House Continues to Work on Lands Package

House Continues to Work on Lands Bill

March 11, 2009.  Widely-supported measure would protect thousands of acres of California wild lands and rivers

The U.S. House of Representatives today fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed to suspend the rules and pass a bill with limited debate, so work continues on the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S. 22). The lands act includes three widely supported measures, which together would protect some 700,000 acres of California wild lands as wilderness and nearly 105 miles of rivers and streams as wild and scenic rivers.

Sam Goldman of The Wilderness Society and coordinator of the California Wild Heritage Campaign, a coalition of over 500 businesses and organizations said, “The California measures in the omnibus lands bill are widely-supported in the community because they will protect forever some of our state’s most precious wild lands and rivers. The rules and procedures of the Congress make passing any bill a challenge, so we look forward to House leaders continuing their work on this bill and to seeing it passed into law as quickly as possible."

The California measures in the bill would protect parts of the San Jacinto Mountains, the Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Mountains, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. It would also protect the Amargosa River in the Mojave Desert. The Riverside and Sequoia-Kings Canyon bills passed the U.S. House of Representatives during the last Congress, and a key Senate committee approved the Eastern Sierra/San Gabriel bill in September.

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