Big land-use markup in store for Senate panel
Four dozen public lands, national forests, water and historical bills
are slated for markup in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee this Wednesday, along with votes on nominees for two
senior-level positions in the Energy and Interior departments.
About a third of the bills have already been cleared by the House,
while the rest are Senate proposals that have been considered by
different subcommittees over the last several months as part of a
concentrated effort by the committee to address its legislative
backlog.
Last month, the full Senate cleared a public lands package from the
committee that contained 62 different land-use, wilderness and water
proposals, and Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) promised more would be
on the way before the end of the year.
Most of the bills are likely to be adopted en bloc by voice vote, but
committee spokesman Bill Wicker said a handful of the bills could face
debate and possible amendments.
The two nominees should head to the full Senate by the committee
without much of a problem. Both have been serving in their proposed
jobs on an acting basis for months, and committee leaders said last
week they would urge the full Senate to expedite their confirmations.
Jeffrey Kupfer is nominated to be DOE’s
deputy secretary, the No. 2 position at the department. Kupfer is
serving on an acting basis, replacing Clay Sell, who left the
department at the end of February.
Kameran Onley, if confirmed, would become assistant Interior secretary
for water and science. She has been in that position since July, while
also serving as assistant deputy secretary since January 2006.
Some of the more noteworthy items up for consideration include S.
2833, from Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). The bill would designate more
than 517,000 acres in the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands of southwestern
Idaho as wilderness and nearly 315 miles of river as wild and scenic.
It would establish a science review to address management issues of
rangelands in Owyhee County and closes 200 miles of roads and routes
near the proposed wilderness areas to motorized vehicle use except in
emergencies.
In exchange, about 190,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management lands
treated as potential wilderness would be subject to “soft release,”
opening the door to multiple uses including off-road vehicle use and
grazing, following Bureau of Land Management land-use evaluations. The
bill also provides for the sale or trade of private inholdings within
these proposed wilderness areas.
A previous version of the bill failed in the 109th Congress, following
objections from environmental groups and some lawmakers who said the
measures were flawed and should be abandoned until after the 2006
elections. Several of those groups now support the new initiative.
Support is also strong for S. 2593, which would establish a
collaborative and science-based forest landscape restoration program
that would prioritize and fund ecological restoration treatments.
Claiming that overaggressive fire suppression and development have
impaired forest landscapes across the country, sponsors say the bill
would lead to an overall reduction of wildfire management costs by
focusing funding on collaborative, sustainable projects that would
offer the greatest protections against devastating wildfires.
Federal land managers would work with state and local authorities to
identify parcels of at least 50,000 acres comprised mostly of national
forest lands that need active ecosystem restoration. The projects must
include several stakeholders representing multiple interests.
Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell told the committee last month that
the bill would work well in concert with the agency’s current efforts
and the ecosystem services demonstration projects included in the
president’s fiscal 2009 budget proposal.
The administration also supports S. 2229, a bill from Wyoming
Republican Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso that would withdraw 1.2
million acres of the Wyoming Range – part of the Bridger Teton
National Forest that sits south of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton
National Park – from future energy development and would prohibit new
oil and gas leasing on the land.
The legislation would provide a buy-out process for current
leaseholders and would permit the remaining leases to be voluntarily
purchased by conservation groups and other entities to retire the
leases.
Forest Service and BLM officials told the
Senate Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee that although their
agencies support the bill, they have concerns such as the potential
effect the bill would have on the nation’s energy resources and on the
individual rights of current leaseholders in the area. Wilderness,
wildlife and public lands
Several other bills up for consideration Wednesday would also protect
thousands of acres of land from future development, and while the
administration has been generally supportive of most protection bills,
some could see amendments or substitute versions introduced because of
specific concerns.
S. 1380 would designate parts of the Rocky Mountain National Park as
wilderness and to adjust the boundaries of the Indian Peaks Wilderness
and Arapaho National Recreation Area in Colorado’s Arapaho National
Forest.
An NPS official told the committee last year
that the Bush administration could not support the bill as written
because of a provision that would lessen a water company’s liability
for damage to the park caused by use of their right-of-way, which has
been in place since 1907.
S. 390 would trade about 40,000 acres of BLM
lands in Utah for 42,000 acres of environmentally sensitive state
lands, many of which have wilderness characteristics. The state lands
are managed under the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands
Administration, a state agency charged with managing lands and mineral
estates to fund public schools.
S. 570 would create several new wilderness areas in Virginia’s
Jefferson National Forest as well as designate 11,000 acres as
national scenic areas.
The Seng Mountain and Bear Creek national scenic areas would protect
recreational, historic and natural resources in Smyth County, while
allowing limited motorized access, something prohibited in wilderness
areas. The bill directs the Forest Service to develop trail plans in
those areas, joining an extensive network of trails already there,
including more than four miles of the Appalachian National Scenic
Trail.
