Truly surprising legislation

The Senate on Tuesday passed the most sweeping conservation legislation in a decade, protecting millions of acres of land and hundreds of miles of wild rivers across the country and establishing four new national monuments honoring heroes including Civil War soldiers and a civil rights icon.

The 662-page measure, which passed 92 to 8, represented an old-fashioned approach to dealmaking that has largely disappeared on Capitol Hill. Senators from across the ideological spectrum celebrated home-state gains and congratulated each other for bridging the partisan divide.

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It’s a paradoxical win for conservation at a time when President Trump has promoted development on public lands and scaled back safeguards established by his predecessors.

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The lower chamber is poised to take it up after the mid-February recess, and White House officials have indicated privately that the president will sign it.

  WaPo

Unless somebody who wants to plunder all the public land gets to him first.

The measure protects 1.3 million acres as wilderness, the nation’s most stringent protection, which prohibits even roads and motorized vehicles. It permanently withdraws more than 370,000 acres of land from mining around two national parks, including Yellowstone, and permanently authorizes a program to spend offshore-drilling revenue on conservation efforts.

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Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who co-authored the bill, inserted a provision that allows native Alaskans who served in Vietnam to apply for a land allotment in their home state.

Luckily we don't have to worry that Trump might actually read the bill.

The legislation establishes four new monuments, including the Mississippi home of civil rights activists Medgar and Myrlie Evers and the Mill Springs Battlefield in Kentucky, home to the decisive first Union victory in the Civil War.

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Perhaps the most significant change the legislation would make is permanently authorizing a federal program that funnels offshore drilling revenue to conserve a spread of sites that includes major national parks and wildlife preserves, as well as local baseball diamonds and basketball courts. Authorization for the popular program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), lapsed months ago due to the partial government shutdown and other disputes. Liberals like the fact that the money allows agencies to set aside land for wildlife habitat. Conservatives like the fact that taxpayers don’t have to foot the bill for it.

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Congressional funding for the program has “fluctuated widely” since its inception in 1965, according to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report. Less than half of the $40 billion that has piled up in the fund during its five decades of existence has been spent by Congress on conservation efforts.

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The measure also expands the boundaries of more than a half-dozen national parks and adds three units, including two Civil War sites in Kentucky, the Mill Springs Battlefield and Camp Nelson.

The package adds acreage to Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks while protecting 350,000 acres of public lands between Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley, increasing the connectivity of the three sites.

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[I]t makes all federal lands open to hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting unless otherwise specified.

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The public lands package would also protect nearly 620 miles of rivers across seven states from damming and other development, often delegating management of the waterways to local authorities.

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The bill reauthorizes and funds the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act through 2022, which provides habitat protection for more than 380 bird species, and codifies a signature program of President Barack Obama’s. That program, the Every Kid Outdoors Act, allows U.S. fourth-graders and their families to visit national parks free.

Definitely lucky he won't read it.