DENVER (AP)--Environmentalists said they hope Colorado can keep most of its roadless areas intact after Gov. Bill Owens signed a measure June 8 that will create a task force to review the use of 4.4 million acres of public land.

Owens said the change is better than allowing the federal government to decide.

"Under the old system, you had bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., making decisions who couldn't even pronounce the areas in Colorado," Owens said at a bill-signing ceremony in Delta, on Colorado's Western Slope.

The Bush administration angered environmentalists when it proposed replacing a Clinton-era rule that banned roads in certain remote areas. Governors must decide by 2006 whether to petition the Forest Service to block road-building in about 58 million acres of national forests where it is now prohibited.

The Colorado bill creates a 13-member task force to examine federal forest that has been considered at some point for roadless designation by the U.S. Forest Service.

The task force will hold hearings and make recommendations within 16 months to Owens on which areas the public wants to maintain as roadless. The governor will then have two months to make his recommendations to the federal government.

Steve Smith, assistant regional director for the Wilderness Society, said he is hopeful the task force, one of the first in the nation to tackle the issue, will provide a fair process for reviewing public land use.

"The assumption is that all roadless areas are in unless someone can make a case otherwise," Smith said.

Under the new law, five members will be appointed by the governor, two by both the speaker of the House and the Senate president, one by both the House and Senate agriculture committee chairs and two members agreed upon by the governor and the Legislature.

Smith said the appointment of Department of Natural Resources Director Russell George to steer the task force is encouraging because George has a good reputation for protecting the environment.

The last bill of the session, creating aviation development zones, was signed June 8 in Alamosa. Of 400 bills passed by the Legislature this year, the governor vetoed a record 47. The record for his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Roy Romer was 27.

Owens' spokesman, Dan Hopkins, said the vetoes were not an attempt by Owens to send a message to Democrats, who took control of both houses of the Legislature for the first time in 42 years.

Hopkins said the governor warned he would not stand by if lawmakers tried to dismantle his administration's gains on public school vouchers, workers' compensation limits and other issues.

"Each veto was based on its own merit," Hopkins said.

Date: 6/23/05

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