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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Boise

Simpson: New wilderness ‘justifies itself’

Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson addresses the Idaho Environmental Forum in Boise on Tuesday (Betsy Z. Russell photo)
Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson addresses the Idaho Environmental Forum in Boise on Tuesday (Betsy Z. Russell photo)

Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson is addressing the Idaho Environmental Forum today on how the Boulder-White Clouds became a wilderness. “A gentleman a couple weeks ago, who is not really a fan of wilderness, came up to me and said, he was a little upset by this bill, he said: How do you justify making the Boulder-White Clouds wilderness? I said I don’t, I don’t even try. I said: Go up there and spend a few nights. It justifies itself.”

Simpson said, “I honestly believe that when God takes a vacation, he goes to the Boulder-White Clouds. You laugh at that - I think it’s true.”

When the time came for questions, the first questioner said, “I’m a little concerned that God wanted to go on a mountain bike ride on a vacation - my God does.” Simpson acknowledged, “The mountain bikers were really the one group we could never get on board.” He said that’s because their issue was really with the Wilderness Act itself – and the idea of modifying it to allow mountain biking – rather than his bill.

“God likes to mountain bike, but He likes to do it outside of wilderness areas,” Simpson said.  “It’s a big country. It’s 275,000 acres we protected, which when you look at it, is not a huge amount of land.”

He told the audience of more than 100, “The reason we did this was not for you, certainly not for me, probably not even for your children. Because I’m not worried about the Boulder-White Clouds being degraded today or next week or 20 years from now … but it will happen if we don’t protect it. So it was important to do. … The reason we do this is for your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, and untold generations yet unborn, that will one day hike up there with their kids. And they’ll lay on the ground, and look at the stars, and their mind will start to think about things like infinity. Those are things we’ve got to protect.”



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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