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Show o r o oversight IiooFingo scheduled The Subcommittee on Public Pub-lic Lands of the House Interior In-terior Committee held the first of two scheduled oversight over-sight hearings November 27 on implementation of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. The sec-one sec-one is scheduled Nov. 29. Subcommittee Chairman John Seiberling (D -OH) announced that further oversight over-sight hearings would be held next year; public witnesses will be invited to testify. Hearings on the BLM's four year authorization will be scheduled in late May or early June. Copies of Martin's Mar-tin's and Gregg's statements are available on request. In his prepared testimony, Gregg stated that the BLM had managed to recruit outstanding out-standing professionals for the agency with the exception of the area of minerals man- agement. "We have a real problem attracting qualified people for minerals management," he said. Martin was asked to com -ment on the 'Sagebrush Rebellion'. Re-bellion'. He stated he had given almost continuous thought to this and decided de-cided there is no single cause or single manifestation of conflict going on in the West. One reason, he speculated, was that the Federal Land Polly and Management . Act had caused vast changes in BLM's approach. One line of questioning revolved around access to private inholdings across public lands. The question was asked, "What do you believe be-lieve is the Secretary of Interior's In-terior's discretion to allow access to inholders?" Associate As-sociate DepartmentSolicitor Leshey answered that the law is developing rapidly in this area and that a precise answer could not be given. Leshey explained that the Department of Justice is currently writing an opinion on this question. He .cited the recent decision handed down in the so called Cotter Cot-ter case, whereby it was determined de-termined that the states and their lessees have right of access to their lands under un-der regulations to be determined de-termined by BLM. Access depends on exactly what the inholding is. In the Cotter ' case, it was to State lands that had been set aside for the purpose of economic development de-velopment and thus access cannot be denied. However, this may not be the case for private inholders inhold-ers because they don't have a specific economic development develop-ment mission. Leshey explained ex-plained that the Department Depart-ment of Interior had arugued in the Cotter case that access could be denied temporarily during the BLM's wilderness review. To put a road through a wilderness study area to reach Cotter's claims would have destroyed wilderness suitability. With regard to federal reserved re-served water rights, he was ashed if the Department intended in-tended to implement fully the recent opinion of the Solicitor. So-licitor. He responded, yes; there will be policy limitations li-mitations but we won't push them to the limit. |