House panel OKs Idaho wilderness bill

BOISE – The U.S. House Resources Committee Wednesday approved a bill designating 492 square miles of federal land in central Idaho as protected wilderness while conveying other public land to the state and local governments.

The measure now will be scheduled for a final vote on the House floor and then must make it through the U.S. Senate before the end of the year when this session of Congress concludes.

The so-called Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act designates three new federally protected wilderness areas in the mountain peaks of the Sawtooth and Challis National Forests – the Ernest Hemingway-Boulder Wilderness, the White Clouds Wilderness and the Jerry Peak Wilderness. It would also add another 600 acres protected from development to the existing Sawtooth National Recreation Area.

In return, local governments in Stanley, Clayton, Mackay, Challis, Custer and Blaine counties would get almost 4,000 acres of Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management property to sell, manage or develop into affordable housing or public facilities. Another 960-acre parcel of BLM land near Boise would be given to the state for a new off-road vehicle state park.

And, the Department of Interior would release from study 130,000 acres of public land that had been earmarked as potential wilderness, allowing federal land managers to issue permits for mining, logging or other commercial uses.