From National Parks Traveler:
Senate Passes Extensive Public Lands Bill, Which Now Heads To House
By Kurt Repanshek on February 12th, 2019
Death Valley (above), Joshua Tree, and the Mojave National Preserve stand to grow a bit under legislation passed by the U.S. Senate/NPS
Strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate has reauthorized the Land and Water Conservation Fund, protected Yellowstone and North Cascades national parks from mining on their doorsteps, designated some 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and called for a study into potential units of the National Park System, though the House of Representatives still needs to take up the measure.
“Today marks an overdue but critical victory for America’s most important conservation funding program and for protecting our wild lands," said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society following the Senate's vote on the measure Tuesday. "It’s encouraging to see the new Congress immediately moving bipartisan legislation that conserves our land and water for now and for future generations."
The nearly 700-page bill, called the Natural Resources Management Act, was passed on a 92-8 vote.
"We are one step closer to adding over 2 million acres of parks, wilderness, and conservation lands into protected status," said Kristen Brengel, vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. "We will also better tell America’s story with six new National Heritage Areas and two new national monuments managed by NPS."
The Land and Water Conservation Fund, created in 1964, "allows the National Park Service and other federal land agencies to purchase lands within the borders of federally protected areas from landowners when they are offered for sale," Deny Galvin, a former deputy director of the National Park Service, wrote back in 2015. "Without these funds, the land is more likely to be sold to the highest bidder, risking damaging construction projects ranging from sub-developments to strip malls to resorts."
The legislation contains quite a few items for the National Park System. If approved by the House and signed by President Trump, it would, among other things:
* Provide permanent protection against new mining claims on lands including the doorstep of Yellowstone and North Cascades national parks;
* Expand both Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks in California;
* Create a national monument honoring civil rights icon Medgar Evers in Mississippi;
* Create a Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument in Kentucky;
* Redesignate Ocmulgee Mounds National Monument in Georgia as a national historical park;
* Redesignate Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in New Hampshire as national historical park;
* Redesignate Golden Spike National Historic Site in Utah as a national historical park, and;
* Expand Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee by adding battlefields at Davis Bridge and Fallen Timbers in Tennessee, and Russell House in Tennessee and Mississippi to Shiloh.
"The Senate’s action today, including protecting two million acres of national park and other public lands, is further proof that these issues can, and should, be bipartisan,” said Theresa Pierno, NPCA's president and CEO.
Wilderness designations called for in the measure include:
* Emery County wilderness, UT 661,200 acres
* California Desert wilderness, CA 375,500 acres
* Organ Mountain Desert Peaks wilderness, NM 241,500 acres
* Cerros del Norte wilderness, NM 22,000 acres
* San Juan County wilderness, NM 9,400 acres
* Devil’s Staircase wilderness, OR 30,600 acres
More than 620 miles of additions to the Wild and Scenic Rivers System include:
* Green River, UT 63 miles
* Lower Farmington additions, CT 62 miles
* Wood-Pawcatuck, RI 110 miles
* Nashua, MA and NH 53 miles
* Franklin Creek, Wasson Creek, Molalla, Elk Creek, OR 256 miles
* California Desert 77 miles
Additions to the National Trails System include:
* North Country National Scenic Trail extension 1,400 miles
* Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail extension 1,200 miles
National park additions include:
* California (Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Mojave) 39,835 acres
* Georgia (Ocmulgee Mounds, Kennesaw, Fort Frederica) 2,163 acres
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