Congressional Support For The Sagebrush Rebellion
Various bills to transfer federal public lands to western states had been proposed after 1932, all failing to garner much attention, let alone action. Among key objections to such transfers were the increasing value to the federal treasury of mineral lease receipts, and complaints that the "crown jewels" of the national lands holdings, the National Parks, could not be managed adequately or fairly by individual states. Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks were considered to be national treasures, and few legislators would concur with turning them over to the states.
The spark that turned these complaints into a "rebellion" was the enactment in 1976 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which sought to establish a system of land management by the BLM, recognizing that most of the BLM holdings would not be turned into private hands. While FLPMA required BLM to plan land use accommodating all users, specifically naming ranching, grazing, and mining, it also introduced formal processes to consider preservation of the land from ranching, grazing and mining. Western land users regarded the act as a bureaucratic power grab at best, or the imposition of a totalitarian socialist regime at the radical worst.
Newly-elected Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, joined in land transfer legislation in 1977, after loud complaints from ranchers and oilmen from Utah, coupled with strong support from several Utah county governments. By late 1979 Hatch was the one legislator most interested in land transfers. He sought to introduce a transfer bill that would get hearings and potential action. Upon advice of members of the Utah Wilderness Commission, appointed by Utah Governor Scott Matheson, Hatch agreed to leave National Parks and National Monuments in federal hands, and he drafted a bill that would allow states to apply for control over selected parcels. With 16 cosponsors, he introduced the bill in 1980, and again in 1981. Partly because Hatch's bill dealt with major objections to previous bills, news outlets for the first time covered the bill as if it had a serious chance of passing. This provided a huge morale boost to long-aggrieved public lands users other than conservationists, and started a two-year newspaper, radio and television fight for the legislation.
Ultimately Hatch's bill got little more than press attention. The election of Ronald Reagan as president put a friend to the Sagebrush Rebels in the White House. Reagan appointees slowed down or closed down wilderness designation legislation, and by Reagan's second term, the Sagebrush Rebellion was back to simmering on the back burner of federal land management agencies.
Read more about this topic: Sagebrush Rebels
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