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US Senate Shows Initiative on Wilderness Preservation

The U.S. Senate didn’t take long to address some unfinished business from last year, passing an omnibus lands bill with a resounding majority of 66-12 in an unusual Sunday session on January 11^th. The bill, S.22 sponsored by Senator Bingaman, D-N.Y., is entitled “A bill to designate certain land components of the National Wilderness Preservation System, to authorize certain programs and activities in the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture, and for other purposes”. It consists of an amalgam of 160 different bills, including many new or expanded wilderness areas. In fact, the bill provides protections to an additional 2 million acres of wilderness all over the country, from West Virginia to Colorado, to Oregon and California; it also includes new protections from oil and gas development, and a range of other environmental measures.

Polls have repeatedly found that the American public strongly supports more wilderness designation, and political history since the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964 indicates that wilderness designation is truly a bipartisan issue. That’s hardly a surprise in an overcrowded, overheated, stressed out planet that is running out of open space and natural resources. Additional wilderness protection is wonderful news and worthy of celebration, but it really is – or should be – just a matter of simple common sense. Let’s hope the U.S. House of Representatives sees it the same way and acts with the same speed and clarity of purpose as the Senate.

Read more about 66.12

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