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The
Billings Gazette 4/21/07
by NOELLE STRAUB
WASHINGTON
- Two East Coast lawmakers
introduced a bill Friday
with 73 co-sponsors that
would designate as
wilderness 23 million
public acres in five
Northern Rocky Mountain
states, including Montana
and Wyoming.
Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.,
and Christopher Shays, R-Conn.,
wrote the Northern Rockies
Ecosystem Protection Act.
It would give the
government's strongest
protections to areas of
Montana, Wyoming, Idaho,
Washington and Oregon.
They announced the measure
along with singer and
songwriter Carole King.
Three co-sponsors are from
Washington and three from
Oregon. Both Montana and
Wyoming's representatives
condemned the bill and
vowed to fight it.
Similar measures have been
introduced in several
previous Congresses. But
this time, the chairmen of
the House Natural
Resources Committee and
the relevant subcommittee
have both signed on as
sponsors of the bill.
A panel spokeswoman said
the committee is reviewing
the legislation now and
may hold hearings on it,
although there are no
immediate plans for one.
The bill would designate
as wilderness all 20
million acres of
inventoried roadless lands
in the states and another
3 million acres in
Glacier, Yellowstone and
Grand Teton national
parks. It includes 7
million acres in Montana
and 5 million acres in
Wyoming.
A wilderness designation
generally prohibits timber
harvesting and permanent
roads, structures and
facilities. Hunting,
fishing and other
recreational activities
generally are allowed.
Maloney and Shays said the
bill would protect some of
the country's most
beautiful and ecologically
important lands. They said
it would save taxpayers
$245 million over 10 years
by managing the land as
wilderness and eliminating
"subsidized development"
there. They said more than
2,300 jobs would be
created through the bill's
program to rip out old
logging roads and restore
the areas to their natural
state.
"NREPA has always been
ahead of its time by
drawing wilderness
boundaries according to
science, not politics,"
Maloney said in a prepared
statement. "NREPA would
also help mitigate the
effects of global warming
by protecting the
corridors through which
vulnerable wildlife can
migrate to cooler areas."
Rep. Denny Rehberg,
R-Mont., said all
legislation on public
lands must take into
consideration the opinions
of local communities and
people who depend on the
resources for work and
recreation.
"I oppose this legislation
because it's a top-down
approach that doesn't
properly take into account
the impacts on the local
economy nor does it
adequately protect access
for hunting, fishing and
other forms of
recreation," Rehberg said
in a prepared statement.
"I'll continue to work to
implement responsible
policies to protect
Montana's natural
resources."
Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo.,
called the bill a
"147-page assault on our
Western way of life" and
said local input and
control would be slipping
away.
"This is an absolutely
offensive attempt by East
Coast liberals to create
sweeping, over-reaching
laws for Western public
lands without any public
input from the folks
living in Wyoming who
would be heavily impacted
by this legislation,"
Cubin said in a prepared
statement. "I have always
supported a carefully
balanced multiple-use
policy when it comes to
public lands, and this
bill would essentially do
away with that type of
sensible evaluation."
Cubin said the wilderness
designation on Wyoming
public lands could lead to
"tremendously negative
impacts" on local
economies.
"Legislation this bad does
not warrant committee
attention, but if that
happens, Wyoming citizens
need to know that I will
be fighting this bill
tooth and nail," she said.
In the Greater
Glacier/Northern
Continental Divide
ecosystem, the core of
which is Glacier National
Park and the Bob Marshall
Wilderness, the bill would
place about 2.2 million
acres under wilderness
designation.
In the greater Yellowstone
region, about 6.5 million
acres would be designated
wilderness.
About 2.7 million acres of
mountain ranges separated
by prairies, including the
Bighorn, Big Snowy, Pryor,
Elkhorn and Caribou
mountains, would become
wilderness.
About 129,000 acres within
the Lewis and Clark
National Forest and known
as the Badger-Two Medicine
Area would be designated
the Blackfeet Wilderness.
About 6.2 million acres in
the Greater Salmon/Selway
region, about 1.1 million
acres in the Greater
Cabinet/ Yaak/Selkirk
ecosystem, and about
525,000 acres in the
Greater Hells Canyon
ecosystem would become
wilderness.
About 8.5 million acres
would be designated as
biological connecting
corridors in the
Bitterroot, Sapphire, Lost
River, Lemhi and Bridger
mountain ranges. Another 1
million acres would be
wildland recovery areas,
meaning work would be done
to return the areas to
their natural state after
development activities.
Hundreds of miles of
rivers and creeks in
Montana, Wyoming and Idaho
would receive the
designation of wild and
scenic rivers.
