Wilderness/Roadless
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Just when it looked like the long fight (20 years) over the Rock Creek mine under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in NW Montana (grizzly bear habitat) would finally end with the mines’ approval, Governor Brian Schweitzer stepped in. He said Montana will not issue a permit for the mines unless they can prove the underground…
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Editorial on roadless areas by the Denver Post. This is a fairly good editorial, but I want to point out that battling over these areas will never really end because the bastards keep coming back with their subsidized, destructive, nature-hating proposals. These people just have bad values. Keeping the outdoors in intact will always require…
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I had meant to discuss this too, but KT just posted a detailed comment on the awful White Pine County, NV lands bill that did pass. This measure, which was attached to the omnibus bill, designates over 500,000 acres of scenic desert mountains as Wilderness, but outside the Wilderness it is privatization of our public…
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This Congress finally died (adjourned sine die) after passing a massive bill full of good, bad, and mixed, but almost entirely unrelated matters–“Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006”. Among the good items was a legislative ban on new oil and gas leasing along the 100 mile long Rocky Mountain Front to the south…
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Idaho Senator Larry Craig and second district Idaho Representative Mike Simpson are feuding over CIEDRA and the Owyhee Initiative. Craig came up with a last minute insistence on money to fund the buyouts in the measures, which he knew would kill them because Congress couldn’t even pass a budget this year. I’ve been telling every…
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Perhaps the worst of the crop of “wilderness with side payment” bills is dead, although this one is a more straight forward development and privatization bill with a thin veneer of wilderness. I won’t give the details because they have been hashed out earlier in this blog. US House blocks Washington County [Utah] lands bill.…
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Randy Stapilus is a keen observer of Idaho and Pacific Northwest politics. His blog has a view on the prospects for CIEDRA in the next Congress. Tougher odds next time? Ridenbaugh Press It should be noted that it was Idaho’s Senator Larry Craig who ended up killing the bill, as I predicted he would some…
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Both CIEDRA and the Owyhee Initiative are probably stuck and will die in this Congress due to the failure of the current “lame duck” session to take them up in the short period of time available. Both bills have been very controversial with many conservation groups calling them “too weak” and with too many “giveaways.”…