Obama’s Backdoor Land Grab Sends Shockwaves Across the West

by Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's Dec. 22 announcement directing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to survey its vast holdings with a view towards determining which should be designated as "wild lands" has sent shock waves across the West.

Salazar's move is widely seen as the Obama administration's way of dealing with a new Congress that is unlikely to create new wilderness areas legislatively. The administration is rebranding wilderness as wild lands so it can make millions of acres of public land off-limits to development through regulatory fiat. Salazar unveiled the plan after Congress had adjourned for the year and before the new, 112th Congress had been sworn in.