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Wilderness in Congress
Wilderness Watch is keeping an eye on the actions of the 112th Congress. In addition to tracking wilderness bills, we’re working with the new Congress to improve oversight of and support for the federal agencies’ wilderness programs.
We're seeing that all the talk of “change” hasn’t yet reached the halls of Congress when it comes to some Wilderness legislation. One might have hoped that Wilderness would get a reprieve from being used as a form of currency to be bartered for political favors. Sad to say, but so far old habits still hold sway. Below are some of the bills currently moving through Congress that Wilderness Watch and our allies are working to derail.
TAKE ACTION TODAY!!! Sportsmen’s Heritage Act (HR 4089) Will Essentially Repeal the 1964 Wilderness Act
• H.R. 1505, the “National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act
• H.R. 145, Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act
• S. 37: Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009
• H.R. 2430: To direct the Secretary of the Interior to continue stocking fish in certain lakes in the North Cascades National Park, Ross Lake National Recreation Area, and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area
• H.R. 2806: To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to adjust the boundary of the Stephen Mather Wilderness and the North Cascades National Park in order to allow the rebuilding of a road outside of the floodplain while ensuring that there is no net loss of acreage to the Park or the Wilderness, and for other purposes.
• Interior Appropriations Bill
• H.R. 2809: To amend the Wilderness Act to allow recreation organizations consisting of hikers or horseback riders to cross wilderness areas on established trails, and for other purposes
• H.R. 3538, Idaho Wilderness Water Resources Protection Act
• Other Important bills and actions
TAKE ACTION TODAY!!! Sportsmen’s Heritage Act (HR 4089) Will Essentially Repeal the 1964 Wilderness Act
Bill Must be Blocked in U.S. Senate: 4/12
On April 17, 2012, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 4089, the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act, supposedly “to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting.” The bill is a thinly disguised measure to gut the 1964 Wilderness Act and protections for every unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
HR 4089 would give hunting, fishing, shooting, and fish and wildlife management top priority in Wilderness, rather than protecting the wilderness character and wilderness values, as is currently the case. This bill would allow endless, extensive habitat manipulations in Wilderness under the guise of “wildlife conservation” or for providing hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting experiences. It would allow the construction of roads to facilitate such uses, and would allow the construction of dams, buildings, or other structures within Wildernesses.
Specifically, section 104(e)(1) strips away the Wilderness Act’s prohibitions on the use of motorized and mechanized vehicles, motorboats and aircraft, other motorized equipment, and structures and installations for any activity related to hunting, angling, recreational shooting, or wildlife conservation. For example, this would allow for any hunter, angler, or recreational shooter to drive their ATV in Wilderness as long as they were engaged in one of these activities. While the sponsors of the bill have stated this isn’t the law’s intent, an amendment to the bill to make certain this wasn’t the result was opposed by the bill’s supporters and defeated in a House vote.
Section 104(e)(2) would waive “any requirements imposed by the Wilderness Act” for federal public land managers or state wildlife managers for any activity undertaken in the guise of wildlife management. In addition to allowing the construction of roads and unlimited use of motor vehicles and aircraft, this provision would allow any sort of wildlife habitat manipulation that managers desire to do. Logging would be allowed, for example, to create more forage for deer or elk. Reservoirs and watering holes could be bulldozed for bighorn sheep. Lakes and streams could be poisoned, and exotic fishes could be planted to provide more angling opportunities. Unlimited predator control, including aerial gunning, trapping, and poisoning would be allowed. There is literally no limit to what managers could do in Wilderness in the name of wildlife management. And if all this isn’t enough, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service points out that because Section 104(c) of the bill bars application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), none of these activities will need to undergo any environmental review for their impacts on wilderness values, wildlife, or threatened and endangered species.
The bill is backed by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, Safari Club International, and a coalition of hunting and gun-rights organizations, including the National Rifle Association. These groups are trying to rush this bill to the Senate floor for a vote. It is imperative that you contact your senator now and urge them to oppose HR 4089!
HR 4089 must be blocked in the U.S. Senate!
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Write or email both of your U.S. Senators, and send a copy to your U.S. Representative. Ask your Senators to oppose HR 4089 at every step of the way and to never let it pass the Senate. Contact http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt if you need help finding the email or snail mail addresses for your Senators or Representative. You may want to consider including the following points in your message:
1. OPPOSE HR 4089. It guts the Wilderness Act and strips protection from every single unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System across the country.
2. Massive human manipulations of fish, wildlife, and habitat like those allowed by HR 4089 should not be allowed in our precious Wildernesses or they will cease to be Wildernesses.
