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A bipartisan group of 10 senators is trying to jump-start stalled efforts in Congress to update the 19th century law that governs hard-rock mining, the second leading industry in Nevada.
In a letter this week to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the senators called for a "fair and equitable" tax, or royalty, on mining revenues.
Environmentalists, along with local and federal officials, all have problems with the Washington County lands bill.
Despite those problems, they also all still like the latest version versus the one proposed in 2006, they explained before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday.
The Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2008, which Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, introduced in the Senate earlier this month, designates wilderness areas in the county but also allows for the sale of certain areas of public lands, with a percentage of the revenue going back to the county.
This weekend, the Montana Wilderness Association celebrates its 50th anniversary, a half century marked by an early flood of wilderness and a more recent wilderness drought.
"In our first quarter century, from 1958 to 1983, we designated quite a bit of wilderness, from zero to 3.4 million acres of wilderness in '83," said MWA historian Bill Cunningham of Choteau. "But in the second quarter century, we didn't succeed in designating a single acre of wilderness.
"We've had a wilderness drought over the second half of our history," Cunningham said.
Nearly 38,000 acres of the Monongahela National Forest would become congressionally protected wilderness under a bill passed this week by the House of Representatives.
The legislation, authored by House Natural Resources Chairman Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., adds three new wilderness areas and expands three existing areas. It passed the House Tuesday night in a 368-17 Earth Day vote.
By a vote of 368-17, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Wild Monongahela Act on Tuesday evening, April 22, 2008. This legislation will permanently protect 37,771 acres of wilderness in the Monongahela National Forest, representing some of the East's last, best, remaining wild places. The House version of the bill seeks to expand three existing Wilderness areas, Dolly Sods, Cranberry and Otter Creek while designating three new areas, Roaring Plains West, Spice Run and Big Draft.
The House passed four land-use bills yesterday, including two to designate wilderness areas in Oregon and West Virginia, along with three resolutions in honor of Earth Day.
H.R. 5151, from Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), would add about 37,000 acres of wilderness West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest through expansions of the Dolly Sods, Cranberry and Otter Creek wilderness areas as well as protecting three new wilderness areas across the forest.
The bill cleared the House 368-17.
A bill to expand wilderness areas in West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest passed the House of Representatives Tuesday night, in an overwhelming Earth Day vote.
The legislation, authored by House Natural Resources Chairman Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., would designate nearly 38,000 acres of new and expanded wilderness areas in the Monongahela.
Sen. Mike Crapo grinned ear to ear Tuesday as he praised the head of the Wilderness Society for his help bringing Idaho's Owyhee Canyonlands to the attention of Congress.
"Thank you so much," Crapo, R-Idaho, said, effusively shaking Bill Meadows' hand after a Senate hearing. "This is a really nice day to have."
After nearly a decade of work, the Crapo-led effort to designate more than 500,000 acres of Idaho's Owyhee Canyonlands as wilderness had its most promising hearing ever in Washington.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill creating the roughly 13,700-acre Copper Salmon Wilderness near Port Orford on Tuesday.
The Earth Day approval through voice vote would protect the headwaters of the Elk River known for its rich salmon, steelhead and trout habitat.
Two bills that would protect hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Idaho and Utah in exchange for the right to develop other lands won high praise from senators yesterday who said they are much improved over previous legislation that failed in the 109th Congress.
