Two Key Decisions Affecting Utah Wilderness in 2010:

• Replacing Utah BLM Director Selma Sierra: In 2006, former BLM Director Kathleen Clarke handpicked her close associate and then chief of staff Selma Sierra to be BLM’s Utah state director and that’s when things really started to get busy.  With Sierra at the helm, drilling in Utah reached its heyday and didn’t really slow down until 2009.  Both in her national and state leadership role, Sierra also was responsible for implementing the Bush administration’s policy goals (with such non sequiturs as the ‘healthy forest initiative’) and working fist and glove with the state of Utah and county governments to implement their vision of developing Utah’s public lands, including rampant energy development.  Replacing Director Sierra early in 2010 is an important litmus test for Secretary Salazar and Director Abbey.


• Revising Utah's RMPs:  Director Sierra’s most damning legacy was BLM’s completion of six land use plans covering more than 11 millions acres across eastern and southern Utah.  These fatally flawed plans left millions of acres of wilderness caliber lands open to energy development (in addition to many other destructive activities).  SUWA, many members of Congress, and wilderness activists across the country have called on Secretary Salazar and Director Abbey to revisit this unfinished business and protect Utah’s remarkable red rock wilderness.  Their willingness to do so will speak volumes.