The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee easily cleared dozens of public lands bills yesterday, setting the stage for a potential floor battle with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) over government spending.
Senate leaders plan to attach the package of 53 bills -- passed by unanimous voice vote -- to a 96-bill omnibus package from the committee that is already awaiting consideration on the floor in an attempt to clear the committee's pending business before the end of the 110th Congress.
"We have one more chance to pass these bills," said Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).
Coburn has tried to block similar groups of bills by objecting to unanimous consent requests, objecting to the bills' projected impact on the federal deficit (E&E Daily, Sept. 9). This time, he will also argue against limiting access to potential oil and gas reserves within the wilderness areas that would be created or expanded by several of the bills.
The bills grant wilderness protection to more than 1 million acres of land, but Coburn said designating wilderness is "not a priority for the people of this country" while energy prices remain high.
Fellow Republicans have been mixed in their support of Coburn's cause, but the senator said he was confident he would have more support this time given the energy questions involved.
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), ranking member of the Energy Committee, said he had seen reports that showed the lands covered in the different bills have a low potential for oil and gas reserves. "There are some claims we are locking up potential energy reserves," Domenici said. "I'm satisfied that is not the case."
Yesterday's markup is likely to be the last for Domenici and fellow Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), who are both not seeking re-election this year. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is in line to be the top Republican on the panel next year.
Domenici, the only member to have served on the committee since its founding in 1977, told fellow Republicans that the best progress ever made by the committee and its GOP members occurred when they worked together with Democrats to avoid the "collateral battles" like the one brewing over the public lands package.
Gun rule cleared, Cape Hatteras plan rejected
Along with passing the group of 53 public lands bills, the panel also approved, 18-5, a bill from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that would require gun policies in federal parks and preserves to match the laws of the state that encompasses those properties. The proposal is similar to a proposed rule change being evaluated by the Interior Department (E&ENews PM, Sept. 11).
The committee rejected a measure from Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) that would upend the standing agreement for regulating off-highway vehicle (OHV) use on North Carolina's Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The agreement is in place until the National Park Service develops a permanent management plan, but S. 3113 would reinstate the interim management plan that administration officials contended would be detrimental to the seashore.
Burr said at a hearing in July that the plan caused an almost 15 percent decrease in visits to the seashore during the summer tourist season, but the committee rejected the bill, 11-12.
Izembek road
Another potentially controversial bill the committee approved yesterday would allow construction of a road through Alaska's Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
S. 1680 would authorize a land swap that would permit the transfer of 206 acres of land across the refuge to the state to construct a road connecting the villages of King Cove and Cold Bay. In exchange, Izembek and the nearby Alaska Peninsula refuge would get an additional 61,723 acres controled by the tribal King Cove Corp. and the state of Alaska. Of that, 45,493 acres would be designated wilderness.
Residents of King Cove say the road is needed to connect them to the Cold Bay airport, but road opponents say the project is unnecessary and could do irreparable ecological harm.
The amended version cleared by the committee requires preparation of an environmental impact statement on the road's effects to wildlife.
The House version of the bill, H.R. 2801, passed the Natural Resources Committee in April.
More wilderness
Among the wilderness bills the committee approved are S. 3069, which would designate nearly a half million acres of wilderness areas and confer 52 miles of "wild and scenic river" status in California, and H.R. 3022, which would create the John Krebs Wilderness in California's Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park.
Farther north, S. 3088 and S. 3089 would extend federal wilderness protection to almost 30,000 acres in Oregon's Badlands and about 8,600 acres in Spring Basin areas.
Other wilderness bills include H.R. 3682, which would designate four wilderness areas in California. The areas would encompass Interior Department and Forest Service land that is home to the threatened bighorn sheep, bald eagle, desert tortoise and other species. In addition to the new areas, it would add land to six existing areas and the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.
H.R. 2632 would designate nearly 16,000 acres of land in northeast New Mexico as wilderness. The Sabinoso Wilderness Area would encompass cliffs and canyons, including the 1,000 foot-deep Canon Largo.
S. 3065 would designate more than 250,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in Colorado's Mesa, Montrose, and Delta counties as wilderness.
S. 3017 would designate 11,740 acres within the Beaver Basin area of Pictured Rocks National Park as wilderness. Located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula along the south shore of Lake Superior, the area comprises about 16 percent of the national lakeshore, but the legislation would not block boat access to the shorelines.
