Advertisement
The House today approved, 285-140, the public lands, water and natural resources omnibus bill, giving President Obama his first major conservation victory on Capitol Hill.
Supporters celebrated the final step in the measure's long and winding path through Congress. Democrats in both chambers used a complicated procedural strategy to ease passage for the package of more than 160 bills after months of being held up in the Senate last year and a failed House vote earlier this month.
H.R. 146 would designate more than 2 million acres of public lands as wilderness in nine states and establish three new national park units, a new national monument, three new national conservation areas, more than 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers, and four new national trails. It would enlarge the boundaries of more than a dozen existing national park units and establish 10 new national heritage areas.
It would also authorize numerous land exchanges and conveyances to help local Western communities, address water resource and supply issues, and launch programs to study the effects of climate change on natural resources.
"Today's passage of this major bill for our vast and beautiful country is a step forward in fulfilling the vision Teddy Roosevelt had for this land," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at a press conference at the Capitol with House lawmakers following the vote.
Republican critics said the measure would limit access to public lands and criticized Democrats for refusing to allow amendments. "The process, I guess, is what disturbs me more than anything else," said House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). Before final passage of the bill, GOP leaders unsuccessfully tried to rally support to block it on a procedural vote, saying they wanted a chance to offer several amendments, including one that would reverse a recent court decision halting a rule that allowed visitors to carry concealed weapons into almost all national parks.
Afterward, Hastings said he will introduce a separate bill on the issue soon, hoping to reinstate the gun rule finalized just before President George W. Bush left office. Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) said he supports the Bush rule, but that the one-sentence Republican amendment was not tenable, in part because it did not include many of the protections included in the Interior rule. "The amendment in question was simply an attempt to use a hot-button issue to try and derail this bill, and it didn't work, thankfully," Rahall said.
Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, respectively, praised the passage of the bill they spent more than a year compiling and pushing through the Senate. "While each individual bill in this package is not the kind of thing that makes national headlines, as a whole, it is clearly important enough to justify the time that this body has committed to it," Murkowski said in a statement, adding that energy development can be balanced with resource protection.
The bill's approval drew praise from numerous conservation groups but condemnation from the energy industry. "Congress has done something truly amazing for people from all walks of life and all regions of the country in forever protecting America's common ground through this bipartisan measure," said Mike Matz, executive director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness.
Barry Russell, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, called it "a step in the wrong direction for our economy and our energy future."
"This legislation makes it harder to responsibly develop oil and natural gas resources on federal lands, and limits a main driver of economic growth: American energy production," Russell added.
The measure includes some contentious measures, including proposals to codify the 26-million-acre National Landscape Conservation System and allow construction of a road through Alaska's Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
Created by the Clinton administration as part of the Interior Department, the NLCS includes ecologically and historically valuable lands such as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah and the Headwaters Forest Reserve in California. The NLCS is the subject of an Interior inspector general investigation into possible illegal coordination between lobbyists for environmental groups and federal officials.
The Izembek provision would authorize a land swap that would permit a road connecting the villages of King Cove and Cold Bay in exchange for additional wilderness for the refuge. Village and state officials say the road will create a valuable transportation route for the isolated communities, but environmentalists assert that it would do untold damage to the refuge and interfere with migration patterns.
A proposal from Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) would authorize federal money for state trust funds to reimburse livestock owners whose animals are killed by wolves. The Interior Department announced earlier this month that it would remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list in Montana and Idaho.
The bill contains a measure to declare 40 miles of Massachusetts' Taunton River as "wild and scenic." Republicans have said the bill is an abuse of power intended to scuttle a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the river. The legislation would protect the river from its headwaters to Mount Hope Bay in Fall River, Mass., the site where Weaver's Cove Energy is seeking to build the LNG terminal.
The omnibus would create three new national park units, including making the birthplace of President Bill Clinton in Hope, Ark., a National Historic Site. Clinton lived in the house, currently owned by the nonprofit Clinton Birthplace Foundation, from his birth in 1946 until 1950.
It would also create River Raisin National Battlefield Park in Michigan on sites related to the War of 1812. The National Park Service last year said Congress should hold off on creating it until a feasibility study is finished.
The package would establish a national historical park around the water power system at Passaic Great Falls in New Jersey to recognize and preserve Alexander Hamilton's breakthroughs in industrial production. It would also lay claim to the nearby Hinchliffe Stadium, the host of historic Negro League baseball games. The Bush administration opposed the proposals, saying preliminary results of a feasibility study concluded that the site does not need NPS management.
A proposal from Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the "Prehistoric Trackways National Monument Establishment Act," would protect 5,370 acres in the Robledo Mountains outside the city of Las Cruces, N.M., that contain tracks of reptiles, amphibians, insects and other creatures dating back 280 million years. Off-highway vehicle groups have expressed concern that the bill would result in the Bureau of Land Management closing popular OHV trails if the national monument is created.
The omnibus includes 15 different proposals for new or expanded wilderness areas, which would constitute the largest expansion of the National Wilderness Preservation System since 1994.
Two proposals for Idaho and Utah have been in the works since the 109th Congress, both aiming to protect hundreds of thousands of acres while opening the door to multiple uses on additional acres not deemed significant by stakeholders. While both bills collapsed amid concerns about development and OHV use, the bills' sponsors reworked the proposals and reintroduced them last year.
The first measure, from Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), would designate more than 517,000 acres of wilderness in the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands of southwestern Idaho along with nearly 315 miles of wild and scenic rivers and other environmental protections. In exchange, about 190,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management lands treated as potential wilderness would be subject to "soft release," opening the door to multiple uses, including OHV recreation and grazing, following BLM land-use evaluations.
