Idaho wilderness bills may change in new Congress

BOISE – If Idaho wilderness bills awaiting action in Congress don’t squeeze through the lame-duck session that starts next week, Republican sponsors say they may be forced to make changes for the new Democrat-controlled Congress convening in January.

U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said he’s looking at ways to get his House-passed bill – establishing 492 square miles of federal wilderness in the Boulder and White Cloud mountain ranges of central Idaho – through the Senate before the GOP-controlled Congress adjourns.

If he can’t, he’ll reintroduce it next year in the House, where jurisdiction over public lands bills will fall to the new Democratic chairman of the House Resources Committee, expected to be Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

“There might be changes that would be made if Rahall is there, if we do have to try to get it passed next year,” Simpson said.

During a House floor speech in July, Rahall said there were so many loopholes in Simpson’s bill it defeated the purpose of preserving pristine wild areas for future generations.

“I simply cannot support eroding protections in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, the transfer of public lands to developers, or the payoffs to mining speculators to name but a few issues,” Rahall said.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, would create a new half-million-acre wilderness in Idaho’s southwestern Owyhee canyonlands, while opening previously off-limits areas to motorized recreation, livestock grazing and other activities.

Crapo hopes to pass the measure during the lame-duck session, but chances of that are slim because, unlike Simpson’s bill, it has not cleared either chamber.

“We want both the majority and minority to be well aware of the bill and we will continue to push for it until we pass the legislation,” Crapo said.

With Democrats taking control along with two independent senators who say they’ll caucus with the Democrats, conservationists will likely gain influence over what happens to the bills. The environmental community is divided because of the potential trade-offs in the measures, which range from privatizing public lands and allowing motorized vehicle access, to banning mountain biking and undercutting wild and scenic rivers protection.

Environmental groups that oppose the Boulder-White Clouds and the Owyhee measures are encouraging conservation organizations that backed them to withdraw their support in the hopes of getting more wilderness under a Democratic-led Congress.

“It doesn’t make any sense to be pushing these heavily compromised bills when we now have a new Congress willing to push through real, genuine wilderness protection without all these trade-offs,” said Janine Blaeloch, director of the Seattle-based Western Lands Project.