Like its House companion that passed last fall, the bill would
designate 349 acres in the Kimberling Creek area as “potential
wilderness.”
S. 868 would designate 40 miles of the Taunton River as wild and
scenic, from the headwaters all the way to Mount Hope Bay in Fall
River, Mass., the site of a proposed LNG
terminal.
Weaver’s Cove Energy is seeking to build the
LNG terminal and has the approval of the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, although the Coast Guard last
year determined the Massachusetts and Rhode Island waterways are
unsafe for the transport of LNG to the Fall
River terminal.
H.R. 5151 would add about 37,000 acres of wilderness West Virginia’s
Monongahela National Forest through expansions of the Dolly Sods,
Cranberry and Otter Creek wilderness areas as well as protecting three
new wilderness areas across the forest. The bill cleared the House
last month.
S. 2379 would authorize the cancellation of certain grazing leases on
land in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon, to provide for
the exchange of certain monument land in exchange for private land, to
designate certain monument land as wilderness.
H.R. 523 would require the secretary of the Interior to convey certain
public land located wholly or partially within the boundaries of the
Wells Hydroelectric Project of Public Utility District No. 1 of
Douglas County, Wash., to the utility district.
H.R. 2515 would authorize funding for the Lower Colorado River
multispecies conservation program. The 50-year plan is designed to
save 27 species by restoring wildlife habitat. Covering a 400-mile
stretch of the river, the program aims to create more than 8,100 acres
of riparian, marsh and backwater habitat for six federally protected
species and 20 others native to the river system.
S. 1281 would designate certain rivers and streams of the headwaters
of the Snake River System as additions to the National Wild and Scenic
Rivers System.
S. 832 would to provide for the sale of approximately 25 acres of
public land to the Turnabout Ranch in Escalante, Utah.
S. 900 would authorize the Boy Scouts of America to exchange certain
land in Utah acquired under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act.
S. 2124 would convey land in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest
to Jefferson County, Mont., for use as a cemetery. New parks, trails
and historical areas
A large bulk of the bills are proposals for national parks and other
protected lands, along with some historical designations.
H.R. 189 would establish a national historical park in the Great Falls
area of Paterson, N.J.
The park would recognize and preserve Alexander Hamilton’s
breakthroughs in industrial production by incorporating the Pierre
L’Enfant-designed, Hamilton-commissioned water power system at the
Passaic Great Falls into the park system. It would also lay claim to
the nearby Hinchliffe Stadium, the host of historic Negro League
baseball games.
The administration opposes the proposals because for a historical area
to become part of NPS, there must be a
demonstrated need for the federal agency to take over. One official
told lawmakers that preliminary results of
NPS’s feasibility study for the park have
concluded the site does not need NPS
management and that the designation relies too heavily on private
donations for funding.
H.R. 1528 would create a 220-mile national historic trail in
Connecticut and Massachusetts.
The New England National Scenic Trail, which would be the ninth
federal scenic trail and the first designated since 1983, would extend
from Long Island Sound in Guilford, Conn., to Royalston, Mass., at the
Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. The bill passed the House in
January with the administration’s support.
H.R. 3998 is an omnibus public lands bill authorizing 10 studies of
potential national parks or trails including a national trail
alongside the Mississippi River from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.
Also in the bill is a study of historic areas in Matewan, W.Va., site
of a famed 1920 clash involving mine union organizers, local law
enforcement and armed Baldwin-Felts detectives hired by mining
companies that left at least 10 dead.
Elsewhere, the bill would direct studies of the Rim of the Valley
Corridor in California’s Santa Monica Mountains, the Harry S. Truman
Birthplace State Historic Site, in Lamar, Mo., and the site of the
Battle of Camden in South Carolina. The House cleared the bill last
December.
S. 617 would make the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands
Pass available for $10 to any honorably discharged veteran.
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) attempted to included an amended version of
his bill during the last major markup the committee had in January,
but it was pulled amid concerns it would violate the Federal Lands
Recreation Enhancement passed in the 108th Congress.
S. 2262, to authorize the Preserve America Program and Save America’s
Treasures Program.
President Clinton created Save America’s Treasures via executive order
in 1998, providing 50/50 matching grants from the Historic
Preservation Fund to eligible recipients to restore historic artifacts
and structures. Over the last 10 years, the program has handed out
more than 1,000 grants amounting to almost $290 million, including a
$350,000 grant to restore the home of Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich.
First chaired by then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is now
chaired by First Lady Laura Bush, who is also the head of the Preserve
America program.
President Bush created Preserve America by executive order in 2003.
