5-11 IAN Simpson Wildlands

 Simpson Defunds “Wild Lands” Initiative in Final Budget Bill. Remember all the stories I’ve done about so-called enviro-guardians, otherwise known as lawyers who make a living suing the government about issues such as cattle grazing on public lands? Well, Congressman Mike Simpson issued a statement regarding language he included in H.R. 1473, the final budget bill for fiscal year 2011, that would prohibit the Department of Interior from using taxpayer funding to carry out its controversial Wild Lands initiative.  The Secretarial Order requires the BLM to inventory its lands for wilderness characteristics, and Simpson has expressed grave concern. Here is Congressman Simpson’s spokesperson Nikki Watts with some of the reasons: “that is one of the main things Congressman Simpson is trying to prevent. Not to mention  making sure that Congress is the only one with  the authority to designate wilderness or non-wilderness because what happens when somebody like BLM is able to go and designate something as wildland there are different organizations and groups that can sue BLM and sometimes in some of these areas the LM spends 70% of their budget fighting off lawsuits for decisions they make because it wasn’t done through the proper channels as in congressional authority. So rather than have money going toward fighting off lawsuits at the cost of taxpayer dollars, Congressman Simpson wants that money spent on permitting and managing the land in the way that it is intended to be used.”