The letter (PDF) , signed by Texas A&M professor Douglass Shaw, urges the president to invest in the nation’s public lands infrastructure and establish new wilderness, parks and monuments that can create jobs and jump-start the businesses around them.

“The rivers, lakes, canyons, and mountains found on public lands serve as a unique and compelling backdrop that has helped to transform the western economy from a dependence on resource extractive industries to growth from in-migration, tourism, and modern economy sectors such as finance, engineering, software development, insurance, and health care,” the letter says. “Increasingly, entrepreneurs are basing their business location decisions on the quality of life in an area. Businesses are recruiting talented employees by promoting access to beautiful, nearby public lands.”

The economists’ message was also delivered to leaders in Congress, who are largely locked in partisan gridlock over issues dealing with the environment with few exceptions, such as the expansion of a wilderness area in San Diego County that shares bipartisan support led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and the recent passage of the U.S. Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act, which Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) championed for many years.

The Obama administration appears to have gotten the economists’ memo before it was even written, given that U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a report three weeks earlier calling for the declaration of 18 new wilderness and conservation area in nine Western states. Salazar’s report says they all have “significant local support” and, in Colorado, they include expanded land protections in the McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area of the San Juan Mountains, the Castle Peak Wilderness Study Area, the Browns Canyon Wilderness Study Area and the Bull Gulch Wilderness Study Area.

To get conservative members of Congress, such as U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), on board will take some convincing. Tipton so far hasn’t tipped his hand on whether he supports the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act or drilling in Thompson Divide, but he has been enthusiastic in rolling back wilderness protections for other public lands, and previously blasted Salazar’s controversial Wild Lands policy.

The same can be said of Colorado’s other conservative congressmen — Doug Lamborn, Cory Gardner and Mike Coffman — who, like Tipton, have been rebuked for their environmental records.

Three Nobel Laureates and 10 residents of Colorado are among the scores of economists and academics who signed the public lands letter with the hope of getting U.S. policy-makers’ attention.

“Here in Colorado, our public lands fuel local economies,” said Zeke Hersh, owner of Blue River Anglers in Frisco. “It is only common sense that our elected officials in Congress and the White House protect these places with adequate investment and protections for the clean air, water, wildlife habitat, and open space that lures tourists and small business entrepreneurs to communities like Frisco.”

“Public lands are the identity for our community and thus our businesses,” added Roger Marolt, owner of Marolt LLP, in Aspen. “ They help define who we are and are what attracts vibrant employees, exciting new companies, visitors and consumers to the West. The preservation of federal lands is vital to our economic growth and ensuring existing businesses like mine thrive.”

A recent study commissioned by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (pdf) reports that outdoor recreation supports $289 billion in annual retail sales and services and more than 6.5 million jobs.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

Polis noted that the report, produced by Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes and U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Bob Abbey, singles out lands included in the Boulder Democrat’s Eagle and Summit Counties Wilderness Preservation Act.

A rock outcrop at Castle Peak in Eagle County (Hidden Gems photo).

Polis painstakingly produced that legislation from the controversial and much broader Hidden Gems proposal after months and months of public meetings in his 2nd Congressional District, which includes mountainous Eagle and Summit counties.

“In putting together this report, Secretary [Ken] Salazar has found common ground by focusing on wilderness and conservation lands that have bipartisan and local support,” Polis said. “Conservation has a long history of bipartisanship, and the West has benefited greatly from it. It’s my hope that today’s report can form the foundation of a proposal that Congress can quickly get behind and pass, in spite of partisan gridlock elsewhere.”

The study, which looks at 18 areas in nine states, is called the “Preliminary Report on BLM Lands Deserving Protection as National Conservation Areas, Wilderness or other Conservation Designations.” It includes the Castle Peak area north of Eagle and near the Colorado River.

“Due to its mid-level elevation and plentiful precipitation, Castle Peak supports a wide variety of plants and wildlife,” according to the Hidden Gems campaign. “In addition to beaver ponds, the area offers superb summer range for 400 elk and 1,000 deer. The area also has outstanding geologic, natural, scenic and recreational characteristics ….”

Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, says Castle Peak, along with Browns Canyon, McKenna Peak and Bull Gulch, are four Colorado areas in the new Interior Department report that are proposed for protection in her Colorado Wilderness Act of 2011.

A much larger proposal than the Polis bill, DeGette’s legislation would create 28 new wilderness areas and add land to three existing wilderness areas. In total, the DeGette bill would permanently protect nearly 700,000 acres of federal land. DeGette has been advocating additional wilderness protection in the state for more than a decade and lately has been sharply critical of Republican attempts to roll back wilderness protections.

She welcomed the Interior Department report on Thursday.

“Over the past 12 years, as I’ve worked on the Colorado Wilderness Act with citizens across the state, I’ve heard many different opinions, but those opinions are most often rooted in a set of shared state-wide values,” DeGette said in a statement. “Coloradans want to preserve their history, their quality of life and their opportunities.”

According to the Interior Department (DOI), the BLM manages more than 245 million acres of land nationwide, mostly in 12 western states. Of that total acreage, 8.7 million acres have been protected as wilderness, or about 3.5 percent. DOI lands see more than 400 million visits a year, with outdoor recreation responsible for 6.5 million jobs and $1 trillion a year in economic benefit.

“As we continue our push to responsibly expand oil, gas, coal, solar, wind, geothermal, and other resource development on public land, we also have a responsibility to expand the backcountry recreational and outdoor opportunities that generate billions of dollars in revenue for local economies across the West,” BLM Director Bob Abbey said in a release.

The Everglades and its estuaries have born the brunt of nutrient pollution coming from industry effluent in the Everglades Agricultural Area. Nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen — along with mercury which, when coupled with sulfur, can be come especially dangerous — have led to a host of problems in the ecosystem, problems such as algal blooms and diminishing populations of certain native species. Fertilizers used in sugar fields and vegetable farms, as well as in South Florida suburban lawns, have contributed a sizable amount of the pollution that eventually makes its way into the Everglades.

Phosphorus cleanup in the Everglades (which requires reducing the flow of phosphorus to 10 parts of phosphorus per billion in the water) has experienced several delays. A 2006 deadline was established in 1994, but eventually pushed back to 2012 by the state Legislature. The Legislature has since pushed that deadline even further — to 2016.

The fast-track plan, which is a pilot program of the Army Corps of Engineers, will aim to speed up those restoration efforts.

Though he recently met with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to discuss Everglades restoration, Florida Gov. Rick Scott isn’t known as a champion of environmental restoration. According to Florida Environments, Salazar recently spoke with the Society of Environmental Journalists about his discussion with Scott, but said “the jury is still out” on his Everglades plan. Florida Environments also quoted author Carl Hiassen, who said that, following his win, Scott (wearing a pair of alligator boots) told journalists that “if it were up to him they would just shoot the alligators.”

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that identifies the full withdrawal as the preferred alternative. The EIS will be published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Federal Register on Thursday, triggering a 30-day public comment period. After that, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar can finalize the controversial move that Republicans have been lining up to try to block legislatively.

“The Grand Canyon is an iconic place for all Americans and visitors from around the world,” BLM Director Bob Abbey said in a press release. “Uranium remains an important part of our nation’s comprehensive energy resources, but it is appropriate to pause, identify what the predicted level of mining and its impacts on the Grand Canyon would be, and decide what level of risk is acceptable to take with this national treasure.

“The preferred alternative would allow for cautious, continued development with strong oversight that could help us fill critical gaps in our knowledge about water quality and environmental impacts of uranium mining in the area.”

Once finalized, the withdrawal – which precludes any new claims under the 1872 Mining Law – does not block current mining operations in the area or new mining on valid, existing claims.

Outdoor recreation groups, conservationists and hunting and fishing groups praised the final EIS.

“A healthy and sustainable Colorado River free from toxic contamination means that families and outdoor enthusiasts will continue to visit and enjoy the communities close to its banks,” Protect the Flows spokeswoman Molly Mugglestone said in a release. “Healthy rivers translate to the healthy local economies that power a robust multi-billion-dollar national recreation economy.”

Protect the Flows is a coalition of businesses in seven states in the Colorado River drainage that depend directly on the river.

