The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will mark up nearly two dozen bills this week, tackling a range of proposals from new historic sites to wildfire protections.
Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) will move ahead his S. 90, the “Historic Roadways Protection Act,” to prevent the Bureau of Land Management from finalizing or implementing more than a dozen travel management plans that would close dirt roads that crisscross federal lands in the state.
The roads — which were established under a since-repealed 19th-century mining law across unreserved public lands — are at the center of a long-running legal battle.
Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the committee’s top Democrat, will push forward S. 1319, the “Pecos Watershed Protection Act,” to block new mineral development. Heinrich, and co-sponsor Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), have introduced similar language every Congress since 2020.
