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Show U.S. Issues Rule Over Right-of-Way Disputes on Federal Lands in the West By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The Bush administration is adopting a property-dispute rule this week that it says will afford the government protection from lawsuits but that critics describe as a way for national parks and forests to be opened to mining, drilling and other development. Much of the issue addressed by the rule has roots in the Mining Act of 1866, which allowed states to claim rights of way across federal land so that roads could be built there. The law, whose purpose was to encourage settlement of the Western frontier, was repealed in 1976, along with several other homestead-era statutes, when Congress decided that it needed to keep a closer eye on the development of remaining federal lands. But several Western states, along with localities and groups like off-road- vehicle users, continued to assert a right of access to federal land, and brought legal cases against the government. The new rule would create a way of resolving such disputes, along with battles over fence lines and clouded titles. "Right now, the situation in the West is unacceptable," one official said. "There is no mechanism, short of title actions in court, to solve these problems. We're trying to create a change in tone for how Western land debates occur." Under the rule, proposed on Feb. 22 by the Bureau of Land Management, any entity claiming title to land or an interest in it will be allowed to apply to the bureau for a "recordable disclaimer of interest," which essentially says the federal government does not own a particular piece of property or waterway. Conservation groups and other critics maintain that the rule will allow states to claim ownership of roads in national parks and on other public lands, permitting them to use right-of-way claims to prevent land from becoming designated and protected as wilderness, where hik- Conservationists again attack a Bush policy. ing and other forms of recreation could occur but drilling, logging and use of off-road vehicles would be prohibited. The rule has brought protest from Democrats in Congress. Earlier this month, as the period of public comment on the proposal neared an end, Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Barbara Boxer of California, Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and John Kerry of Massachusetts said in a letter to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton that the regulation would encourage spurious claims that "threaten some of our most scenic and ecologically fragile public lands." As an example, they pointed to Utah, which has been battling conservation groups in an effort to make more land available for development. The state has claimed thousands of rights of way across national parks, national forests, riverbanks, shorelines and proposed wilderness areas. If granted, the senators said, these rights of way would cause significant environmental damage. /uifTcM* /A/zs/ots |
