House votes to designate 1.4M acres as wilderness

Ignoring a veto threat, the House voted yesterday to designate nearly 1.4 million acres in California, Colorado and Washington as wilderness areas, giving them the highest level of protection possible under federal law.

The bill, H.R. 2546, the "Protecting America's Wilderness Act," passed, 231-183.

Democrats said the legislation would preserve some of the nation's most pristine wild lands and mark the largest wilderness protection package to pass Congress in more than a decade.

"Wilderness is at its heart about providing our fellow Americans with truly wild places to escape, and if we don't take steps right now to protect those magical places, then one day they'll no longer exist," said Colorado Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette, the bill's chief sponsor.

Republican critics said the legislation would only put more restrictions on land that should be made more accessible to the public.

"You can't even bring a stroller on these lands," said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), a senior member of the Natural Resources Committee.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

As a result, the law bans logging, mining and drilling, and the use of any motor vehicles and motorized equipment.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) during House debate yesterday. C-SPAN

While Democrats had enough muscle to pass DeGette's bill, Republicans dismissed the vote as a partisan exercise, noting President Trump had made it clear he wouldn't sign the bill even if it passes the Republican-led Senate.

"We are wasting our time here," said Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado, a top Natural Resources Republican.

Natural Resources Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said the legislation shows that protection of federal lands and conservation are "public benefits for all Americans."

"It is no surprise that the Trump administration would oppose these designations given the single-use mission of the Trump administration, which is extraction and profit being the only option for our public lands," Grijalva said.

Last year, Trump signed a bill that added 1.3 million acres of wilderness, bringing the total acreage in the United States to more than 111 million, an area larger than California.

Republicans said Trump signed that bill because it had bipartisan support and contained many provisions proposed by lawmakers from both parties (Greenwire, Feb. 15, 2019).

DeGette's legislation included six separate land protection bills that had passed the Natural Resources Committee in recent months.

Overall, the package would set aside 600,000 acres in more than 30 areas in Colorado and nearly 130,000 acres in Washington's Olympic Peninsula, with the remainder spread in various locations throughout the Golden State.

That includes expanding nine wilderness areas and creating new ones in northwest California, establishing two new potential wilderness areas and two new scenic areas in the Los Padres National Forest and the Carrizo Plain National Monument, and expanding the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

In addition, the bill would add nearly 1,000 miles of waterways to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

Another provision, first proposed by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), would create the California Public Lands Remediation Partnership, which would be charged with cleaning up and restoring public lands that have been damaged by illegal marijuana farming.

The House passed the bill after rejecting six Republican amendments, including one that would have prevented wilderness designations in areas deemed to be at high risk of wildfire.

Another defeated amendment would have delayed the approval of wilderness designations until they won support from the host county.

Lawmakers voted to accept a handful of Democratic amendments, including one that would allow the Interior and Agriculture departments to manage wilderness areas for fires and insects and one that would ensure that military aircraft overflights could fly over wilderness areas.

Another amendment that passed would have required the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on how preserving wilderness lands affects the risk of flooding in residential areas.

Reporter Kellie Lunney contributed.

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