This process was known as the
Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE, or later, RARE I). The process
developed significant opposition by environmental groups and by public lands
users, and was challenged in federal court. Results of RARE I were tabled
by the courts for lack of uniform criteria for evaluation of lands and other
procedural problems, and a second review started in 1977, known as RARE II, involving more
than 60 million acres (240,000 km2) of wildland
under federal jurisdiction. RARE II was completed in 1979. Controversy, and
lack of support from the Reagan administration starting in 1981, largely
sidelined a formal, national wilderness assessment. Congress has designated
several wilderness areas since 1981, sometimes 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
(ORRRC)[1] 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 then-existing public lands agencies beyond National Parks
and National Monuments (both of which are administered in the Department of the Interior
by the National Parks Administration). Much of the
wildland was sagebrush, not particularly pretty to look at, but useful for
grazing, off-road vehicle use, and other development. Some advocates urged that,
instead of designating more federal wilderness protection, some or much of the
land be granted to states or private parties. These
advocates took on phrase "Sagebrush Rebellion" to describe their
opposition.
Sagebrush, page 2