OFF-ROAD NEWS

Taking it to the Hill

Off-Road Advocates Convene Summit in Washington, DC

SEMA and the SEMA Action Network joined with the Off-Road Business Association (ORBA) and the BlueRibbon Coalition to sponsor a Washington Summit for Motorized Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation.  Over 60 participants from 20 organizations asked members of Congress to support Endangered Species Act (ESA) reform legislation and to preserve access for off-highway vehicles (OHVs) on federal lands.
   
Flanked by staff from the SEMA Government Affairs Office, summit participants visited Congressional offices, including personal visits with Reps. Gary Miller (R-CA) and Mike Rogers (R-AL). They expressed support for managed care of the nation’s public lands in ways that still provide opportunities for responsible off-roading. 
   
A key topic of the Summit was proposed changes to the ESA. Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA) of the House Resources Committee is pursuing a rewrite of the law to better achieve its goals: saving endangered animals and plants. Enacted in 1973, the ESA has saved only 10 species out of 1,800 listings. Meanwhile, millions of acres of land have been closed with more set-asides in the works. For years, property owners and off-roaders have argued that the government lists species and sets aside land too quickly and without enough scientific evidence.
   
Chairman Pombo is working with other members of Congress, state and local lawmakers of both parties to craft a better approach.  The SEMA-supported legislation calls for mediation before lawsuits, more scientific input on identifying threatened species and creating recovery plans, more local input and a different approach to setting aside critical habitat. The focus would be on saving species, not just locking up land.
   
“What they’re doing right now in terms of the science is not working,” Chairman Pombo said to the Summit participants. “Let’s go in and do field studies; let’s go in and look at what the habitat is; let’s determine whether or not the species truly is endangered before we put it on the list. Once that determination has been made, let’s come up with a recovery plan; let’s designate a habitat; let’s move forward and focus on recovery, and not focus on the bureaucracy as we are doing now.”
   
A House Resources Subcommittee also held a hearing on Motorized Recreational Use on Federal Land. Representatives from the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management discussed efforts to regulate OHV use on federal lands due to their growing popularity. The agencies will be designating “officially sanctioned roads and trails” for OHVs. Off-road community representatives emphasized that there are scores of user-created roads and trails that don’t yet appear on Forest Service maps. They want these inventoried so that they can be officially sanctioned.
   
“The agencies are currently inventorying the roads and trails, a process that could take years,” said Jason Tolleson, director of the SEMA Action Network. “SEMA has alerted the Forest Service that many of these routes came into existence during “open” management. They serve a legitimate need and do not pose an environmental threat. In some cases, these uninventoried routes may even be more environmentally friendly and provide a better overall access solution than their inventoried counterparts.
  
Additional information is available on the federal land use page on the www.semasan.com website.

Wilderness Bills: For the third time in three years, the Senate voted to create the 106,000-acre Wild Sky Wilderness in Washington’s Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. The Senate also passed legislation to designate as wilderness 300,000 acres in Northern California’s Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino and Napa counties. Off-highway vehicles (OHVs) would be banned from the areas since wilderness is by definition “roadless.” The SAN opposes the legislation since it would close existing, legal OHV roads and trails. Alternatively, the SAN supports a “backcountry designation” that would generally protect the lands as wilderness but also designate areas for motorized recreation where appropriate. It is unclear when or if the House will take up the two Senate bills.