Senator Jeff Bingaman introduced a major lands bill, S. 3213, yesterday, before Congress began its July 4th recess. The Chairman’s package contains more than 90 titles, including more than a half dozen wilderness measures to protect over 900,000 acres of wild land in Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, Virginia and West Virginia.
“There’s great symbolism in what Senator Bingaman has done as the nation gets set to observe its founding,” said Mike Matz, executive director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness. “These are places of the original America, out of which we carved this great nation and by which we formed our character as a people. It’s a fine gift to the country on its birthday.”
A bipartisan set of wilderness measures in the lands package includes:
- The Copper-Salmon Wilderness Act, to protect 13,700 acres of pristine old-growth forest in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest
- The Lewis and Clark Mount Hood Wilderness Act, to permanently protect more than 128,000 acres of national forest on Mount Hood in Oregon
- The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Voluntary and Equitable Grazing Conflict Resolution Act, to protect 23,000 acres in southeastern Oregon’s Soda Mountain region
- The Owyhee Public Lands Management Act, which will protect as wilderness 517,000 acres in Idaho’s Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands
- The Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness and Indian Peaks Wilderness Expansion Act, to protect nearly 250,000 acres (94 percent) of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park
- The Wild Monongahela Act, to protect 37,000 acres of wilderness in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia
- The Virginia Ridge and Valley Wilderness and National Scenic Area Act, protecting 43,000 acres of the Jefferson National Forest as wilderness, and another 12,000 as a national scenic area.
“As we come together to celebrate Independence Day not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, this package mirrors that continued bipartisan tradition of wilderness legislation,” said Matz. “We are saving our common ground, and guaranteeing our grandchildren more special wild places for hiking, hunting, paddling, wildlife-watching and more. We hope the Senate will take up this bill quickly and approve it.”
