I honestly hate to write this, as those with disabilities should absolutely have the chance to experience the outdoors as I do. But that’s not always the case, as it’s hard to accommodate everyone in these places without paving a walkway through pristine wilderness or putting in a new dirt road so side-by-sides or ATVs can access them.
I mean, my dad has a disability that makes him mostly wheelchair bound these days. But he’s been able to see some of our forests and backcountry because we’ve used our Can-Am. He wouldn’t be able to see many of our public lands, however, without the use of some transportation, be it his wheelchair or something else.
So while the newly introduced Outdoor Americans with Disabilities Act sounds like it has the best intentions for those who struggle with access, and there are real struggles throughout our national parks and more that could be bettered with some small changes, the folks behind it are using those struggles to further their own land sale agendas. They are not worried about my dad. They’re not worried about disabled folks. They’re using these people to get to where they can sell our public lands. It’s not reformation, it’s theft.
Yep, we’re once again talking about Utah’s Senator Mike Lee.
In addition to Senator Lee, Senator John Curtis—also of Utah—signed onto the proposed Act, which states, “Currently, large portions of federally managed lands remain inaccessible to Americans with disabilities because of restrictions on motorized vehicles and a shortage of authorized routes. The Outdoor Americans with Disabilities Act addresses this problem directly by tying accessibility to the availability of open roads.”
But, oh boy, does it go ham on putting roads literally everywhere, and requiring those roads to be vehicle navigable, including National Parks.
The proposal goes on to state, “The bill defines ‘disability-accessible land’ as one square mile of public land with at least 2.5 miles of authorized roads accessible to motorized vehicles. It directs the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service to update travel management plans with this standard in mind, ensuring that existing routes remain available and prioritized for access. The legislation also requires land managers to coordinate with state, county, local, and Tribal governments to identify which roads provide the best opportunities for recreation and to give local stakeholders a voice before any road is closed. Roads could not be closed if doing so would cause an area to fall short of accessibility requirements, except in cases of emergency or significant safety threats. Any road closure must be paired with the designation of an alternative route, and both closures and new designations are categorically exempt from NEPA review to prevent bureaucratic delay.”
Firstly, that’s an insane amount of motorized roads for each square mile of public land, and is basically a backdoor way of gutting the Roadless Rule by making every piece of public land required to have roads. Revoking the Roadless Rule is something Lee has already proposed this year.
My dad enjoying some public land near a trail.
Photo by: Jonathon Klein
Second, mandating that BLM and Forest Service has to coordinate with local stakeholders for any road closure before closing said road regardless of issue, apart from emergencies, is wild and removes the ability to properly manage these areas for mixed use. The “Roads could not be closed if doing so would cause an area to fall short of accessibility requirements” portion especially caught my eye, as it’s a mechanism designed so that no road could ever be closed given the first requirement of 2.5 miles of road for every 1 mile of public land. Even if you had a good reason and everyone agreed the reason was valid, you literally couldn’t close a road. And that’s Lee’s endgame, i.e. removing access, increasing the ability for mining and extractive industries to have access to these areas, and selling these off to the highest bidder.
This ain’t about access for those who need it most. If it were, there’d be reform within these services. They wouldn’t be cutting forestry service and BLM personnel. They wouldn’t be hacking away at their budgets. They’d be funding them and ensuring they can do their jobs.
As for those who signed on to cheerlead for this bullshit, they’re all off-road organizations, none are disability advocacy groups. And two of the signees supporting Lee and Curtis have direct ties to Mike Lee, his family, and his political career. I’m speaking about Blue Ribbon Coalition and Utah Public Lands Alliance, which count Ben Burr as one of their directors and trustees. Burr, in case you didn’t know, worked for Mike Lee back in the day. He’s married to Lee’s niece. And he’s come out in favor of many of Lee’s public land policies that would reduce everyone’s access to those public lands, including off-roaders.
Blue Ribbon Coalition was also name-dropped as one of the influencers Lee and Attorney General Reyes hoped to use to support his Supreme Court land grab by way of swaying public opinion toward supporting their goals, i.e., putting control of said lands back into state hands so they could sell them off to developers.
Real advocacy groups, however, can see through Lee, Curtis, BRC, and UPLA’s lies and how they’d not only harm the off-road community, but the policies put forth wouldn’t even begin to address the disability issues. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance put it plainly, stating, “This appears to be another case of elected officials introducing legislation in the name of disability access without consulting with a variety of stakeholders and outdoor recreationalists who have disabilities. There are already provisions in federal law that allow people with mobility disabilities to appropriately access public lands with other power-driven mobility devices (OPDMDs).”
“The Americans with Disabilities Act is landmark civil rights legislation that disability rights activists fought for decades to achieve, and the principles of which Senator Lee has repeatedly voted against. In contrast, it appears that the ‘Outdoors Americans with Disabilities Act’ does not have input from the broader disability community and prioritizes one type of access at the expense of all others,” says Syren Nagakyrie, Founder and Director of Disabled Hikers, adding, “It is shameful that he would so blatantly use the disability community in his ongoing attempts to dismantle public lands, build and prioritize roads, and sell lands to the highest bidder. People with disabilities are not political pawns to be used while catering to special interests.”
SUWA’s own Laura Peterson stated, “There are tens of thousands of miles of paved and dirt roads and trails across public lands in Utah that are open to motorized users of all abilities. This bill puts a heavy thumb on the scale to open even more lands to this single use, while making it virtually impossible for federal land managers to close routes to protect other values like wildlife habitat and quiet recreation.”
And they’re both right. This has nothing to do with disabled Americans. It has nothing to do with off-roading, though those groups will try and sell you that idea, too. It has everything to do, however, with Mike Lee’s wish to do away with our public lands. To make them harder to manage. To make them worse to visit. To make them no longer ours. And the fact that Utah, a state where public lands are so vitally important to our economy, keeps electing such a dumbass is insane to me. Utah wouldn’t be Utah without public lands. America wouldn’t be America without public lands. We need to stop electing folks like Mike Lee who actively hate public lands in public hands.
So while it may sound awful to oppose such proposed legislation on first glance, the backers and writers aren’t for those it supposedly helps. They’re self-interested parties who use disabled Americans as pawns. So please, call your Senators. Call your Representatives. Tell them to oppose this. Not because those Americans don’t deserve to see the natural beauty around us, but because this isn’t going to do that, and it’ll actively make those lands worse for everyone.
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