Sacramento Bee
Published February 17, 2005

Schwarzenegger, Senate panel endorse wilderness bill

By David Whitney

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed a North Coast California wilderness bill that swiftly cleared a Senate committee Wednesday, and proponents said they hope the legislation now has the momentum to be enacted into law.

The legislation sponsored by Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, the state's two Democratic senators, and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, in the House, would designate more than 300,000 acres of federal lands as protected wilderness.

"This bill protects the natural beauty that is at the heart of California's identity," Boxer said of the bill.

The Bureau of Land Management has said that some of the lands, including some 41,614 acres in the Kings Range National Conservation Area, is so spectacular that it would become the "crown jewel" of the agency's wilderness system.

The bill would designate as wilderness nearly 110,000 acres in the Mendocino National Forest and more than 85,000 acres in the Six Rivers National Forest. In addition to the Kings Range lands, nearly 80,000 acres of other BLM lands would be included, including 51,790 in the Yuki Wilderness area.

The measure also would protect 21 miles of the Black Butte River as part of the Wild and Scenic Rivers system.

Last year the legislation was approved by the Senate but died in the House, where it never budged in the House Resources Committee despite a pledge by the panel's chairman, Republican Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy, Calif., that it would get a hearing.

Mike Christman, secretary for resources in the Schwarzenegger administration, said in a Feb. 14 letter to Pombo that the Resources Committee should "act on this bipartisan legislative measure at its earliest convenience."

"The state of California strongly supports this proposed legislation," Christman said.

In an interview, Thompson said he has had discussions with Pombo this week about scheduling House hearings on the bill, and he is hopeful they will be held soon.

"There will be some opposition to this bill," Thompson said. "There are some folks who just don't believe in wilderness bills."

But Thompson said that all of the lands in the bill are in his congressional district and that the bill has been endorsed by timber companies, farmers, homebuilders and other stakeholders. All of the lands already are owned by the federal government, and no existing legal roads will be closed as a result of the legislation.

"This bill is very consistent with reasonable guidelines for wilderness legislation," Thompson said.

The speed with which it cleared the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday buttressed Thompson's views. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, generally a wilderness skeptic, praised the high level of cooperation that had gone into writing the bill.

"The fact that this bill passed the Senate unanimously last year and now has passed so quickly in the new Congress is an indication of a very agreeable bill," said Jon Owen of the Campaign for America's Wilderness.

Brian Kennedy, spokesman for the House Resources Committee, said Pombo is working to find time on the committee's calendar for hearings.

"It will be sooner rather than later," Kennedy said.

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