The program is intended to boost federal stewardship of historic
properties and advocate for their recognition as national assets.
S. 662 would authorize Interior to evaluate resources at the Harriet
Beecher Stowe House in Brunswick, Maine, to determine the suitability
and feasibility of establishing the site as a unit of
NPS.
H.R. 3332 would provide for the establishment of a memorial within
Hawaii’s Kalaupapa National Historical Park to honor and perpetuate
the memory of those individuals who were forcibly relocated to the
Kalaupapa Peninsula from 1866 to 1969.
S. 783 would adjust the boundary of the Barataria Preserve Unit of the
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Louisiana.
S. 1633 would authorize a special resource study to determine the
suitability and feasibility of including the battlefield and related
sites of the Battle of Shepherdstown in Shepherdstown, W.Va., as part
of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park or Antietam National
Battlefield.
S. 2207 would authorize a study of the suitability and feasibility of
designating Green McAdoo School in Clinton, Tenn., as a unit of the
National Park System.
S. 2513 would modify the boundary of the Minute Man National
Historical Park in Massachusetts.
H.R. 2197 would modify the boundary of the Hopewell Culture National
Historical Park in Ohio.
H.R. 2627 would establish the Thomas Edison National Historical Park
in New Jersey as the successor to the Edison National Historic Site.
S. 2804 would adjust the boundary of the Everglades National Park to
include the Tarpon Basin property. The property contains habitat for
the wood stork and the West Indian manatee, both of which are listed
as endangered species. It also includes approximately 10 acres of
subtropical hardwood hammock, found only in South Florida and the
Florida Keys.
H.R. 1285 would convey National Forest System land in Kittitas County,
Wash., to facilitate the construction of a new fire and rescue
station.
H.R. 1311 would both convey the Alta-Hualapai Site in Nevada to the
city of Las Vegas for the development of a cancer treatment facility.
Heritage areas
The committee will also take up several heritage area proposals that
despite popular support among lawmakers, the administration opposes
because Congress has yet to pass legislation on how to manage them.
One of the heritage area bills up for consideration is H.R. 1483. The
House-passed bill would create six new national heritage areas,
including one that would surround the entire city of Tucson, Ariz.,
and extend the funding authorization for nine others.
Proposals in the bill include the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage
Area, the Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area in Alabama, the Journey
Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area through historic
battlefields in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Another heritage area on tap is S. 827. The heritage area would
encompass 36 communities in Massachusetts and eight communities in New
Hampshire that have significance to U.S. history.
Two bills from Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) are S. 2512, to establish
the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, and S. 2254, to
establish the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area.
S. 2604 would establish the Baltimore National Heritage Area. Water
and reclamation projects
Numerous water bills are scheduled for markup, many of which the
administration has had concerns about or has rejected outright.
S. 2814 would authorize Interior to provide financial assistance to
the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Authority for the planning, design
and construction of a rural water system.
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Robert Johnson said last month that
the administration did not support the project due to the high federal
cost-share. The administration was “concerned about becoming the
primary source of funding for this type of project,” he said.
H.R. 1725 would authorize the secretary to participate in the Rancho
California Water District Southern Riverside County Recycled
Non-Potable Distribution Facilities and Demineralization Desalination
Recycled Water Treatment and Reclamation Facility Project. The
administration claims the federal cost-share in the project is too
high to be supported.
The administration also has objections to H.R. 2381, which would
promote Interior efforts to provide scientific basis for the
management of sediment and nutrient loss in the Upper Mississippi
River Basin, due to concerns it would duplicate existing federal
programs.
S. 27 authorizes $217 million in direct spending for the
implementation of the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement.
S. 1171 would amend the Colorado River Storage Protect Act and Public
Law 87-483 to authorize the construction and rehabilitation of water
infrastructure in Northwestern New Mexico and other purposes.
S. 1477 would authorize the rehabilitation of Colorado’s Jackson
Gulch.
S. 1929 would authorize Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation to
study water augmentation alternatives in the Sierra Vista Subwatershed
in Arizona.
S. 2370 would clear title to certain property in New Mexico associated
with the Middle Rio Grande Project.
H.R. 123 would ensure that once $85 million in federal funds is
appropriated for the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority and the
Central Basin Municipal Water District the money would be subject to a
35 percent non-federal matching requirement from each entity.
H.R. 356 would remove certain restrictions on the Mammoth Community
Water District’s ability to use certain property acquired by that
District from the United States.
H.R. 1855 would authorize Interior and the
BLM to enter into a cooperative agreement
with the Madera Irrigation District for purposes of supporting the
Madera Water Supply Enhancement Project.
H.R. 2085 would authorize the secretary of the Interior to convey to
the McGee Creek Authority certain facilities of the McGee Creek
Project.