A Landmark Victory
The fourth time was the charm for the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, the most important conservation bill that Congress has passed in many years. This package protects nearly two million acres of wilderness and a thousand miles of wild and scenic rivers, including special places in the White Mountains and Sierra Nevada (CA), Rocky Mountain National Park (CO), Owyhee Canyonlands (ID), Mount Hood (OR), Blue Ridge Mountains (VA), and Monongahela National Forest (WV).
The legislation also formally codifies the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) into law, helping ensure sound management of the scenic, wildlife, and archaeological resources on our best BLM multi-use lands. It protects 1.2 million acres of the Wyoming Range from oil and gas development, establishes new conservation areas, national historic and scenic trails, and three national parks.
Even though the bill enjoyed broad bipartisan support, Rob Bishop (UT) and Doc Hastings (WA) rallied enough GOP opposition to block its passage under a House suspension vote that required two-thirds of those voting to be in favor. Clever parliamentary maneuvering overcame the obstruction. The bill overwhelmingly passed the House with the support of 38 Republicans.* Representatives Mary Bono Mack (CA) and Mike Simpson (ID) deserve thanks for working hard to rally GOP support.
In the Senate, the bill passed with a majority of GOP votes (21).* Senators Lisa Murkowski (AK) and John Barrasso (WY) deserve thanks for defending the bill and helping garner Republican votes.
President Obama signed the bill into law on March 30.
For a full list of the Republicans who voted for the omnibus lands bill, see REP’s press release on passage.
REP staff, board and state leaders had pushed for three years to bring in all those GOP votes. We can pat ourselves on the back and count it among our top accomplishments.
REP Called It
Sometimes being right is no cause to celebrate.
During last year’s presidential race, REP touted John McCain’s pledge to end the practice of mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining, which Barack Obama had not promised. We believed his hesitation was due to the influence of West Virginia’s powerful pro-MTR Democrats, Congressman Nick Rahall and Senator Robert Byrd. Other environmental groups were so busy promoting Obama and attacking McCain that our concern—possibly viewed as partisan carping —failed to gain any traction.
That changed when Obama’s EPA announced in May that it would grant permits for 42 of 48 MTR projects. That drew quick criticism from many environmental groups, including those that had supported Obama.
Obama’s EPA defended its decision by claiming that MTR mining—the tops of mountains are blown off and the debris is dumped into streams—has little environmental impact.
That claim was followed in June by an administration announcement of an interagency plan to reduce the impacts of MTR through better enforcement of current laws and a more comprehensive permitting process. This was not good news, since it showed that Obama plans to allow the practice to continue.
Joan Mulhern, Senior Legislative Counsel for Earthjustice, wrote in a press release:
“The questions for the administration are: will they stop the destruction caused by mountaintop removal or not? Will they follow the Bush administration’s policies of allowing enormous piles of waste to be dumped into streams, forever burying them, or not?”
A Los Angeles Times story on the administration’s MTR policies may have provided the answer:
“Although environmentalists had expected the new administration to put the brakes on mountaintop removal, Rahall and other mining advocates have pointed out that Obama did not promise to end the practice and was more open to it than his Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain.”
Where have we heard that before?
