The Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests met today to hear testimony on the White Pine County Conservation, Recreation, and Development Act of 2006 (S. 3772). The bill, introduced by Nevada Senators Reid (D) and Ensign (R), would designate 545,000 acres of wilderness in the eastern part of Nevada.
Mike Matz, Executive Director of the Campaign for America’s Wilderness commented on the hearing:
“The White Pine County bill is a testament to the broad public support for conserving public land as a lasting legacy of our natural heritage. Five years in the making, it is the bipartisan product of a great deal of hard work by Senators Reid and Ensign and their staffs and a strong citizen coalition. Working closely with diverse stakeholders, they negotiated a fair plan that will help guide management of this land and minimize conflict in future decades.
“The Campaign for America’s Wilderness is dedicated to protecting as many special wild places as possible, and supports the wilderness designations in the White Pine County proposal. Protecting more than a half million acres of new wilderness in eastern Nevada would be a marvelous bequest to the American people today and tomorrow.
“By contrast, the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act is not the product of negotiation by all local interests and offers too little protection for threatened wilderness while tilting heavily toward development, and the Campaign for America's Wilderness opposes this bill.
“The 109th Congress has already achieved an impressive bipartisan record of conserving public land, moving legislation to safeguard in perpetuity over 400,000 acres of wilderness, including desert canyonlands in New Mexico (Ojito Wilderness), a tropical rainforest in Puerto Rico (El Toro Wilderness), windswept peaks in Utah (Cedar Mountain Wilderness), coastal forests in northern California (King Range Wilderness and others), and forested hills and valleys in New Hampshire and Vermont (Wild River and Glastenbury Wilderness and others). By adding White Pine County, Nevada, to this list, the Senate will contribute greatly to this Congress’s proud record on wilderness protection.”
