The Washington County Growth and Conservation Act is a bigger pair of pants.

The bill introduced by Utah's Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Jim Matheson is represented as an overdue way of managing the colossal growth of St. George and the surrounding area. But, despite some reasonable provisions that set up planning and preservation activities affecting both the urbanizing areas and nearby Zion National Park, the guts of the bill are just bad news.

It is simply - no, astoundingly - unwise to begin what will be a complicated and controversial planning process by giving the Bureau of Land Management, which holds title to large swaths of southern Utah, direction to sell as much as 24,300 acres of federal land.

Some 4,300 acres of that land have already been identified, in a process that even some environmentalists accept, as land that isn't worthy of federal protection. But the other 20,000 acres is no more than a figure pulled out of the air and imagined as some kind of a relief valve for the urbanization that is already swallowing up most of the privately owned land in and around St. George.

There's a grain of sense in that. It is entirely possible that some land now in private hands should and could be preserved, either as park land or for agricultural use, just as some federal land could become homes, shops and golf courses. The net effect could be positive for all concerned.

Or it could be seen as a final word - an act of Congress, by gum - that 24,000 acres is going to be released for development - common sense and environmental responsibility be hanged.

Unless the Vision Dixie smart-development program is allowed to work its difficult magic first, and concludes with binding guidelines, such a land rush would be the logical outcome of this bill's passage.

Bennett and Matheson are hoping the bill can be passed this year, probably as a rider on some bigger piece of legislation. Bennett certainly has the clout and the skill to insinuate it into some other act while no one is looking. He will claim that he is doing his constituents a favor.

He wouldn't be. This bill should wait.