The American Southwest started to see a resurgent interest in uranium mining several years ago as prices spiked up in anticipation of new nuclear power reactors to replace coal-burning facilities targeted amidst growing concerns about global climate change. But the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan last spring has had a chilling effect on the new nuke boom. Colorado continues to see foreign investment, however, in proposed mines and a new mill in Montrose County.

Thompson Divide (Image: Thompson Divide Coalition)

Then last month, Pitkin County Commissioner George Newman flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with Colorado’s congressional leadership and urge them to stave off drilling in the Thompson Divide area, which consists of 221,500 acres spread out over Pitkin, Gunnison, Garfield, Mesa and Delta counties. There are as many as 81 leases in the area; half of them on terrain that is currently roadless.

Most pressing is Houston-based SG Interests recent proposal to bundle federal lands where it holds leases into a specially designated unit. If the Bureau of Land Management were to approve the unit, the company’s leases that are set to expire in 2013 would essentially be extended and drilling could follow on a 32,000-acre parcel of public land in Thompson Divide. The parcel, which is mostly under the surface jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service, is located predominantly in Pitkin and Garfield counties.

U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall announced today that they have sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar calling for “robust and meaningful” stakeholder input before the Bureau of Land Management makes a decision on the designation.

“The commissioners of Pitkin County and other local stakeholders argue that the unitization proposal, if granted at this time, may undermine years of discussions by local governments and leaseholders to reach a long-term agreement governing mineral production and conservation of important public lands in this area. Conversely, some of the affected leaseholders argue that promptly granting the unitization request would be the most efficient way to extract the resource in an environmentally-protective manner,” the senators wrote in their letter. “After further discussions between parties, it may well be that a viable, consensus-based development plan for the area may emerge. Our intent, therefore, is not to preclude eventual consideration of such an option. However, given the lack of current local consensus, we believe it is very difficult to gauge if unitization is presently in the public interest.”

Laurie Stevens, assistant to the Thompson Divide Coalition board of directors, said her grassroots group of environmentalists, ranchers, sportsmen and other residents is encouraged by the letter.

“This is a huge action taken on behalf of the Thompson Divide Coalition,” she said.

Members of the Thompson Divide Coalition, along with Newman and other leaders in Pitkin County, have also been bending the ears of Reps. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo. Tipton, whose environmental record has been blasted by conservation groups, is a key player in the discussion since he is the only one in the House who holds political jurisdiction over the affected area.

“There has been a real bipartisan effort to find a compromise,” Stevens said. “Rep. Tipton has been incredible to work with and willing to listen to all sides.”

It shouldn’t take long for Salazar to get up to speed on the senators’ letter. His brother, John, pledged to draft legislation to protect Thompson Divide but he lost his seat to Tipton before he ever did.

The Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011 (pdf) seeks to block the ban proposed by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar within a 1-million-acre buffer zone around the nation’s most iconic national park. Conservation groups say the move is needed to protect the Colorado River watershed and to prevent industrialization of an area heavily reliant on outdoor recreation and tourism.

“We are disappointed in this jobs-killing legislation,” said Roger Clark, air and energy program director at Grand Canyon Trust. “Uranium mining threatens thousands of tourism-related jobs in northern Arizona. Salazar has found the right balance between protecting Grand Canyon and the $700 million tourism industry while leaving promising mining areas further from the national park open to exploration and mining.”

McCain countered that Salazar’s move would be a job-killer.

“The Department’s proposed mining withdrawal would kill hundreds of potential jobs to ‘save’ the Grand Canyon from the same form of uranium mining that conservation groups once supported,” McCain said. “It also threatens to unravel the spirit of the Arizona Wilderness Act and will raise significant questions for future Wilderness bills if agreements to accommodate responsible land uses are neither genuine nor enduring.”

House sponsors of the bill include Arizona Republicans Jeff Flake and Trent Franks.

“It is unconscionable that Senator McCain and Representatives Flake and Franks are seeking to undermine protections for Grand Canyon and its watershed and showing so little regard for the people of Arizona, including all of those who expressed strong support for protecting these lands from uranium mining and the pollution it produces,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter.

The Grand Canyon has been under growing pressure from surrounding mining and power-generating activities, including haze from coal-fired power plants.

