??? Even though it’s his last year in office, President Bush’s administration plans to go ahead with its ill-conceived exploitation of public lands in Utah. They want to open up public land that has never been mined, farmed or had roads built into it for developers. Thankfully we have a bill that was introduced into Congress that would ban them from doing this. America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act would protect more than 9.5 million acres of wilderness-quality lands in Utah. They seem still to believe, against all contrary evidence, that resource extraction is the best economic use of our public lands, and that their highest recreational purpose is as an arena for the depredations of dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles. I know there is a lot of fun and recreation with motorized vehicles but at the same time we need to save some of our pristine land. This land would take centuries to recover if ever from depredations of this sort.
??? One area of this bill, protects the greater Zion-Mojave region, which is currently threatened by proposed legislation that fails to protect wild lands in the region and authorizes the sale of up to 40 square miles of public lands in southwestern Utah to development projects. This is our land and we should have a say in whether it is sold and I for one do not wish to see any of our wild lands sold to anyone at all much less developers who are only in it for the money. And I feel that is where the votes will come from, lawmakers that take hush money from these developers and their lobbyists. The wild lands in Utah contain remote twisting canyons, mesas topped with groves of juniper and pinyon pine, rivers, and stark mountain peaks. The wilds of Utah hold much to behold. there are areas where you feel as if no one has set foot there in hundreds of years there are areas so vast that the stone and sky seem to intermingle.
??? If you are like me and a lover of the land, who feels like we cannot own the land but only care for it for the next generations to follow. Then you should keep an eye on H.R. 1919: America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2007 this was inroduced by?Rep. Maurice Hinchey [D-NY] or S. 1170: America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2007 introduced by?Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL]. Please contact your representatives in Congress or the Senate to encourage them to co-sponser or vote yes to the bill.