Congress Expected To Approve Northwest Wilderness Bill
Portland, OR March 23, 2009 9:45 a.m.
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DiscussCongress is poised this week to approve a massive expansion of federally protected Northwest wilderness and rivers, after years of effort. Rob Manning reports.
Environmental advocates and congressional staffers say that Tuesday, a majority in the US House of Representatives will pass what’s often called just the “lands bill.”
It puts wilderness protections over 128,000 acres around Mount Hood and a half million acres along two river canyons in Idaho.
And in between, the bill would create the Soda Mountain Wilderness area near the California border*, as well as the Spring Basin Wilderness along the John Day River.
Very similar bills have passed the House in years past, but the most recent attempt this month fell short.
That’s because majority Democrats wanted to force the bill through without amendments, and they fell short of the two-thirds majority they needed.
This time, the Senate attached the lands’ bill to a different bill - one that has already passed the House - so the House can pass the bill with a simple majority and no amendments.
* = In the on-air version of this story, OPB mistakenly identified where the Soda Mountain Wilderness is. That error has been corrected here.
© 2009 OPB
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