GOP Senators Introduce Legislation To Open Up Wilderness To Homeland Security Activities

Republican senators from Utah, Wyoming, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Florida have introduced legislation they say will better protect borderlands while providing more access to them.

President Joe “Biden’s open-border chaos is destroying America’s crown jewels,” said U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who earlier this year tried unsuccessfully to have Congress allow the sale of federal lands.

"Families who want to enjoy a safe hike or campout are instead finding trash piles, burned landscapes, and trails closed because rangers are stuck cleaning up the fallout," claimed Lee. "Cartels are exploiting the disorder, using these lands as cover for their operations. This bill gives land managers and border agents the tools to restore order and protect these places for the people they were meant to serve.”

Illegal marijuana farms long have been found growing on public lands, including in Sequoia and Death Valley national parks and Cape Hatteras National Seashore, even during the first Trump administration. 

The proposed Border Lands Conservation Act would:

• Authorize border access roads on federal lands, coordinated with Customs and Border Protection and local partners, to enable agents and first responders to quickly reach problem areas.
• Establish a standing Border Fuels Initiative to reduce hazardous fuels and mitigate illegal-camp wildfire threats.
• Streamline authorities so CBP can conduct security measures in areas with overlapping without needless delay. 
• Clarify that conservation lands cannot be used as migrant encampments, preserving resources for visitor access and habitat management.

But staff at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance say the legislation is just another attempt by Lee and Republicans to open up official wilderness to roads and infrastructure.

“Senator Lee’s latest anti-public lands bill would undermine the Wilderness Act and existing wilderness areas along America’s northern and southern borders. It has little if anything to do with border security and environmental protection, and everything to do with destroying wilderness areas by blanketing them with new roads, walls, and infrastructure,” said Scott Braden, executive director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “We’re disappointed but not surprised that Senator Lee would try a cynical stunt like this under the guise of conservation. If Senator Lee were serious about protecting public lands along the border he would be pushing for increasing funding for chronically underfunded land management agencies."

If the proposed legislation as written becomes law, Homeland Security agents would be allowed to access structures, installations, and roads; execute search and rescue operations; use motor vehicles, motorboats, and motorized equipment; and conduct patrols on foot and on horseback in official wilderness.

It also would allow for airstrips to be built in wilderness.

“The Biden Border crisis left our southern federal lands in chaos and covered in trash,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming. “Senator Lee’s legislation will give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to better protect our national parks, forests and wildlife refuges. It will also give Border Control agents the tools they need to crack down on drug cartels who continue to exploit our federal lands.”

Other Senate sponsors on the bill were Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ted Cruz (R-TX),  Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Rick Scott (R-FL).