Colorado is increasingly in the crosshairs of uranium mining and milling controversy, including a legacy of contamination from the state’s uranium heyday in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

“We also need some volunteers to help set up the day of the event. Chairs, tables, that sort of thing. If you can help please let me know,” wrote Ouray County Republican Party Chairman Jim Buske. “Also, if you can come an hour early so we can jam the hall with conservatives, that would be great too!” The Republicans also included a “No More Wilderness” sign on their site, in case there was any confusion about where they stand.

The Telluride-based Sheep Mountain Alliance conservation group delivered a slightly more subtle message about the meeting to supporters of the bill recently reintroduced by Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet: “Come early, space is limited!”

Tipton is a Cortez Republican who so far has not backed the wilderness bill first introduced by his Democratic predecessor, John Salazar, in 2009. In fact, since entering office, Tipton has been quite vocal about rolling back wilderness protections for public lands, blasting Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s Wild Lands policy.

Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio today sent out a press release skewering the Ouray Republicans and calling on Tipton to allow all of his constituents into Friday’s town hall meeting in Ridgway.

“The people of Colorado don’t deserve to have Rep. Tipton manipulate the turnout of a town hall meeting by coordinating with the Republican Party,” Palacio said. “Rep. Tipton was hired to represent all of the people in Colorado’s Third Congressional District, not just those people that agree with his position on an issue.

“So I call on him to make his town hall meetings, which are paid for at taxpayer’s expense, open and accessible to every resident of our district. And I encourage everyone who is concerned about the future of our public lands to attend these meetings so they can speak publicly about their support or concerns regarding the San Juan Wilderness bill.”

“With funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we were able to construct a new visitor center and exhibit hall that will enable the park to serve as an economic engine and support jobs for communities in this area,” Salazar said. “And visitors will once again be able to fully enjoy the world-renowned dinosaur fossils.”

The new Quarry Visitor Center replaces an old visitor center that was shut down in 2006 due to structural instability. The closure kept visitors from viewing the Carnegie Quarry, a 150-foot by-50-foot rock wall that contains approximately 1,500 dinosaur bones dating back 149 million years. Partly as a result, visitation at the site declined from slightly more than 300,000 people in 2005 to just under 200,000 people last year.

“The opening of the new visitor center and exhibit will again make Dinosaur National Monument a destination for tourists and allow the public to see the famous rock wall and its extraordinary fossils for the first time in five years,” Salazar said. “Every dollar we invest in national parks and public lands returns an estimated $4 in economic growth, and I’m optimistic that will be the case with our investment in these new facilities.”

The dedication of the new visitor center and the opening of the new exhibit hall mark the 96th anniversary of the establishment of Dinosaur National Monument by President Woodrow Wilson on October 4, 1915 to protect “deposits of Dinosaurian and other gigantic reptilian remains” of the Jurassic era. President Franklin Roosevelt expanded the monument to more than 200,000 acres in 1938 to preserve and protect the canyons of the Green and Yampa rivers.

The new facilities support the goals of President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative to establish a 21st Century conservation ethic and to reconnect Americans, especially young people, to the nation’s natural, cultural and historical heritage, Salazar said.

“I especially hope that parents will bring their children here to stir in them the sense of awe that so many of us experience when we gaze at this unique landscape and its fossil and cultural history forged over millions of years,” Salazar said in the press release. “Places like Dinosaur National Monument can inspire a new generation of archeologists, anthropologists, and conservationists to safeguard our natural and cultural heritage across the nation.”

He said much of the world is moving past America in their investments in education, research and basic infrastructure, and that it is time for America to lead again.

He was joined at Lincoln by a who’s who of Colorado Democrats, including Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Senators Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, Governor John Hickenlooper, former Denver Mayor Federico Pena, and U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter, and current Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.

From The New York Times:

Neither Mr. Obama’s choice of Colorado, nor of this heavily Latino high school in a struggling part of Denver, were remotely accidental. He carried Colorado in 2008, and with his support wobbling in other swing states like Ohio, analysts believe he will need to hold on to it next year to put together a winning electoral map.

