Sponsors (19)
The bill permanently protects large, culturally important and ecologically valuable public lands—safeguarding biodiversity, recreation, and Indigenous heritage—while imposing trade-offs in foregone extractive development, access limits for some users, potential water-rights disputes, and additional management costs for governments and taxpayers.
Residents, visitors, and downstream ecosystems: the bill permanently protects large, contiguous tracts of Utah and Colorado Plateau federal lands as wilderness, conserving scenic landscapes, biodiversity, and providing climate-mitigation benefits from reduced surface disturbance and fossil‑fuel development.
Indigenous communities and descendants: the bill protects places used for sustenance, cultural, medicinal, ceremonial, and archaeological sites (e.g., Cedar Mesa), helping preserve cultural continuity and reduce vandalism/theft of cultural resources.
Local residents and businesses that rely on outdoor recreation and hunting: protected, scenic, and intact habitats support recreation, tourism, guiding/outfitting, and long‑term wildlife values (big game, raptors, bighorn sheep), supporting local outdoor economies.
Local workers, businesses, and state and local governments: withdrawing lands from mineral, geothermal, and some extractive uses will likely reduce opportunities for mining and energy development, potentially costing jobs, local revenues, and tax base.
Local residents, recreational motorized users, and commercial operators: wilderness designation and related restrictions can limit motorized access, certain commercial uses, and development, changing how some people currently use or access these lands.
Taxpayers, federal agencies, and local governments: expanding wilderness acreage increases management and stewardship responsibilities without providing new dedicated funding in the bill, which could strain agency budgets and require reallocation of resources or additional taxpayer support.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Designates numerous federal land areas in western Utah as wilderness, requires BLM mapping and administration, offers land exchanges for state trust lands, and reserves federal water rights for those areas.
Official title: 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 Unites States.
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Richard Joseph Durbin · Last progress March 27, 2025
Designates dozens of federal land areas in western Utah as components of the National Wilderness Preservation System, protecting them under the Wilderness Act framework for current and future generations. It directs the Bureau of Land Management to file maps and legal descriptions, preserves and asserts limited federal reserved water rights for the new wilderness units, and requires the Secretary to offer land exchanges for State school trust lands located inside designated wilderness boundaries.