Simpson floats changes to his wilderness bill

BOISE – U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson is trying to jump-start a new central Idaho wilderness proposal in Congress by dropping provisions opposed by the House Democratic majority and some environmental groups.

Simpson, R-Idaho, said Monday the proposed amendments to his bill to create three wilderness areas in the Boulder Mountains and White Cloud Peaks would no longer give 94 acres of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area to the city of Stanley and Custer County, for 14 development lots. Instead, Custer County would get as much as $3 million in mining revenue, via a proposal to send a quarter of Idaho’s proceeds from federal mineral leases to a fund to pay for local projects.

Simpson told the Associated Press he’d hoped Democratic staffers on the House Committee on Natural Resources would come forward and suggest a plan that would gain traction with the majority party.

That helped a separate proposal from U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, to create a new 807-square-mile wilderness in Idaho’s Owyhee canyonlands clear the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee earlier this month.

But when no formal progress from House committee staffers was forthcoming, Simpson said he decided to float amendments of his own that he says address concerns with his original bill, which stalled in the Senate in December 2006.

His proposal involves a total of 497 square miles.

“I don’t know if this is going to fly yet,” Simpson said. “We knew that when they took control of Congress, there would have to be some changes. This comes pretty darn close to addressing those concerns, although we just gave those to staff last week.”

Simpson, who announced the amendments Sunday at a conference sponsored by the Idaho Conservation League at Redfish Lake near Stanley, said he’s also dumping a planned new “Boulder White Clouds Management Area designation,” thought by some to reduce protections and complicate management.

Instead, the territory would either be wilderness or managed as it currently is by the Challis National Forest, the Sawtooth National Forest, the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and the Challis District of the Bureau of Land Management. Some public land managers had feared a new management distinction would undermine their control, Simpson said.

“That was never our intention,” he said. “Now, it’s not an issue because it’s no longer in there.”

The Idaho Conservation League, which has backed Simpson’s plan, is hopeful the proposed amendments will be enough to placate critics in Congress.

Land transfers to Stanley and Custer County for private vacation home development and the management area designation had been “the most volatile pieces of the bill,” said Rick Johnson, the league’s executive director. “I see real reflection on the part of Congressman Simpson that he’s listening to both the criticisms he’s getting at home and informally with the majority back in Washington, D.C., who have made it pretty clear that they have concerns.”

Still, the bill that remains calls for transferring more than 5,500 acres from federal oversight to jurisdictions including Blaine and Custer counties, the towns of Challis, Clayton, Stanley and Mackay and the state of Idaho. These remain sticking points for environmental groups that are fighting Simpson’s plan.

He said these provisions are needed to give communities landlocked within millions of acres of BLM- and Forest Service-managed territory room to grow, build low-income housing, construct waste transfer stations and provide other public services.

Advocacy groups such as the Seattle-based Western Lands Project counter that giving away federal land that belongs to all Americans in exchange for any amount of protected wilderness is no bargain. After reviewing an outline of the amendments, group director Janine Blaeloch called them insignificant.

“Unless this becomes a bill that designates wilderness, period, you cannot make this bill good,” Blaeloch said. “He’s taken away one tiny portion of a bill that has numerous egregious provisions. It’s kind of like leaving somebody a nickel tip.”