House adopts resolution opposing large federal wilderness designations after extended debate

The Utah House on Feb. 14 approved House Joint Resolution 10 (HJR10), a message to Congress and the Bureau of Land Management urging opposition to proposed wilderness-designation actions that sponsors said would restrict multiple uses on roughly 9,000,000 acres in Utah.

Representative Tilton, the House sponsor, opened the floor by saying the resolution affirms that "Utahns need to be involved in the process" and argued that wilderness characteristics should be determined through Congress rather than administrative action. He framed the resolution as both support for Utah’s congressional delegation and opposition to administrative designations he said would limit multiple uses including recreation and business.

Floor debate ran long and included conflicting views on the economic and energy impacts of designation. Representative Perez warned that large-scale designations could impede development of oil, gas and oil‑shale resources in the Uinta Basin and cited figures in his remarks including "about 80,000,000,000 barrels of oil from oil shale" and projected severance-tax revenues from one company of $40,000,000 over the next decade and $15,000,000,000 over 40 years. Those numeric claims were presented by the member as part of an argument that designation could limit future energy development.

Representative Dziskovsky and others offered a different assessment drawn from conservation/BLM information, saying that in many of the areas proposed for protection the BLM expects little effect on near-term oil and gas development and estimating that protecting certain roadless, wilderness-quality lands in the Uinta/Duchesne area would likely reduce predicted oil and gas wells over the next 15 years by about 3.5 percent. Dziskovsky emphasized that energy development and wilderness protection can be compatible in many instances.

Representative Clark, Representative Noel and others stressed the need to find middle-ground approaches and noted local efforts to set aside habitat and balance land uses. Representative Litvak raised a procedural concern about a provision in HJR10 that asks Congress not to enact a wilderness designation without the unanimous support of Utah’s congressional delegation; Litvak worried that asking for unanimity could establish a problematic precedent for national matters.

Representative Harper moved the previous question to cut off debate; the motion passed by the required two-thirds vote. On final passage HJR10 passed the House by a roll-call vote of 58 yes, 11 no, 6 absent and will be forwarded to the Senate.

The debate included concrete numeric claims about energy resources and estimated economic impacts; those assertions were contested on the floor and represent members’ stated policy positions rather than adjudicated factual findings.

Next steps: HJR10 will be transmitted to the Senate for further consideration or a companion action.