 Lone Pine Peak is one of countless scenic wonders slated for protection in the controversial Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act, part of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which has been added to H.R. 146, the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act. The whole package heads back to the House for a final vote perhaps next week. Photo © Andy Selters By Darcy Ellis
Editor
3-21-2009 A Senate vote of 77-20 on Thursday pushed the latest incarnation of the controversial Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 one step closer to final approval.
The legislation, which includes almost 170 separate bills that would grant wilderness designation for more than 2 million acres of public lands around the nation, is now headed back to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote expected to take place some time next week.
“Today’s action clears the most significant hurdle to protecting some of the country’s most cherished landscapes. This legislation is the most important conservation measure in a decade,” Paul Spitler, the National Wilderness Campaign’s associate director for The Wilderness Society, said Thursday. “The Senate shows great vision in making this bill a priority. These wonderful landscapes are under tremendous pressure, and their value to local communities and to all Americans who treasure our natural heritage will remain long after the country has recovered from the economic crisis.”
Included in the omnibus is the Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act, which aims to designate 450,000 acres as Wilderness and 73 miles of river as Wild and Scenic in the Eastern Sierra and near Santa Clarita, including the White Mountains.
Only last week, the legislation failed to pass the House during a suspension vote – similar to a consent agenda item that is voted on without discussion or debate – when it fell two votes short of the needed two-thirds majority.
It was that failure, according to reports, that prompted legislators to consolidate the omnibus lands bill with H.R. 146, the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act, in an effort to get the legislation passed.
Since H.R. 146 is a House-passed bill, the amended omnibus package needed to go back to the Senate for approval in its new form, even though the lands portion was already approved in the Senate on Jan. 15.
“Both houses have to pass the bill in the same manner,” said Bob Haueter, deputy chief of staff for Congressman Buck McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), co-sponsor of the Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act.
According to Haueter, lawmakers approved two amendments to the omnibus lands legislation while it was in the Senate. The House, he added, is amenable to both of the changes or clarifications.
“Both of those were an anticipated part of the process of going back to the Senate,” Haueter said.
One of the amendments appears to be in direct response to pressure from the National Rifle Association as the result of claims made by the Gun Owners of America.
News reports indicate that when the lands bill failed the suspension vote on March 11, the GOA characterized the defeat as a victory for the Second Amendment, even though the vote or lack thereof reportedly had nothing to do with guns or gun rights.
The media ran with the GOA reports, making Congress uncomfortable with a Second Amendment issue at hand – however real or fabricated. The result – aside from combining wilderness bills with battleground preservation legislation – was the “Altmire Amendment,” sponsored by Congressman Jason Altmire (a Democrat representing Pennsylvania’s Fourth District).
The amendment ensures the bill does not in any way limit access for hunting, fishing, trapping or recreational shooting on lands included in the legislation.
“This takes care of a lot of the opposition from the NRA,” Haueter said.
The other amendment, one of six submitted for approval by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), will protect National Park visitors and scientists from criminal penalties for taking stones that may contain “insignificant fossils.”
Coburn held up the act’s passage last year by refusing to allow the Senate to act on many of the component bills without debate and floor amendments and Democratic leaders eventually ran out of time when they tried to pass the legislation. Coburn, who has argued that the bill is unnecessary and would block energy development on millions of acres of federally managed public land, was allowed to offer six amendments this week as part of a deal struck with Senate leaders.
Other than those changes, the lands portion of the current legislation remains intact as it heads back to the House for what is known as a “simple majority” – 218 yes votes. The legislation received 282 house votes on March 11.
“Mr. McKeon is very excited about the prospect of the bill coming back to the House now,” Haueter said, and is “very hopeful we’ll be able to achieve passage.”
Also “hopeful” is Eastern Sierra-based Wilderness Society representative Sally Miller, who, along with dozens of other local residents, helped craft the legislation so close to final approval.
“I think this bill represents so many years of hard work by so many local people and hopefully we can soon all work together to implement the provisions of this bill,” she said.
Miller was quick to give much credit to the bill’s success thus far to the rare, bipartisan partnership that gave it life and shepherded it through the House and Senate.
It took “a lot of hard work and a lot of courage” for sponsors McKeon, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) to seek out a “compromise that meets a variety of needs,” Miller said. “We’re very grateful to them for their leadership.”
According to Miller, because of their dedication to compromise, and willingness to listen to constituents who were willing to communicate their concerns and provide other helpful feedback, the legislation now headed for the House is “a good, balanced product.”
For McKeon, according to Haueter, it was a matter of putting aside politics for the good of the land and constituents.
“Mr. McKeon maybe agrees with Boxer on 10 percent of the things done in Washington,” he said.
But throughout the course of the bill’s life, and changes in power in both the House and Senate and the White House, the two stuck by one another.
Particularly after the last administration change, Boxer could have abandoned the bipartisan effort altogether, along with the concessions she’s made along the way for McKeon, Haueter said.
“But she reached out again and said, ‘A deal’s a deal,’” he explained.
And that “deal” might not have everyone happy today, but that’s par for the course with compromise.
“They say when everybody walks away feeling they didn’t get everything they wanted, then that’s a pretty good compromise,” Haueter said.
Some critics may be beyond accepting compromise.
The Eastern Sierra’s Advocates for Access to Public Lands have been outspoken in their opposition to the wilderness bill from the beginning – primarily because of members’ belief that the lands contained in the legislation do not qualify as true wilderness.
The group as of late has objected to the bill’s inclusion in omnibus legislation as a tactic for passage.
AAPL President Greg Weirick was not surprised Thursday that the package had passed the Senate vote.
“We anticipated this moving through the Senate,” he said. “AAPL and the Blue Ribbon Coalition have put out alerts asking people to contact their senators and congressmen and other elected officials to oppose this not only because of the flaws in it but also because of our feelings on omnibus bills in general … The Omnibus Stimulus Bill is a classic example … It’s bad government. Lawmakers don’t even read them.”
Omnibus bills, Weirick said, are patchwork legislation cobbled together to ensure “everybody gets a piece of the pie.
“(Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid did a fine job of reaching out and grabbing controversial legislation from across the board and finding support for it,” Weirick said.
Should that controversial legislation find the needed support in the House for approval, all that’s needed to enact the bill is President Obama’s signature.
For more information on H.R. 146, visit http://thomas.loc.gov/.
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