All comments are valuable, but those that meet the “substantive comment criteria” are better.

Browse This Guide on Crafting Better Comments

Substantive Comment Guidance

This page is dedicated to providing updated information on the Henry Mountains and Fremont Gorge Travel Management Plan. We will post new resources as they become available, with the most recent posts appearing at the top of this page after the static resource links at the top of the page.

The EA is now open for the Henry Mountains and Fremont Gorge. Comments are due no later than October 26, 2024.

Here Is the Draft EA  for the Henry Mountains and Fremont Gorge

You can browse the Interactive Map at the following link. The map can be selected based on the various alternatives in the layers tab at the top. When you click on a route, it will display the route status by alternative and with this version you can also view the BLM Route Report
 Interactive Map of the Henry Mountains

Here is a link to all the Route Reports for the Henry Mountains

Here’s some tips on making your comments more effective BLM Guide on Crafting Substantive (Better) Comments
Click Here to Submit Your Comments to BLM– Be Patient, you must wait 10-15 seconds for the    Link in the Left Column, then click on that.
IMPORTANT: Once you submit your comments, it will take you to a Receipt Page that shows your comments. Click on the Download PDF of your comments and email copies to landuse@utahpla.com AND brc@sharetrails.org

If you have information that you would like added, please email us at landuse@utahpla.com

UPLA Articles

UPLA Article On Writing Substantive Comments 03/10/2024

UPLA Article with Links to All Utah Travel Management Planning Information

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Judge Clark Waddoups, Senior Judge with the Utah Federal District Court, has been presiding over the consolidated Bellwether RS2477 case filed by Kane County and the State of Utah against the United States and SUWA for many years. In August, Judge Waddoups made a couple of very important rulings that show he has a clear predisposition to substantiate the rights of Utah and Kane County in preserving rights for access on RS2477 claims, of which there are almost 12,000 roads. To illustrate the importance of this it should be remembered that 120 miles of the routes closed in Moab are on existing RS2477 claims.

The first ruling was really aimed straight at SUWA, who is acting as a Intervenor Defendant with the United States. Judge Waddoups expressed that he believed the United States was interesting in settling the long running, complex, and expensive case and that SUWA was dragging it on and unwilling to settle. He was openly frustrated with SUWA’s endless motions taking up the court’s time, and he repeated and clarified his prior ruling that barred SUWA from further motions unless they are approved in advance by the court.

The second Decision in the same case was in response to a motion from BLM that would have dismissed all 12,000 RS2477 claims.

Judge Waddoups approved the dismissal of a single road claim, but denied the request for dismissal of the remaining claims. Further, his 80 page Order was a memorandum of his reasoning for his decision, and went into great detail about his thinking on RS2477 Claims, and why they should be honored without the adjudication of each claim as was contained in prior orders. The decision is very interesting reading, and it seems clear that Judge Waddoups is going to flip the tables on RS2477 road claims, putting BLM on the defense to refute claims rather than requiring the State to gain approval on each claim.

Judge Waddoups made a couple other important distinctions in his ruling:

• Cited the recent Corner Post Supreme Court case to refute many of the statute of limitations motions to dismiss, another win for public land users
• Introduced many theories about why the 2017 BLM SUWA Settlement Agreement may be on shaky ground. This is the reason we are in the process of revisiting 17 Utah Travel Management Plans.

The case is still ongoing, but it appears Judge Waddoups wants to see it close soon, but he’s shown us a peek behind the curtain. This ruling is so monumental that the information I’ve been hearing is that BLM is reconsidering their current TMP/RMP processes in Utah. Once the case is is closed and the decision published, it can be cited in many other land use claims.

Here’s the ruling in its entirety with highlighting of some of the key findings.

The OHV community has recently been debating what types of modifications/repairs can be done on Sand Mountain. I went directly to the Sand Mountain District Field Manager to get a clear understanding of what’s allowed, and how to gain approval on other repairs.

It should be noted that different rules may apply for other BLM lands, but this is a good guide for Sand Mountain. For questions, or to report individuals or exceptions, please contact the Recreation Planner at BLM (this position is vacant until October, in the meantime, contact Bob Wells, Assistant Field Manager, rwells@blm.gov

What can you do?

• Move rocks by hand, including stacking them. No winches
• Trim bushes by hand shears
• Shovel sand by hand
• Pick up trash

What You Cannot Do Without Approval by BLM

• Use any mechanized devices such as drills, jackhammers, or earth moving equipment
• Post signs or banners, permanent or temporary
• Use nonnative materials that are not found on the mountain naturally

How to request approval for other work

• Write a description of what you want to do including:
  • GPS location
  • Photos depicting current condition
  • Description of materials or equipment being used
  • Why you are requesting to do the repair
  • Who will be responsible for the repair
  • When do you plan to start/complete?
• Email the Sand Mountain BLM Recreation Planner or Bob Wells rwells@blm.gov with your documentation to request approval

UPLA Submitted Scoping Comments for the Dolores River Travel Management Plan. Our original comments were submitted with the original comment closing date and can be seen here.

During the weeklong extension we did a review of routes that were missed in BLM’s inventory and submitted comments on the missing routes.

Supplemental Missing Route Comments

Supplement #1

Supplement #2

We are very early in the process for Travel Management Planning for Dolores River. Please continue to report on Routes in the TMA using TrailSaver.com. TrailSaver will return your reports to you when the next phase of the TMP process is ready to accept comments again.

Resources:

BLM Main Dolores River Eplanning

Public Meeting Announcement

BLM Dolores River Alt A PDF Map

BLM Dolores River Interactive Map

Submit Your Comments before June 21 to the BLM here. Be Patient, you have to wait 10-15 seconds until you see    on the Page, then Click on that. Once you submit your comments, it will take you to a Receipt Page that shows your comments. Click on the Download PDF of your comments and email copies to landuse@utahpla.com AND brc@sharetrails.org

The Chevron Deference Doctrine was overturned by the Supreme Court today in a 6-3 decision in the Loper Bright v. Raimondo case. Chevron has been the law of the land since 1984, and ordered lower courts to recognize that federal agencies should be regarded as the experts where a law was ambiguous, and as a result caused Federal agencies to get ever more aggressive in their interpretation of underlying laws in making rules, without fear of a court overrruling their interpretation. This is a landmark decision against the Federal Government in their aggressive rulemaking which restricts the rights of not only OHV users, but also many other groups such as gun owners, the environment, the workplace and even health care.

Chief Justice delivered the decision today and said that Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the Administrative Procedure Act] requires, The chief justice called the earlier decision a “judicial invention that required judges to disregard their statutory duties.”

Chevron doctrine has been applied by lower courts in thousands of cases. The Supreme Court itself has invoked the framework to uphold agencies’ interpretations of statutes at least 70 times, but not since 2016, when the Court began to drift away from their conviction for the Doctrine.

This is definitely a landmark decision that will shift our fight against Federal overreaches in restricting responsible use of our public lands, and may lead to many new arguments against devastating rules such as the recently adopted BLM Landscape Health Rule that allows conservation leases and a host of other new rules not addressed by FLPMA.

If you’d like to read the court decision, you can find it here…