3. HR 4089 would allow roads and motor vehicles in Wilderness, and the construction of dams, buildings, and other structures with any connection to fish and wildlife.
4. Environmental review under NEPA must not be waived by HR 4089.
In 2014, will we celebrate or will we mourn the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act? Please Act Today!
• Wilderness Watch recently joined with colleague organizations in Minnesota to highlight the damage to Wilderness contained in bad House-passed bills like the Sportsmen's Heritage Act and the Bishop Border Bill. Click here to view this video.
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• H.R. 1505, the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act: On June 19, 2012, the disingenuously entitled “The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act," H.R. 1505, passed the House of Representatives as part of a larger package of 14 bills approved within H.R. 2578. The Bishop border bill will waive more than 15 federal laws within 100 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders, to give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) virtually unlimited power to do whatever the agency wants to achieve “operational control” over these lands. It would explicitly allow DHS to construct and maintain roads, set up monitoring equipment, construct a border fence, and use vehicles on patrol. The 1964 Wilderness Act, the 1916 National Parks Organic Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and many more laws would be waived. Wilderness Watch has calculated that 73 Wildernesses in 12 states, totaling more than 32 million acres, would be affected along the Canadian border alone.
Millions of acres of Wilderness and national parks lie within the sacrifice zone that would be created by H.R. 1505 including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Bob Marshall, Great Bear, Stephen Mather, Pasayten, and Olympic wildernesses, and North Cascades, Glacier, and Voyageurs national parks.
A similar provision tucked into the so-called “Real ID Act” in 2008 has allowed DHS to waive environmental laws along much of the border with Mexico. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently released a report showing that border patrol activities have created more than 8,000 miles of vehicle routes across the Cabeza-Prieta Wilderness. Some of these routes are so heavily used they resemble roads. According to FWS officials, the actual number of routes is probably double that because the data is a couple of years old. And like at Cabeza-Prieta, one can easily imagine DHS building major infrastructure in wild country many miles from the border.
There is no public benefit from this bill. Anti-wilderness and anti-public lands legislators are simply playing on border security fears to gut our nation’s bedrock environmental protection and public lands laws.
Wilderness Watch encourages you to ask your Senators NOW to oppose this bill and its equivalent in the Senate. For information on how to contact your Senators, see www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt.
• Wilderness Watch recently joined with colleague organizations in Minnesota to highlight the damage to Wilderness contained in bad House-passed bills like the Sportsmen's Heritage Act and the Bishop Border Bill. Click here to view this video.
• To download and read an analysis Wilderness Watch has prepared, click here.
• To download and read the comments by Wilderness Watch and allies on the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Northern Border, click here.
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• H.R. 145, Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act: Wilderness Watch has been working with other organizations, concerned citizens, and members of Congress to improve the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act (CIEDRA) since it was first introduced in 2001. Alongside 46 other grassroots conservation groups, we have vigorously fought the most egregious terms of this dangerous, precedent-setting, quid pro quo land bill. Some of those most concerning to us included highly fragmented, watered-down Wilderness-in-name-only designations—where private interests would take precedent over the public good, and the release of 200,000 acres of potential Wilderness from current protections—opening them to damaging off-road vehicle (ORV) abuse.
This year, Wilderness Watch is happy to report that our work has vastly improved Wilderness provisions in CIEDRA, House Bill 145. Gone from the bill are most of the provisions allowing extensive motor vehicle use, habitat manipulation, and commercial special interest rights in the Wilderness it designates. We’ve asked Congress to make a few additional changes to CIEDRA so it adequately protects the wilderness in the Boulder-White Clouds of central Idaho. These requests include removing motorized corridors splitting the Wilderness into four fragments, protecting Wilderness Study Areas released by the bill from degradation—by prohibiting increased ORV use and corridors, and modifying CIEDRA’s language to precisely match that of the Wilderness Act so the Boulder-White Clouds is administered to protect its wilderness character.
Thank you to all of the groups and individuals who helped clean up this bill! This is a real victory for activists and public land lovers who reject the harmful trade-offs of quid pro quo wilderness legislation.
• Click here to read a statement by Wilderness Watch, Western Lands Project, and Friends of the Clearwater on CIEDRA for the hearing record
• Click here to listen to the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests hearing on 6/16/10
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• S. 37: Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009: There have been numerous criticisms of the "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act", S. 37, introduced by Montana Senator Jon Tester, including its release of Wilderness Study Areas (including land designated by the late Senator Lee Metcalf in 1977 by S. 393 and several BLM-administered WSAs) and its privatization of decision-making on public lands to promote private profit (by allowing a select group of industry representatives to write forest management plans and then have Congress legislate the plans). The bill was heard by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommitte on Public Lands and Forests on 12/17/09. A U.S. Department of Agriculture representative testified at the hearing that the bill's mandated timber harvests "are likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable" and "far exceed historic [harvest] levels on these forests." Wilderness Watch is part of the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign, a coalition that is raising serious concerns with many parts of this legislation. Most of our main focus is on the bill’s damaging wilderness provisions.
