I never thought I would see the words Ronald Reagan and rebel in the same sentence. But he declared himself a rebel, in an August 1980 campaign speech in Salt Lake City, telling the crowd, “I happen to be one who cheers and supports the Sagebrush Rebellion.” The National Wilderness Preservation System, opposed by the Reagan administration and a loose coalition of sagebrush “rebels,” grew out of recommendations of a Kennedy-administration Presidential Commission, the Outdoor Recreational Resources Review Commission (ORRRC)chaired by Laurence S. Rockefeller. The goal was legislation to protect recreational resources in a “national system of wild and scenic rivers,” a national wilderness system, a national trails system, the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, and recreation areas administered by then-existing public lands agencies beyond National Parks and National Monuments.

The whole issue of public land use and federal vs. state legislation is complicated. The “sagebrush rebellion” was a concerted effort to make land available for resource extraction, private use, grazing and water exploits, rather than protection. A truly interesting history, friendly to environmental concerns, can be found here:

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32199

James Morton Turner’s book The promise of Wilderness: American Environmental Politics since 1964 analyzes the state of affairs ( it was published in 2012) but also has almost lyrical descriptions of the landscapes under siege, capturing the beauty that is out there.

I think I have said it before, but the rolling hills of the Eastern end of the Gorge always remind me of gigantic, alien sea lion backs. The sky over them changes hourly, and if there is wind there are so many sounds that you usually don’t hear, as if the sagebrush comes to life and whispers. A ravishing landscape during all seasons.