Sponsors (70)
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Melanie Ann Stansbury · Last progress March 27, 2025
The bill permanently protects large, culturally and ecologically important public lands—benefiting conservation, Indigenous cultural preservation, and recreation—at the cost of restricting resource development, motorized access, and imposing management/legal costs that may affect local economies and state revenues.
Large tracts of public land are permanently protected as wilderness, preserving habitat connectivity, scenic landscapes, and long-term conservation values across the Colorado Plateau.
Indigenous communities retain stronger legal protection for cultural, medicinal, ceremonial, and archaeological sites and can continue traditional uses (hunting, fishing, spiritual activities) on protected lands.
Ecosystem services and climate benefits are preserved (clean air and water, wildlife habitat, reduced surface disturbance and greenhouse‑gas emissions), and water supplies for the wilderness areas are reserved with priority at enactment.
Minimizes or prohibits future resource development (mining, leasing, fossil-fuel extraction) on designated lands, which can reduce local industry activity, jobs, and potential state revenue.
Wilderness and land-use restrictions limit motorized access and infrastructure (ATV/mechanized access, road building), reducing certain recreation and commercial activities that depend on motorization.
Limits on land uses (grazing, certain recreational uses, mechanized access) may force adjustments for local stakeholders and could require compensation or altered livelihoods.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Designates 51 specific federal land units in western Utah as wilderness, adds them to the National Wilderness Preservation System, sets administration rules, and reserves federal water rights for those areas.
Designates multiple federal land units in western Utah as wilderness and adds them to the National Wilderness Preservation System, protecting red‑rock canyons, ranges, and desert landscapes for conservation, recreation, and traditional Indigenous uses. The bill names 51 specific wilderness areas with approximate acreages and relies on the Wilderness Act and FLPMA for management. Requires the Department of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Land Management, to file maps and legal descriptions, to offer land‑for‑land exchanges with the State of Utah for inholdings, and to take steps to assert and quantify federal reserved water rights for the new wilderness areas; it does not specify new funding or change the Wilderness Act text beyond adding the listed areas.