State legislators and county officials in Utah are gearing up for what they expect will be a heated legal fight against the Bureau of Land Management’s new wild lands policy.

The controversial policy was announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Dec. 23 and gives the BLM the authority to designate millions of acres of publicly owned lands in the West as “wild lands,” and apply the same restrictions on use that exist in wilderness areas.

The move has drawn support from environmental groups, wilderness advocates and some politicians in Utah and around the nation who say a definitive plan to protect BLM administered land is long past due.

Locally though, the policy has drawn the ire of elected officials who say they don’t plan on seeing it enacted without mounting a staunch opposition.

“I was shocked and almost in disbelief when this announcement was made,” said state Rep. Kraig Powell, who represents Duchesne, Uintah, and Wasatch counties.

“When I heard it, I realized we would have to take this very seriously on all levels of government and try and figure out an effective way to fight it,” the Republican from Heber City said.

Challenging the new directive has become a top priority for many government leaders in Utah, not just rural legislators. When the 2011 general session of the Legislature began last week, representatives and senators were already collaborating on multiple bills to combat the wild lands directive.

One such bill is being drafted by Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman.

If it passes, Wimmer’s bill would nullify any future attempts by the federal government to “lock up” more public lands in Utah unless that designation has also been approved by the state Legislature.

“The bill goes further to say that the sheriffs in the state, and it also includes the governor in this state, do whatever they need to do to maintain access to those lands,” Wimmer told FOX13 News last week.

“There is no doubt, it is a direct challenge,” Wimmer continued. “It is a law that will put us in complete and direct opposition to what the feds are doing to our lands.”

And while the thought of mobilizing local law enforcement to open closed-off areas sounds like a recipe for confrontation, Powell said he supports the general theory behind Wimmer’s bill.

“There’s no question this would set up confrontation, but it’s not meant to be a physical one,” Powell said. “Passing this bill would be a way to put on some real, practical pressure and get our case to court. It’s designed to prompt litigation and have everyone take notice that we believe the act was illegal under the Constitution, and that we’re going to challenge it.”

Without seeing the final version of Wimmer’s bill, Powell said he couldn’t comment definitively on whether or not he would vote for it. Still, he said, he likely would not be opposed to supporting the bill after ensuring there aren’t any constitutional concerns.

Sen. Kevin Van Tassell, R-Vernal, said he isn’t yet familiar with the draft of Wimmer’s bill and couldn’t comment on whether or not it would be something he might support. But, like Powell, Van Tassell said there are multiple strategies being set in motion to challenge Salazar’s directive.

With help from several other senators, Van Tassell himself is authoring a bill designed to help states regain some sovereignty in the land designation process. He hopes to make the bill public by the end of this week — just in time for Friday’s Rural Day on the Hill.

“Until then, I’m not ready to release more details about what we’re working on,” he said. “We’re trying to be methodical and get sufficient legal counsel to make sure this is something we can support in court,” Van Tassell said. “I can say that we are looking at ways to get the state to the table more and not be ignored like we have been.”

In addition to the action by state legislators, county officials across the state are preparing to head to court over the wild lands directive as well. Uintah County Commissioner Mike McKee said the county filed a lawsuit back in September over concerns about potential BLM road closures and limited access to public lands in the area.

“We saw the writing on the wall back before this new policy was announced,” he said.

A week and a half ago, Uintah County officials presented the details of the lawsuit at a meeting of the Utah Association of Counties. After that presentation, McKee said the association’s board unanimously voted to join the lawsuit as co-plaintiffs, and the complaint is now being amended to include those other entities.

A federal judge has already been assigned to the case, but McKee said he doesn’t know how soon it will go to court.

Like most critics of the wild lands initiative, McKee is vocal in his criticism of several key factors of the announcement. He said it cancels out a 2003 agreement between then-Gov. Mike Leavitt and then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton which specified that only Congress — not the BLM — had the authority to create wilderness.

He takes issue as well with the fact that the new policy will likely negate local resource management plans that the Vernal BLM field office and other field offices in the state spent years and millions of dollars developing. McKee is also angered by what he calls the “backdoor approach” of the announcement.

“In the days of supposed transparency, the announcement came out of nowhere and it was made right before Christmas, where they could try to hide it from the press a little bit,” the commissioner said.

And while it still isn’t known how much more public land in the Basin will be protected under the umbrella of wilderness as a result of the new policy, McKee said the atmosphere of uncertainty is damaging to business. He said he has already seen substantial investments leave the Basin and he believes the directive itself will cause additional reviews, delays, and limit multiple use of public lands and the development of area resources.

“Several days ago, an executive from a proactive oil and gas company in our area told us they were strongly considering moving their business somewhere else because of the atmosphere here,” McKee said. “There are companies who want to spend billions of dollars in our area, but not unless we have sound policy that supports them.”

On the other side of the argument, Laura Bailey, managing Web editor for the Wilderness Society, labeled the Salazar policy shift a “new hope for wild lands” in a blog entry she posted on the organization’s website.

“After years of abusive Bush-era policies, the Obama administration has announced a new policy that, if implemented correctly, could restore balance to multiple land-use principles on the iconic western lands that have been offered on platter to oil and gas companies, irresponsible off-road vehicle users, and other development interests in recent years,” Bailey wrote.

For his part, Powell said there is a need to protect the environment. But his concern is the new policy will result in areas being made off limits to oil and gas extraction or other uses simply because they are isolated and not necessarily because they have special scenic value.

“It becomes circular reasoning,” he said. “They will say, ‘We have to preserve this area because it’s wilderness,’ but the reason why that land is wilderness is because no one has chosen to use it for any other purpose and it hasn’t been deemed fit for much else.

“The Uintah Basin is in the sights of eastern politicians who, for some reason, have decided that we’re not caring for our land here,” Powell added. “But nothing could be further from the truth. The people who make their living off the land are the best protectors of the land.”