Call me a "glass is half empty" type of guy, but the way I read this is essentially whoever or whatever spends the most money at the local level will now totally dictate what the regional managers do. We all know damned good and well there is infinatley more money coming from envirnazi land than regular average joe snowmobiler land, so I'm really failing to see how this is not a victory for the envirotards. Even if initially nothing changes, it absolutely totally 100% opens up a pathway for them to start changing it to their liking. This is ultimately going to result in a lot more political bargaining for new wilderness designations that, as we all know, are going to be a lot more easily expanded in future years.
I've said this for years, and its nowhere more apparent than in Uintah County, Utah right now. The oil companies have lobbied the local legislatures to do everything they can to avoid having an area designated as wilderness in an area they think they want to drill, so the local legislature has effectively offered up the best area for snowmobiling in the eastern Uintahs as a "compromise" to tide SUWA over. Do you think for one second SUWA will stop there? Hell no. They'll be right back to pushing for a wilderness designation to stop any future drilling projects as well as soon as the first deal goes through.
So who gets screwed? The OHV crowd. AKA, joe public. We just collectively aren't worth enough money to matter to anyone anymore, period.
So now we have another inroad to more wilderness areas so the billionaires can effectively buy up more public land for pennies on the dollar then not pay any taxes on it....
Anybody wanna buy some sleds? I think I'm getting out of it while the getting is good.