for a just transition for workers and communities that will be abandoned by the fossil fuel industries.

Oil and gas development: Trump rolled over the environment by rolling back rules for fracking, stocking the Interior Department with industry insiders, ramming through approvals of pipelines built by his multi-million-dollar donors, and by slashing royalties paid by oil companies.

Yet Obama’s policies were equally friendly to energy development. His administration leased out two million more acres of public land to oil and gas companies during his first term than Trump and oversaw a drilling boom of unprecedented magnitude. Biden needs not only to roll back the rollbacks, but also to overhaul the leasing process to shift power away from corporate boardrooms and back into public hands, and increase oil and gas royalty payments across the board to give American taxpayers a fair shake.

Bears Ears National Monument: In 2015, the Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute, Hopi and Zuni tribes asked Obama to designate as a national monument 1.9 million acres of public land in southeastern Utah, with tribal representatives having a major management role. When Obama established the monument, it was 600,000 acres smaller than the proposal, and the tribal role was reduced to an advisory one. Trump slashed the monument by 85% and rammed through a shoddy management plan for what remained, further diminishing the tribal role.

Biden should restore the monument, giving the tribal nations an equal role in determining new boundaries and creating a strong management plan.

 That’s only the beginning. Biden will also have to restore another 80 or more regulations, redirect agencies that have been steered off-course, invalidate the lease sale for the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, bring science back into policymaking, stop the building of the border wall, and clean the house of Trump appointees who are trying to destroy the so-called administrative state from within.

 That includes William Perry Pendley — Twitter handle @Sagebrush_Rebel — whom Trump installed as acting director of the Bureau of Land Management in 2019. This September, a judge ruled that Pendley — never approved by Congress — had served unlawfully, and ordered him out of his role. Anticipating Trump, Pendley changed his title and refused to leave, insisting that the law and the court’s order “has no impact” on him.

 With Trump now taking a similar stance, Biden may be forced to drag two people out of office come January.

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