Congresswoman’s Bill Would Close Lands To Mining, Logging

A Manhattan congresswoman plans to reintroduce a sweeping wilderness bill Wednesday that would protect 20 million acres from logging and mining in five Western states.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and other sponsors will be joined at a news conference by Mike Bader, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies in Missoula.

Several previous attempts to pass the wilderness bill - called the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act - have failed through bipartisan opposition from Western lawmakers, who said it goes too far.

The bill would affect federal lands in Eastern Washington and Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Former Idaho Congressman Larry LaRocco last year attacked Maloney’s sponsorship of the bill, saying she didn’t even know where Idaho was.

“This land is not your land,” Maloney told LaRocco through the news media. “This land is our land.”

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