The House last night on a bipartisan vote passed a bill that would safeguard sportsmen's access to public lands and handcuff the president's ability to designate new national monuments.

The bill, by Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), passed on a 274-146 vote, drawing support from 39 Democrats and opposition from two Republicans.

The legislation, which included four Republican bills, would require federal land managers to consider impacts on hunting and fishing when crafting land management plans, bar the Bureau of Land Management from restricting shooting at national monuments, prevent U.S. EPA from regulating lead-based bullets and tackle and allow the importation of polar bears shot legally by hunters in Canada before the animals were listed as "threatened."

Notably, the House also adopted an amendment by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-Va.) that would require the president to gain approval of a state's governor and legislature before designating a national monument.

The amendment, which passed on a 223-198 vote, drawing seven Democrats, is similar to a Republican amendment to a House budget bill that died more than a year ago on a slim margin.

The Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus hailed yesterday's vote, calling H.R. 4089 an "unprecedented" victory for hunters and anglers.

"Passage of this important legislation is crucial to the protection of America's outdoor traditions and the advancement of the rights of hunters and anglers across the nation," said Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.).

But environmental groups said the bill was a veiled attempt to open federally protected wilderness areas to virtually any activity, including motorized recreation, logging and mining that would spoil opportunities for backcountry hunters.

Groups also protested inclusion of a bill by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that they warned would bar BLM from preventing vandalism of petroglyphs, cacti and other sensitive resources at national monuments, the vast majority of which are already open to recreational shooting.

"The Sportsmen's Heritage Act is nothing more than a Trojan horse masquerading as a pro-hunting, pro-fishing bill," said Dave Alberswerth, senior policy adviser at the Wilderness Society. "It threatens many bedrock environmental and preservation protections, such as the Wilderness Act and the Antiquities Act."

An amendment by Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) was adopted, clarifying that the bill is "not intended to authorize or facilitate commodity development, use, or extraction, or motorized recreational access or use" in wilderness areas.

That language drew the support of groups including the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), but it failed to mollify environmentalists and Democrats, who warned the term "intended" would not stand up in a court of law.

An amendment by Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) to clarify that the bill does not allow oil and gas development, mining, logging or motorized activity on federal lands that are managed as wilderness was defeated on a 176-244 vote.

Heinrich, who voted for the underlying bill, told E&E Daily that Democrats plan to continue fighting to amend the bill's language on wilderness.

"I suspect if we can't get this thing cleaned up on the floor of the House, we'll get it cleaned up in the Senate," Heinrich said before the vote. "We're not going to let it go to the president's desk with this language inside."

The bill was a tough vote for some Democrats, who, despite misgivings about its environmental impacts, were "spooked" by the threat of being portrayed as anti-hunting or anti-guns, said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.).

Critics said the bill was carefully crafted to split sportsmen and conservationists, two constituencies that have aligned on many natural resource issues (see related story).

In the end, the bill garnered the support of a long list of sportsmen's groups, including ones with a heavy emphasis on conservation of public lands. Notable endorsements include TRCP, Ducks Unlimited and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, though none of those groups appeared to lobby strongly for the bill.

Whit Fosburgh, president of TRCP, in a letter to Hastings yesterday urged the House to adopt Heinrich's amendment but praised the underlying bill for "[encouraging] access for hunting and fishing, thus preserving our sporting heritage."

Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) praised the inclusion of Foxx's amendment to restrict the president's monument-designating powers, saying his home state was "burned" by the Clinton administration's designation of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument during his lame-duck session.

"If President Obama were to lose, there is nothing to stop him from making similar designations consistent with the plans we've already seen," Rehberg said in a statement. "Even if he wins, he's already been caught boasting that after the election he'll have 'more flexibility' to pursue his true agenda without the accountability of an election."

Environmentalists balked, arguing that the Obama administration has been one of the most transparent in its use of the Antiquities Act.

"It is ironic that some members of Congress have chosen to attack the Antiquities Act today, given that the Obama administration has chosen to use this act in the most open and transparent way in the history of this law," said Jeremy Garncarz, senior director of the Wilderness Support Center at the Wilderness Society. "The Antiquities Act has been used by 16 presidents, both Republicans and Democrats, since its enactment in 1906."