The companion proposal from Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) designates more than 260,000 acres of land as wilderness and 166 miles of the Virgin River and its tributaries as wild and scenic. The bill would also create two national conservation areas in Washington County, Utah -- creating protections for the desert tortoise and recreational opportunities on almost 140,000 acres. It also permits the sale of ecologically insignificant lands identified in the St. George Field Office Resource Management Plan and calls for the designation of the High Desert OHV Trail.
Other significant wilderness proposals include one to designate about 130,000 acres surrounding Oregon's Mount Hood as wilderness along with 80 miles of a state river as wild and scenic and another that would designate 70,000 acres in California's Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park as wilderness. That measure would add an additional 43,500 acres to an existing wilderness area within the park.
The omnibus contains several provisions affecting the Forest Service, mostly small land conveyances. But one generated controversy: A measure from Wyoming GOP Sens. Barrasso and Mike Enzi to withdraw 1.2 million acres of the Wyoming Range -- part of the Bridger Teton National Forest that sits south of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park -- from future oil and gas leasing.
During the Senate debate, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) singled out that provision for criticism, saying it put 300 million barrels of oil off-limits to future development. That prompted Barrasso to take the floor and dispute the assertion, citing a letter from the U.S. Geological Survey saying it was 5 million barrels.
The omnibus also contains Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-Ore.) "Watershed Restoration and Enhancement Agreements Act," which would make permanent the agency's authorization to enter into cooperative agreements to benefit resources within watersheds on forest lands.
A measure sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) would promote wildland firefighter safety by requiring the Interior and Agriculture secretaries to submit annual reports on safety practices.
The bill also includes language from Bingaman and former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) to establish a forest landscape restoration program, which would prioritize and fund ecological restoration treatments for forests under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. Sponsors say the provision would lead to an overall reduction of wildfire management costs by focusing funding on collaborative, sustainable projects that offer the greatest protections against devastating wildfires.
Federal land managers would work with state and local authorities to identify parcels of at least 50,000 acres comprised mostly of National Forest System lands that need active ecosystem restoration. The projects must include several stakeholders representing multiple interests. Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell last year said it would work well in concert with the agency's current efforts.
The measure also contains several programs aimed at climate change and water resources. One would allow the Bureau of Reclamation to establish a climate change adaptation program aimed at addressing potential water shortages, conflicts and other effects of global warming. The bureau would collaborate with USGS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and state water agencies.
The bill also provides for the creation of an intra-governmental panel on climate change and water, comprised of members of federal agencies and departments, to develop hydrologic models to assist federal, state and local water managers with adaptation strategies as they develop long-term water management and flood-hazard mitigation plans.
The bill would authorize the Energy Department to assess the potential effects of climate change on water supplies required for the generation of hydroelectric power at each federal water project subject to the Federal Power Marketing Administration.
Another climate change measure would require federal agencies to collaborate and create a new program to research and monitor the effects of ocean acidification on the marine environment. The measure would authorize $30 million per year for the program for five years.
On a separate front, a measure by Tester would establish a new cooperative watershed management program. The money would help a diverse array of stakeholders form or enlarge watershed groups or conduct water availability and quality research through existing organizations. Each project must be targeted toward goals such as enhancing water conservation, improving water quality, bettering ecological resiliency and reducing the potential for water conflicts.
The bill also authorizes the Bureau of Reclamation to enter into an agreement with states surrounding the Lower Colorado River that would allow water from the river to be used for habitat creation and maintenance.
A NOAA research initiative would fund a program advancing scientific knowledge regarding the management, use and preservation of oceanic, marine and coastal areas and the Great Lakes. And the president and the Interagency Committee on Ocean and Coastal Mapping would establish a federal ocean and coastal mapping plan for the Great Lakes and coastal state waters, the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf. The plan is meant to enhance ecosystem awareness in marine resource and habitat management and advance ocean and coastal science.
Another provision would establish a nationally integrated system of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes observing systems that would be coordinated at a national level by the National Ocean Research Leadership Council. The system would support national defense, marine commerce and navigation safety, as well as weather forecasting.
The bill also provides for a coastal and estuarine land conservation program to protect areas that have significant conservation, recreation, ecological, historical or aesthetic values, or that are threatened. NOAA's Ocean and Coastal Resource Management Office would administer the program.
The bill includes a non-natural resources measure, the Christopher and Dana Reeves Paralysis Act, which authorizes $100,000 for medical research. An Energy and Natural Resources Committee spokesman said the provision was added at the request of leadership to ensure floor time and efficient consideration for a bipartisan, noncontroversial bill.
Another nonpublic lands provision of the omnibus expands the number of assistant secretaries at the Energy Department from seven to eight. The new assistant secretary's position will be charged with overseeing electricity delivery and reliability.
The Senate last week accepted one amendment to the bill that would allow the "casual collection" of rocks in parks that may contain a fossil, preventing criminal prosecution of visitors who unintentionally take a fossil. The amendment from Coburn would keep penalties for those who knowingly take or sell fossils from parks.
The revised omnibus bill also includes language from Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) meant to ensure that the omnibus would not close off lands that are already open to hunting and fishing.
Click here to view H.R. 146.
E&E is the leading source for comprehensive, daily coverage of environmental and energy politics and policy.
Click here to start a free trial to E&E -- the best way to track policy and markets.
Advertisement
Email this Story
Print this Story