Sponsors (19)
The bill permanently protects large tracts of Utah and Colorado Plateau federal lands—preserving cultural sites, recreation, biodiversity, and climate benefits—while restricting extractive and some motorized uses, which could reduce local resource-based economic activity and create management, legal, and water-rights complexities.
Rural communities, visitors, and outdoor recreation users: receive permanent protection of large contiguous Colorado Plateau and Utah federal lands (1+ million acres) as wilderness, preserving scenic, recreational, and ecosystem values for present and future use.
Indigenous tribal communities and people who use the lands for cultural purposes: gain explicit protections for archaeological and cultural sites and statutory recognition that supports traditional subsistence, ceremonial, and spiritual activities on designated wilderness.
All Americans (local communities and broader public): benefit from climate and biodiversity gains because protecting these lands reduces surface disturbance and fossil-fuel extraction, maintains habitats and connectivity, and advances national/international 30x30 conservation goals.
Rural communities, local governments, and workers in extractive industries: face reduced opportunities for fossil fuel, mining, and geothermal development on withdrawn lands, potentially lowering jobs, local revenues, and tax bases.
Local residents, businesses, and some recreational users: may lose or see limits on motorized access, roads, certain commercial uses, and other activities currently allowed on these lands, affecting transportation, recreation styles, and some livelihoods.
Taxpayers, federal agencies, and local governments: could face increased management, stewardship, and enforcement costs from expanded wilderness acreage while the bill provides little or no new funding for enhanced management or visitor services.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Designates multiple federal land units in western Utah as wilderness, adds them to the National Wilderness Preservation System, and sets rules for management, mapping, water rights, and state land exchanges.
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Richard Joseph Durbin · Last progress March 27, 2025
Designates multiple federal land units in western Utah as wilderness and adds them to the National Wilderness Preservation System, directing the Bureau of Land Management (Secretary of the Interior acting through BLM) to manage them under the Wilderness Act. The measure reserves federal water rights for these new wilderness areas (with priority dated to enactment), requires maps and legal descriptions to be filed with Congress and made public, and requires land exchanges for state school trust lands found inside the new wilderness boundaries with limits on mineral-interest transfers. The law states purposes that include protecting ecological, scenic, and cultural values; maintaining landscape connectivity and climate benefits; and explicitly protecting Indigenous and non‑Indigenous traditional uses such as hunting, fishing, hiking, and spiritual activities. It does not create new funding programs but adds named areas with approximate acreages to the statutory wilderness list and sets administrative rules for management, mapping, and water-rights protection.