UPDATED to point out that Senate is still working on passage of the measure.

PUBLIC LANDS -- A 22,000-acre expansion of the 392,000-acre lpine Lakes Wilderness is among the wilderness provisions likely to be approved by the U.S. Senate this week after the lawmakers voted to break a filibuster on the Defense Authorization bill.

Attachments to the bill included public lands provisions that have been hashed out in several states for years. Among them are bills authored by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.,  to protect Illabot Creek and the Middle Fork Snoqualmie and Pratt Rivers and expand the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

The legislation passed the House last week and if the Senate comes through as expected, it will head to the White House shortly to be signed into law by President Obama.

While most mainstream conservation groups applaud the approval of the measures, some conservation groups say they go too far in giving up public land protection to development.

Washington state bills that appear likely to pass both chambers of Congress include:

•        Alpine Lakes Wilderness Additions and Middle Fork Snoqualmie and Pratt Rivers Protection Act
•        Illabot Creek Wild and Scenic River Act

Following long-fought success in creating the Wild Sky Wilderness in 2008, Murray introduced legislation to protect Illabot Creek, a tributary of the Skagit River and important habitat for many species, including five species of salmon, steelhead, Roosevelt elk, and Bald eagles,  in 2009.  Also in 2009, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., introduced companion legislation in the House

Legislation these measures as well as the Alpine Lakes additions and Wild and Scenic designation protections for the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River have been introduced in the House and Senate in the 111th, 112th, and 113th Congresses, where they faced partisan opposition.

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