Progress isn’t easy to make in Washington, D.C. You know this from reading the headlines about many of the major issues facing the nation today. Wilderness protection doesn’t get quite the same amount of attention in the media, but I am pleased to report we are moving forward.
Our efforts to help you and citizens like you, who want a special place on our nation’s public lands protected for future generations, continue unabated. We are working on no fewer than a dozen wilderness bills that have been introduced and stand a very good shot at passage. Enactment of these measures would protect 3.6 million acres of your public land—nearly 1.8 million acres of that figure getting the gold standard of wilderness designation—across seven states.
There will be more for sure, including one for a patch of national grasslands in South Dakota managed by the US Forest Service—and that would be the first prairie landscape to receive such protection.
Later this month, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to hold a meeting to amend and then approve many of these bills, an important stage of the process because it sends them to the floor for consideration—maybe sometime this summer. Please keep an eye out for updates and calls to action on another omnibus package of these wilderness bills, because wilderness is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s a really nice thing to hand down to our kids for them to enjoy just as we have.
For the Wild,
Mike Matz
Director, Campaign for America's Wilderness
Pew Environment Group
P.S. I am happy to report that we are in our new home at the Pew Environment Group at a new address: 901 E Street, NW, in Washington, 20004.