S. 37 includes many provisions that are contrary to the Wilderness Act, will compromise the wilderness character of areas designated as Wilderness, and will likely establish harmful precedents for future wilderness bills. Indeed, wilderness advocates have successfully fought to keep several of these provisions out of recent Wilderness bills. Should Tester's bill pass with these provisions intact, the door will be opened to including these provisions in future bills. More troubling is that the proliferation of such exceptions and special provisions are weakening the integrity of the Wilderness system. While Tester promotes S. 37 as a "made in Montana" solution, the truth is that none of Montana's existing Wildernesses, more than 3 million acres, are encumbered with the plethora of weakening provisions found in S. 37.
These provisions include pre-suppression activities for fire (including fuel reduction and other manipulation), installations of structures unnecessary for administering Wilderness (such as snow sensors and stream gauges), military training exercises that include helicopter landings, fish and wildlife habitat manipulation projects, motorized ranching activities, and the grandfathering of outfitter permits.
We encourage our friends and members to ask Senator Tester to remove these provisions from the bill, and to submit comments and concerns to the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests by 1/8/10.
• Click here to read Wilderness Watch's testimony submitted to the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
• Click here to download an executive summary of S. 37 (originally S. 1470)
• Click here to download a
detailed analysis of S. 37 (originally S. 1470)
• Click here to listen to the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests hearing on 12/17/09
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• H.R. 2430: To direct the Secretary of the Interior to continue stocking fish in certain lakes in the North Cascades National Park, Ross Lake National Recreation Area, and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. The National Park Service’s proposal to end fish stocking in naturally fishless lakes in the Stephen Mather Wilderness in North Cascades National Park in Washington is threatened by legislation authorizing the Park to continue the practice. (The Park Service had proposed to end the practice on July 1, 2009, barring Congressional authority to do so.) The Senate failed to take action following House approval of H.R. 2430 introduced by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), and the good news is fish stocking has ended with a ban in place. However, the bill is still alive in the Senate.
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• H.R. 2806: To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to adjust the boundary of the Stephen Mather Wilderness and the North Cascades National Park in order to allow the rebuilding of a road outside of the floodplain while ensuring that there is no net loss of acreage to the Park or the Wilderness, and for other purposes. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) has introduced H.R. 2806 that would authorize the Secretary of Interior to change the boundaries of the Stephen Mather Wilderness in North Cascades National Park to facilitate rebuilding and realigning a dirt road along the Stehekin River. The road begins at Stehekin, a small Lake Chelan village accessible by boat or floatplane, and forms a 20-mile-long “cherrystem” into the Park and Wilderness. The road has flooded numerous times over the years, and is impassable to vehicles beyond the halfway point with the upper valley section washed out in 2003 and 2006. Since 2004, this section has been maintained as a foot and horse trail.
In 2006, the Park Service prepared an environmental analysis that determined it would be too expensive and environmentally damaging to rebuild the road. The Park Service has testified in opposition to the bill, but despite this, the House Natural Resources Committee passed it, and the bill awaits action by the full House.
In dissenting from the committee’s action, Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) argued that changing Wilderness boundaries “should not be taken lightly,” and that the bill, “departs from [an] historic democratic process, by handing unprecedented authority to the Secretary of Interior” to redraw Wilderness boundaries.
The Senate has taken no action on the bill.
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• Interior Appropriations Bill: Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has been trying to force the National Park Service to extend a commercial oyster farm lease for 10 years in the Philip Burton Wilderness at Point Reyes National Seashore in California. Legislation granting the extension was attached to the 2010 Senate Interior Appropriations Bill. The Interior Appropriations Bill was passed, but the rider was amended—with it no longer forcing the Department of the Interior to extend the permit, but rather granting the Secretary of the Interior the discretion to make the decision.
The National Park Service opposes extension of the oyster farm lease, as the agency intends to follow through on a provision in the Act that designated the area as Wilderness by adding the 1,100-acre estuary to the Philip Burton Wilderness (for more information, see June 2008 Wilderness Watcher: wildernesswatch.org/newsroom/newsletters). Senator Feinstein has claimed that this is a 70-year old family-run business, a very misleading statement. The current owners purchased the farm in 2005 with full knowledge that the permit would expire in 2012 and would not be renewed.
