Sagebrush Rebels

The sagebrush rebels attempted to influence environmental policy in the American West during the 1970s and 1980s, surviving into the 21st century in public lands states (generally, the 13 western states where federal land holdings include 30% to more than 50% of a state's area), and surviving in organized groups pressuring public lands policy makers, especially for grazing of sheep and cattle on public lands, and for mineral extraction policies.

An extension of the older controversy of state vs. federal powers, Sagebrush Rebels wanted the federal government to give more control of federally owned Western lands to state and local authorities. This was meant to increase the growth of Western economies. Ronald Reagan declared himself a sagebrush rebel in an August 1980 campaign speech in Salt Lake City, telling the crowd, "I happen to be one who cheers and supports the Sagebrush Rebellion. Count me in as a rebel." Reagan was faced with opposition with conservation organizations. This struggle persists today after changing form, with the "wise use movement" in 1988. George H. W. Bush helped work around restrictive environmental laws to help mining, ranching, and real estate developing industries that created jobs in the states.

The term "Sagebrush Rebellion" was coined during fights over designation of National Wilderness lands, especially in Western states, and especially after the National Forest Service (NFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) conducted required surveys of plots of public lands of at least 5,000 acres (20 km²) that were unroaded, after 1972, for potential designation as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. This process was known as the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE, or later, RARE I). The process developed significant opposition by environmental groups and by public lands users, and was challenged in federal court. Results of RARE I were tabled by the courts for lack of uniform criteria for evaluation of lands and other procedural problems, and a second review started in 1977, known as RARE II, involving more than 60 million acres (240,000 km²) of wildland under federal jurisdiction. RARE II was completed in 1979. Controversy, and lack of support from the Reagan administration starting in 1981, largely sidelined a formal, national wilderness assessment. Congress has designated several wilderness areas since 1981, sometimes using data acquired through the RARE processes.

The National Wilderness Preservation System grew out of recommendations of a Kennedy-administration Presidential Commission, the Outdoor Recreational Resources Review Commission (ORRRC) chaired by Laurence S. Rockefeller, whose 1962 report suggested legislation to protect recreational resources in a "national system of wild and scenic rivers", a national wilderness system, a national trails system, the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, and recreation areas administered by then-existing public lands agencies beyond National Parks and National Monuments (both of which are administered in the Department of the Interior by the National Parks Administration).

Much of the wildland was sagebrush, which some wanted to use for grazing, off-road vehicle use, and other development instead of wilderness conservation. These "rebels" urged that, instead of designating more federal wilderness protection, some or much of the land be granted to states or private parties. They took on the phrase "Sagebrush Rebellion" to describe their opposition to federal management of these lands.