The Sagebrush Rebellion was a movement in the Western United States in the 1970s and the 1980s that sought major changes to federal land control, use, and disposal policy in 13 western states in which federal land holdings include between 20% and 85% of a state's area. Supporters of the movement wanted more state and local control over the lands, if not outright transfer of them to state and local authorities and/or As much of the land in question is sagebrush steppe, supporters adopted the name "Sagebrush Rebellion."
The movement continues to have support by persons interested in developing the lands for resource extraction and private benefits, such as livestock grazing, mineral extraction, and timber harvesting. Opponents place higher value on private economic benefits by recreation and societal benefits of open space and hard-to-quantify economic benefits of ecosystem services.
Background
The term "Sagebrush Rebellion" was coined during fights over designation of National Wilderness lands, especially in western states, especially after the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management conducted required surveys of plots of public lands of at least that had roads removed after 1972 for the potential designation as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The process was known as the "Roadless Area Review and Evaluation" (RARE, or later, RARE I). The RARE process developed significant opposition from both environmental groups and public lands users and was challenged in federal court. The results of RARE I were nullified by the courts for lack of uniform criteria for evaluation of lands and other procedural problems. A second review started in 1977, known as RARE II, and involved more than 60 million acres (24 million km²) of wildland under federal jurisdiction. RARE II was completed in 1979, but the effort was largely sidelined during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who was elected in 1980. Reagan declared himself a sagebrush rebel in an August 1980 campaign speech in Salt Lake City and told the crowd, "I happen to be one who cheers and supports the Sagebrush Rebellion. Count me in as a rebel." Reagan faced opposition from conservation organizations. The struggle persists today after changing form with the "wise use movement" in 1988. Even so, Congress has designated several wilderness areas since 1981, sometimes by using data acquired through the RARE processes.
The National Wilderness Preservation System grew out of recommendations of a Kennedy administration presidential commission, the Outdoor Recreational Resources Review Commission chaired by Laurence S. Rockefeller, whose 1962 report suggested 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 existing public lands agencies beyond National Parks and National Monuments, both of which are administered in the Department of the Interior by the National Park Service.
Much of the wildland was sagebrush, which some wanted to use for grazing, off-road vehicle use, and other development, instead of wilderness conservation. These "rebels" urged that instead of designating more federal wilderness protection, some or much of the land should be granted to states or private parties. They took on the phrase "Sagebrush Rebellion" to describe their opposition to federal management of the lands.
Public lands history
Complaints about federal management of public lands constantly roil relations between public lands users (ranchers, miners, researchers, off-road vehicle enthusiasts, hikers, campers and conservation advocates) and the agencies and environmental regulation on the other. Ranchers complain that grazing fees are too high and that grazing regulations are too onerous despite environmentalist complaints that the opposite is true and that promised improvements to grazing on federal lands do not occur. Miners complain of restricted access to claims, or to lands to prospect. Researchers complain of the difficulty of getting research permits, only to encounter other obstacles in research, including uncooperative permit-holders and, especially in archaeology, vandalized sites with key information destroyed. Off-road vehicle users want free access, but hikers and campers and conservationists complain grazing is not regulated enough and that some mineral lease holders abuse other lands or that off-road vehicle destroy the resource. Each complaint has a long history.