Markey leads 46 Democratic House colleagues to defend Obama Wilderness Policy

by the House Committee on Natural Resources, January 21, 2011

WASHINGTON – With America's wilderness areas targeted by House Republicans eager to hand over America's last remaining public lands to corporate interests, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and 46 of his Democratic colleagues have risen to defend the Obama administration's recent proposed "wild lands" policy. Rep. Markey, the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, along with dozens of colleagues, today sent a public letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar commending him for reversing a Bush administration-era decision that hamstrung his agency from protecting new areas of wilderness lands.

"The decision by former Secretary [Gale] Norton to settle litigation in Utah by unilaterally declaring that the Department of the Interior would no longer seek protection for new areas of public land exhibiting wilderness characteristics exceeded the scope of the litigation and abdicated the Department's statutory responsibilities," writes Rep. Markey. "The Bush Administration's eight-year campaign to subjugate all other uses of public land – recreation, water quality, habitat, ranching – to rampant energy development has been well documented and former Secretary Norton's "No-More-Wilderness" policy is one of the most destructive examples."

The new policy recommits the Interior Department to ample public input and the original congressional intent of periodic assessments to determine where wilderness already exists and work to protect wilderness characteristics where appropriate. "This has been national policy for more than 40 years, under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, and we applaud your decision to once again work with the Congress to achieve these important goals," the letter says.