In an effort to block the Bush Administration from implementing its new rule that opens the door to untold numbers of illegitimate "RS 2477" rights-of-way claims across federal public lands, Congressman Mark Udall offered an amendment to the FY04 Interior Appropriations bill on July 27, 2003, that would have prohibited the Department of the Interior from using funds appropriated for fiscal year 2004 to implement this new "disclaimer of interest" rule. The Udall amendment would not have affected states' and counties' ability to obtain necessary rights-of-way across federal lands via legitimate procedures that already exist.
After it became clear that Udall had the votes to pass his amendment, the anti-wilderness House leadership crafted a substitute amendment offered by Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC) that significantly weakened Udall's original amendment and left 400 million acres of federally owned wild lands unprotected from the Bush Administrations pro-development policies and bogus road claims. The Taylor substitute passed on July 17 by a vote of 226 to 194.
Specifically, the Taylor substitute limited the ability to file disclaimers only within areas that are designated as a National Monument, Wilderness Study Area, National Park System unit, National Wildlife Refuge System unit or designated Wilderness Area. It did not address the millions of acres of public lands within other designated conservation units, such as Wild and Scenic River corridors, National Forests, and National Conservation Areas. It also did not protect millions of acres of BLM lands being considered in Congress for potential wilderness designation, such as those in H.R. 1796 (America's Red Rock Wilderness Act) and H.R. 2305 (The Colorado Wilderness Act).
Nonetheless, the Taylor amendment put the House on record as scaling back the Bush Administration's attack on America's public lands by limiting the administration's "disclaimer of interest" rule and recognizing the threat RS 2477 claims indeed pose to America's natural heritage.
Background
In January 2003, the Bush administration resurrected a civil-war era statute referred to as Revised Statute 2477 (R.S.2477) to allow special interests and local jurisdictions to convert thousands of miles of primitive rights-of-ways that cross federal land — including old mining and livestock trails, footpaths, even streambeds – into damaging paved roads and highways, recklessly endangering the very places Americans care most about. (See Wilderness Report #90.)
The new regulation opens the door for states, counties, and special interests to file thousands of unsubstantiated road claims using a loophole 1866 mining law known as RS 2477. Compounding the offense is that the Department of the Interior still does not have standards to assess the validity of these claims. As a result of this and other changes, the amended disclaimer rule could be used to establish thousands of new roads without any consideration of Congressional designations (Wilderness, National Parks, etc.), the resulting environmental degradation, conflicts with federal and community planning, or whether there is an actual need for additional road construction.
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