Hearings on Protection of Desert Open

Launching what promises to be a bitter political struggle, a House subcommittee opened hearings Thursday on a sweeping proposal to extend federal wilderness and parkland protection to nearly 8 million acres of Southern California desert.

The controversial legislation would establish three national parks east of Los Angeles and more than double the amount of land set aside as wilderness. It would greatly restrict access in these areas to tourists and automobiles, as well as mining, grazing and development.

While supporters predicted that the bill has a good chance of passage in the House, its fate in the Senate is not clear. Similar legislation sponsored by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) died last year, largely because Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) strongly opposed it. Wilson’s aides indicated Thursday that his position is unchanged.

Willing to Negotiate

But Cranston and Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), who are co-sponsoring this year’s desert bill, said they are willing to negotiate key changes with Wilson and other opponents. They said the bill is an attempt to balance environmental concerns with the needs of people who use the desert for recreation and other purposes.

“California’s fragile desert is one of the crown jewels of America’s public lands and it must be protected,” Levine said. “The act of selecting wilderness is not a decision about which lands to scar. It is a decision about which lands to preserve.”

Levine told members of the House Interior subcommittee on national parks and public lands that nearly 12 million acres of publicly owned desert in Southern California are vulnerable to recreation, development, mining and grazing. He also charged that current federal policies designed to protect the desert are inadequate.

But critics, including Wilson and four Republican congressmen who represent the sprawling area, blasted the measure as needless regulation that would reduce citizen access to the desert, cut off mining activities and threaten farmers’ grazing rights.

They also complained that Levine and Cranston had not conducted public hearings in communities affected by the measure. Although the House panel plans future Washington hearings, opponents said that it should travel to California to hear residents’ views.

“The fact is, the desert basically has gotten along awfully well without us over a long period of time, and we should be cautious about locking it up for all time,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), who is spearheading House opposition to the measure.

Lewis said that only a fraction of California’s desert lands are vulnerable to damage from tourist activities, such as the use of off-road vehicles.

“In terms of the vast desert, almost nobody ever arrives,” he said. “So there’s really little need for more federal controls.”

The legislation covers a vast stretch of southeastern California, from Inyo County south 240 miles to the Mexican border. Most of the land is currently administered by the Bureau of Land Management and is open to mining, ranching and off-road vehicle use.

Key sections of the bill would create new national parks in Joshua Tree National Monument and Death Valley National Monument, as well as in the east Mojave Desert. Nearly 8 million acres would be designated as wilderness area. The area includes open desert as well as the new national parks.

Doug Scott, conservation director for the Sierra Club, suggested that the fate of the bill would be a “pivotal test” of congressional resolve to preserve endangered public lands.

He noted that “vast areas of the desert have been irreparably scarred by off-road vehicles. And the desert is so fragile, the damage will probably never heal. What right have we to bequeath to generations upon generations to come millions of acres of scarred, eroded, lifeless desert lands?”

However, a coalition of off-road vehicle users, farmers, miners and other residents of the area voiced bitter opposition. They said that a 1980 federal plan to protect the desert has worked well and should not be replaced by more restrictive legislation.