Carole King urges D.C. to reject wilderness bill

WASHINGTON – Singer Carole King fumbled with the microphone Thursday as she testified against a bill that she says doesn’t go far enough in protecting wilderness in her home state of Idaho.

“I should be used to these things,” King, pulling the microphone closer, joked as she prepared to speak to the House Resources Committee. “But usually there are more friendly faces.”

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, sponsored the measure as a way to protect 300,000 acres in central Idaho while opening another 130,000 acres of federal land for logging, off-road vehicles and other development.

King and Simpson are friendly but disagree on the bill, which King says does not go far enough in protecting land in the Boulder and White Cloud mountains.

“This wilderness is weak. It’s not worth the price,” she said. “It’s like making do with a hand towel when you need a warm blanket on a cold night.”

King, 63, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for such classics as “I Feel the Earth Move” and “(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman,” is no stranger to Washington.

She performs frequently in the area and returns to the Capitol every year to lobby for a sweeping “Rockies Prosperity” bill that would designate wilderness and other protections in five Western states.

King and other opponents believe Simpson’s bill is larded with provisions that threaten protection of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, a 756,000-acre section of jagged peaks set aside for preservation by Congress in the 1970s.

King, who has lived in Idaho for 28 years, said she is proud of rural Custer County and noted that she still votes by paper ballot in the nearby town of Clayton. A sign near her house says “Welcome to Challis, Gateway to Wilderness.” King said, “It does not say ‘Gateway to Off-Road Vehicle Trails.’ “

Simpson said he knows the bill is not perfect and told King, “If you are waiting for the perfect bill, it does not exist.”

Snowmobile enthusiasts and other groups that want more active use of the land also oppose the bill, Simpson said, calling it a careful compromise that protects wilderness while promoting economic development in a rural area dominated by federally owned land.

Other environmental groups welcomed the measure as a first step to resolving three decades of land-use conflicts in an area that contains the highest peaks in the state, popular snowmobile and off-road-vehicle trails, historic ranches and scenic grandeur.

Craig Gehrke, Idaho director of The Wilderness Society, said the bill had “significant positive benefits” and pledged to work with Simpson to “produce a bill that we can fully support.”