But Colorado, as much as any state, symbolizes the ebb tide in Mr. Obama’s political fortunes. He accepted the Democratic nomination in this state and signed the $787 billion stimulus package here. But with the jobless rate here rising to 8.5 percent from 7.4 percent since then, even Democrats here say Colorado could be an uphill battle.

…

“If asking a millionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a class warrior, a warrior for the middle class, I will accept that; I’ll wear that as a badge of honor,” Mr. Obama said. “Because the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against the middle class in this country for a decade now.”

For all the populist fire on display, Colorado may be kinder to Mr. Obama than the traditional battlegrounds of the Midwest because of its more affluent and educated independent voters.

While Mr. Obama has lost support among independents generally, he retains a narrow approval rating — 50 percent to 43 percent — among those who earn more than $100,000 a year, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. A senior adviser to Mr. Obama said his message of innovating to keep America competitive would also resonate with the technology workers sprinkled through Denver’s suburbs.

From The Washington Post:

On Tuesday, Obama wrapped up a three-day, three-state western swing by rallying students and teachers at Abraham Lincoln High School in Denver, his latest method of highlighting the education proposals and putting public pressure on congressional Republicans to support the jobs bill.

“Places like South Korea are adding teachers in droves to prepare their kids for the global economy. We’re laying ours off left and right,” Obama told students and teachers in the school’s parking lot. “All across the country, budget cuts are forcing superintendents to make choices they don’t want to make. . . . It’s unfair to our kids; it undermines their future; it has to stop.”

Video of the speech, from Colorado Pols:

According to Environment and Energy Daily, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) “plans to issue a rulemaking that would place greater scrutiny on the use of categorical exclusions, or CXs, used to bypass traditional environmental reviews, according to sources familiar with the issue.”

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in 2009 found that between 2006 and 2008 the BLM used CXs to sign off on more than 6,100 oil and gas drilling permits in 20 states, mostly in the mountain west. The GAO also concluded that in 85 percent of those cases BLM officials failed to follow guidance and provide adequate justification for using CXs, which allow for drilling permits outside of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process in order to speed up production.

British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico was approved using a CX on April 6, 2009. A year later an explosion at the well sent millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

“The BP oil spill disaster proved that allowing companies to take shortcuts is a bad idea,” DeGette said. “It’s unfortunate that some continue to attempt an end-run around the law and protections for Colorado’s water, air, and public lands.

“We need reasonable, common-sense solutions that allow for balanced energy development, and I commend Sec. Ken Salazar for his diligent work to ensure responsible energy policy in the West.”

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., held a hearing today of the Energy and Mineral Resources Oversight Subcommittee entitled “Impacts to Onshore Jobs, Revenue, and Energy: Review and Status of Sec. 390 Categorical Exclusions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.”

Lamborn argues that the Obama administration’s tougher stance on CXs, which were implemented during the Bush administration under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, is yet one more regulatory hurdle standing in the way of increased domestic oil and gas production and more high-paying American jobs.

It’s a theme the ranking Republican member of Colorado’s congressional delegation has hammered on over the past year, and he raised it again in reaction to President Barack Obama’s jobs speech Thursday night.

“Like all Americans, I support the president’s goal to create more jobs,” Lamborn said in a prepared statement. “But I reject his big government solutions. I favor pro-growth policies that will allow business owners to invest with confidence and hire more workers. One common-sense place to start is by rolling back burdensome regulations.”

However, a recent report (pdf) by Montana-based Headwaters Economics indicates the domestic oil and gas industry doesn’t need greater regulatory freedom. According to the report, the industry has added about 10,000 jobs a month so far this year.

“The energy sector today is experiencing rapid growth,” said Headwaters’ Julia Haggerty, Ph.D. “Oil and natural gas drilling activity is now approaching a 30-year high, having made a strong recovery since reaching a recession-induced low in 2009. Market prices and advancements in drilling technology account for most of the increases in drilling activity.”

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., also issued a statement backing the Interior Department on the CX issue: “We need leasing reforms that make sure the public, for the first time, benefits from development of public land at least as much as the companies that get sweetheart deals and taxpayer subsidies.”

High Country News in 2010 dubbed Salazar’s efforts to reform the process an exercise in “Safe(r) CX.”

Follow David O. Williams on Twitter.