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LAS CRUCES - A balance has been reached on wilderness legislation that will enable U.S. Border Patrol agents the necessary operational controls needed for border protection while preserving several areas in southern New Mexico, a former Border Patrol official said Thursday.
Ron Colburn, a former national deputy chief of the Border Patrol, said Thursday the legislation, Senate Bill 1689, is encouraging.
U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson hasn't given up on making central Idaho's Boulder Mountains and White Cloud Peaks a wilderness area.
The proposed Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act would create three wilderness areas totaling 332,775 acres. Ten years in the making, it has yet to pass Congress.
With little time and less cooperation left in the 111th Senate, lawmakers are hoping to move dozens of stalled public lands conservation bills by wrapping them into a single piece of legislation.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee has sent more than 60 bills to the floor this session that would create new national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and wildlife sanctuaries.
GLENWOOD SPRINGS - A Colorado congresswoman who has been pushing for passage of a Colorado wilderness bill for 11 years says she is optimistic she can get a measure through Congress this fall.
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette says the bill she expects to carry will be more narrowly tailored than the 1.6-million-acre version she originally pursued.
"We've really tried to focus on areas where we don't have a lot of issues hanging out there," the Democrat from Denver said in an interview.
