PUBLIC LANDS: Something old, something new before ENR subcommittee
Corbin Hiar, E&E reporter
E&E News: Monday, May 18, 2015
A Senate subcommittee Thursday is set to consider a diverse collection of bills that would create new wilderness areas, make it easier to conduct search-and-recovery operations or graze livestock on federal lands, or convey land to tribes and local governments.
The two wilderness bills that the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining will consider are likely to be familiar to advocates and opponents of land conservation.
A version of S. 583, a bill to protect parts of Idaho's Boulder-White Clouds region as wilderness, has been introduced by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) every congressional session for the past decade. Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) is sponsoring the latest iteration, which would permanently protect from development 67,998 acres as the Hemingway/Boulders Wilderness and 90,769 acres as the White Clouds Wilderness. Both parcels are within the Sawtooth and Challis national forests.
But Idaho conservationists and sportsmen, who have backed the legislation in the past, are upset that S. 583 carves off the 58,000-acre East Fork salmon area to provide for off-highway vehicle trails. They are instead calling for President Obama to protect the Boulder-White Clouds region as a national monument (Greenwire, Feb. 27).
S. 1240 is another reintroduced wilderness bill up for consideration. Backed by New Mexico Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich, who is the lead sponsor, and Tom Udall, the legislation would designate the Cerros del Yuta and Rio San Antonio wilderness areas within the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Together, the wilderness areas would permanently protect 21,420 acres of the 242,500-acre monument.
A previous version of the bill was approved by the committee in 2013, but it wasn't included in a major lands package that was attached to the defense authorization bill that cleared Congress near the end of the last session (Greenwire, Dec. 12, 2014).
A bill directing the secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to create an expedited process for organizations and individuals conducting "good Samaritan" search-and-recovery missions has also been previously approved by the committee. S. 160 from Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) is a companion measure to H.R. 373, which the House approved last month in a unanimous vote (E&E Daily, April 29).
The legislation, which was also cleared the House last year with unanimous support, was drafted after a search-and-rescue team spent the better part of 10 months getting a special-use permit to locate the body of Air Force Staff Sgt. Antonio Tucker, who drowned at the Lake Mead Recreation Area in 2012 (E&E Daily, Jan. 28, 2014).
The National Park Service initially declined the team's help before agreeing to the ultimately successful recovery. Also on Lake Mead, a volunteer group finally found the body of slain cab driver Keith Goldberg after more than a year negotiating with NPS over permits and insurance.
Another bill the subcommittee will discuss is S. 365, which would restore grazing levels within Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to levels that existed on Sept. 17, 1996, the day before it was declared a national monument. The measure is being pushed by Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch, who is the lead sponsor, and Mike Lee.
The Bureau of Land Management is currently developing a livestock grazing management plan for the 1.9-million-acre monument, a move environmentalists have been urging since it was first designated. The process is expected to take a couple of years to complete, and a formal grazing management plan is not expected to be finalized until at least 2016 (E&ENews PM, Nov. 1, 2013).
The remaining bills would convey public lands to American Indian tribes as well as state and county governments.
Two bills from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), S. 814 and S. 815, would transfer state and federal lands to Oregon tribes. The measures are both co-sponsored by the state's other Democratic senator, Jeff Merkley, and related to bills backed by Oregon Reps. Peter DeFazio, who is a Democrat, and Greg Walden, a Republican.
Finally, the subcommittee will discuss S. 472, another bipartisan measure that would convey lands to the state of Nevada and Douglas County, Nev., in addition to selling certain federal lands and setting aside lands to be held in trust for the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. The bill has the support of Heller, who is the lead sponsor, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They believe that the bill will expand recreational opportunities, promote conservation and jump-start economic development in the area south of Carson City.