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Bill would ban
development on 23
million acres across
the Northern Rockies
04.21.07 |
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Apr 21, 2007
By MATTHEW BROWN AP
BILLINGS — A
wide-reaching
wilderness protection
bill that would
forever ban logging,
oil exploration and
other development on
23 million acres
across the Northern
Rockies was introduced
Friday by two East
Coast members of
Congress.
The proposal drew a
quick backlash from
natural resource
industry lobbyists and
some Western lawmakers
who view it as an
intrusion on their
turf. But supporters
hope a
Democrat-controlled
Capitol Hill will
improve the odds of a
bill that has gained
little traction during
eight prior attempts
at passage.
The Northern Rockies
Ecosystem Protection
Act would more than
double existing
wilderness acreage in
Idaho, Montana,
Wyoming, Oregon and
Washington.
Sponsored by Reps.
Carolyn Maloney, D-NY,
and Christopher Shays,
R-Ct., the act would
forbid most
development across
broad swaths of public
land in the five
states. It calls for
the removal of more
than 6,000 miles of
existing roads,
primarily within
national forests.
Maloney said the bill
"would protect public
lands owned by all
Americans, whether
you're from New York
or Montana,
Connecticut or
Washington State."
Earlier versions of
the bill have been
rejected by every
Congress since 1992,
said Michael Garrity
with the Montana-based
Alliance for the Wild
Rockies, which has
lobbied for the
measure. The last time
it made it so far as a
hearing was in 1994,
just before the
Republican takeover of
Capitol Hill that
lasted until Democrats
regained control last
election.
Yet support for the
bill has grown since
its early days. It had
187 co-sponsors in the
last Congress,
although none from
districts directly
affected by it. Some
prior sponsors now
wield significant
power in the 110th
Congress, including
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., and
Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.,
chairman of the House
Natural Resource
Committee.
Whether that's enough
to overcome local
hostility to the
measure is uncertain.
Since the passage of
the federal Wilderness
Act in 1964, Congress
has designated 702
wilderness areas
totaling more than 107
million acres,
according to the
University of
Montana's Wilderness
Institute. The
Shays-Maloney bill
would add an
additional 7 million
acres in Montana, 9.5
million in Idaho, 5
million in Wyoming,
750,000 in eastern
Oregon and 500,000 in
eastern Washington.
Reaction to the bill's
introduction was swift
and sharp from Western
members of Congress —
both Democrat and
Republican.
Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo.,
called the bill "an
absolutely offensive
attempt by East Coast
liberals to create
sweeping, overreaching
laws for Western
public lands." She
added she "will be
fighting this bill
tooth and nail."
Sen. Max Baucus,
D-Mont., said that
while some undeveloped
areas in his state may
need greater
protection, it should
"come from the ground
up, from local
communities working
together — not from
the top down."
Montana Republican
Rep. Denny Rehberg
offered a similar
message and added "the
people who depend on
these resources both
for work and
recreation ... deserve
a seat at the table."
And in Idaho, a
spokesman for
Republican Sen. Larry
Craig offered a quote
from former President
Theodore Roosevelt, a
champion of
conservation.
"Roosevelt said,
'Conservation means
development as much as
it does protection,"'
spokesman Dan Whiting
said. "Responsible use
can include everything
from hiking and
mountain biking to
development of timber,
mining and cattle.
It's not appropriate
to just lock this land
up."
Criticism also came
from the logging
industry, which warned
of ruined local
economies, and
recreation groups
concerned that
snowmobiles, ATVs and
even bicycles would be
prohibited in the new
wilderness areas.
Supporters called the
wilderness bill an
"ecosystem-based" plan
meant to transcend
political boundaries
and replace natural
resource jobs with
others tilted toward
restoration.
The intent is to
connect fragmented
areas of wildlife
habitat into highly
protected "biological
corridors" stretching
across a vast
landscape, according
to the text of the
bill. That would allow
recovering species
such as the grizzly
bear — due to be taken
off the endangered
species list in parts
of Montana, Idaho and
Wyoming later this
month — to expand
their ranges and gain
permanent footholds in
the Northern Rockies,
Garrity said.
"We can protect our
greatest economic
asset or continue to
subsidize its
destruction with
timber sales," he
said.
The latest version of
the bill also includes
a jobs-creation
element meant to
answer worries over
jobs lost in the
logging or mining
industries. More than
2,300 people would be
employed to remove
existing roads in the
wilderness areas and
restore approximately
1 million acres of
clear-cut forests,
according to Shays and
Garrity.
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