Sponsors (77)
Official title: To designate as wilderness certain Federal portions of the red rock canyons of the Colorado Plateau and the Great Basin Deserts in the State of Utah for the benefit of present and future generations of people in the United States.
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Melanie Ann Stansbury · Last progress March 27, 2025
The bill permanently protects large tracts of Colorado Plateau public lands—strengthening conservation, cultural protections, and recreation benefits—at the cost of limiting extractive development, changing access and uses for some local residents, and adding management and legal responsibilities for governments.
Residents, visitors, and nearby communities will see large tracts of public land on the Colorado Plateau permanently protected under wilderness designation, preserving scenic landscapes, wildlife habitat, and ecological corridors.
Indigenous communities will have stronger legal protections for cultural, medicinal, ceremonial, and archaeological sites and can continue many traditional activities on protected lands.
Nearby communities and the public will benefit from conserved ecosystem services (cleaner water and air, habitat connectivity) and a reduction in surface disturbance and fossil‑fuel extraction that contributes to climate mitigation.
Miners, oil-and-gas operators, and local economies tied to extractive industries will face reduced access to lands for mining, leasing, and fossil‑fuel development, likely reducing local jobs and revenue opportunities.
Residents and businesses that rely on motorized access, mechanized tools, grazing, or other non‑wilderness uses will lose or need to adjust longstanding access and uses (ATV use, mechanized trail access, some grazing and commercial activities).
Federal and state agencies and taxpayers could face increased management, enforcement, and litigation costs (including water-right adjudications and boundary/setback disputes) without dedicated new funding, potentially straining operations and local services.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Adds 51 named Utah federal land units to the National Wilderness Preservation System and reserves federal water rights for each area.
Designates multiple specified federal land units in western Utah as wilderness and adds them to the National Wilderness Preservation System to conserve cultural, ecological, scenic, and recreational values. The bill requires the Interior Department (acting through BLM) to document maps and legal descriptions, offers land exchanges for State trust lands within the new wilderness areas, and reserves necessary federal water rights for each designated area with a priority date equal to the Act’s enactment date. The legislation affirms congressional findings about the lands’ importance for biodiversity, climate refugia, and Indigenous cultural uses, protects traditional recreational and spiritual activities, and directs standard wilderness administration under the Wilderness Act and FLPMA while allowing limited clerical corrections and narrowly defined boundary exceptions.