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• H.R. 2809: To amend the Wilderness Act to allow recreation organizations consisting of hikers or horseback riders to cross wilderness areas on established trails, and for other purposes. Everybody loves a parade, and H.R. 2809, introduced by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), would ensure the fun doesn’t stop at the Wilderness boundary. H.R. 2809 would amend the Wilderness Act to grant "members of a recreation organization acting as an organized unit and regardless of their number...the right to cross wilderness areas on established trails without restriction..." for day use.
The genesis of the bill is likely related to the "Roundup Riders of the Rockies," a group of wealthy horsemen who conduct a massive, yearly horse-riding event involving hundreds of horses, catered camps, music, etc. They've tried to use Wilderness many times, but have been told no, with the exception of a 2007 ride through the Spanish Peaks Wilderness in Colorado. Despite concerns from the agency’s wilderness staff and Wilderness Watch, the Forest Service Region Two regional forester Rick Cables set aside the “25 heartbeat” group size limit to appease this politically connected group.
There have been no hearings on the bill.
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• H.R. 3538, Idaho Wilderness Water Resources Protection Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Michael Simpson (R-ID) would require the Forest Service to issue special use authorizations to any owner of a water storage, transport or diversion facility existing in one of these Wildernesses at the time of designation. We’re looking into the bill’s intent and implications. We’re concerned about the precedent it would set for the entire Wilderness system. The bill doesn’t distinguish between lawfully-established facilities versus those that weren’t, nor between those with legitimate permits versus those without.
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Other important bills and actions:
Omnibus Public Land Management Act (S. 22):
President Obama signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S 22) into law on 3/30/09. The 1,246-page bill contains 160-plus individual public lands bills, including 15 separate wilderness bills. Many of the wilderness bills are relatively clean, meaning they don’t contain special provisions that will diminish the integrity of Wilderness. However, at least two of the bills—the Owyhee in Idaho, and the Washington County, Utah bills—contain numerous harmful provisions that would open these areas to inappropriate activities such as the routine use of ATVs for herding livestock, motor vehicle use (including aircraft) and habitat manipulation by state fish and game agencies, and other damaging activities.
Another terrible provision in the Omnibus bill facilitates building a road through the300,000-acre Izembek Wilderness in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Izembek is an essential refuge for a great variety of wildlife. It harbors more than a quarter-million migratory birds every fall, including the world’s entire population of black brants. In exchange for the road, the State of Alaska will transfer 43,000 acres of land to the federal government.
Wilderness Watch urged Congress to remove these harmful provisions from the Omnibus bill. The negative impacts to the Izembek Wilderness, the Owyhee country, Utah’s red rock country, and the standards for wilderness stewardship ensure that for a long time Wilderness will pay a heavy price for today’s political expediency.
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• The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (H.R. 980) would designate 24 million acres of new Wilderness in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. This is a clean bill that does not include special provisions that would undermine wilderness protection.
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• The Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act (H.R. 39; S. 231) would designate the Arctic Refuge coastal plain as Wilderness. This is another clean bill.
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• The Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area and Dominguez Canyon Wilderness Area Act (H.R. 170) would establish the Dominguez-Escalante Wilderness and National Conservation Area in Colorado. The harmful provisions in this bill would allow construction of stock watering reservoirs and inappropriate “invasive species” management actions in the Wilderness.
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• The Central Idaho National Forest Public Lands Management Act (H.R. 192), formerly known as CIEDRA) includes a host of damaging provisions including routine use of motor vehicles for wildlife management activities, ATV corridors splitting the large Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness into four pieces, and several public land giveaways to local interests.
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TO FIND AND CONTACT MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, VISIT http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml. You can write your senator or representative at: Senator (Name), US Senate, Washington D.C. 20510 or Representative (Name), US House of Representatives, Washington D.C. 20515.
SOME TIPS FOR CONTACTING CONGRESS:
1. Personal letters, either hand-written or typed, make a greater impact than email. It’s best to also fax your letter because security measures may delay mail delivery to Congress. "CC'ing" your letter (or email) to the chair of the appropriate committee(s) is a good idea too, as committee chairs play an important role on most legislation.
2. Phone calls are an effective way to let your elected official know that you are for or against a particular bill. But you shouldn’t an intern or receptionist who answers phones to relay a detailed or complex concern to your Congressperson–they may not convey them accurately.
3. Email is not always the most effective means of communicating with Congress, but it’s easy to do, and unlike a phone call, your words are delivered by you, rather than interpreted by someone else. Remember to always include your address and phone number. This makes you a "real" person, rather than a contact spot on the internet, and it lets your Congressperson know that you are a constituent.
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