Not Quiet true.
We dodged the bullet this time. There are more wilderness bills still to come that do include WYO. See below where it says "While the legislation doesn't include any wilderness designations in Wyoming". There are some in other states that are included. It was a hard fought bill. We need to keep fighting the fight.
If your not a member of "Sportsmen for the Wyoming Range" I would join. They were a huge help on getting the Wyoming Range Legacy Act passed that isn't any new wilderness in the Wyoming range but prohibits new oil and gas leasing there. They will help fight for areas other than the Wyoming Range.
Not only is the Wyoming and Salt River ranges in jeopardy of wilderness. The Sierra Madras, Snowies, Bighorns, Absorkies and some others not listed are slated to add to established wilderness.
Now more than ever we need to voice our concerns of wilderness. Not just in Wyoming. Anywhere more wilderness is proposed
http://wyomingrangesportsmen.org/homepage.php
WASHINGTON -- For the second time this year, the Senate has passed a long-delayed bill that includes measures to limit further oil and gas leasing in the Wyoming Range and designate the Snake River headwaters as "wild and scenic."
The bill also would set aside more than 2 million acres in nine other states as protected wilderness, from a California mountain range to a forest in Virginia.
The 77-20 vote on Thursday sends the bill to the House, where final legislative approval could come as early as next week.
The Senate first approved the measure in January, but the House rejected it last week amid a partisan dispute over gun rights. The gun issue was not raised during Senate debate.
The legislation is a package of nearly 170 separate bills. It also includes federal compensation to ranchers for wolf-killed livestock.
Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., voted for the bill Thursday. Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., voted against the bill last week in the House last week and has continued to express concern about the omnibus bill.
Barrasso said he disagreed with the way the 170 bills were bundled together, but felt it was important to support the Wyoming measures.
"I am proud that proposals generated by folks in Wyoming have today passed the U.S. Senate," Barrasso said. "This is the direct result of people working together in their communities."
The bill would prohibit any new oil and gas leasing, mining patents or geothermal leasing in a 100-mile-long stretch of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in western Wyoming. It would also protect 387 miles of rivers and streams in the Snake River drainage under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
The Wyoming measures have the support of conservation organizations, sporting groups, and union and trade organizations, as well as Gov. Dave Freudenthal. Oil and gas industry groups oppose the Wyoming Range measure.
While the legislation doesn't include any wilderness designations in Wyoming, it would confer the government's highest level of protection on land ranging from California's Sierra Nevada mountain range and Oregon's Mount Hood to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and parts of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia.
Land in Idaho's Owyhee canyons, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan and Zion National Park in Utah also would win designation as wilderness. The proposals would expand wilderness designation -- which blocks nearly all development -- into areas that now are not protected.
Supporters called the legislation among the most important conservation bills debated in Congress in decades.
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, hailed the Idaho provision, which he has been seeking for eight years. The bill represents a compromise among a host of competing groups that have long disagreed over how to manage the rugged canyonland in southwestern Idaho.
"The people who worked on the Owyhee Initiative came from many groups and institutions that historically were battling head-to-head and instead were willing to work through things in a way that sets a tremendous example for how we should approach land management decisions and conflicts in this nation," Crapo said.
Lawmakers from both parties told similar tales in other states, praising the bill as a hard-fought compromise.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has battled Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., for months over the lands bill, said he was pleased the Senate was finally able to pass it on a bipartisan basis. Reid called the bill important to his home state, Nevada, and to the nation.
Coburn held up the bill's passage last year and again this year, arguing that it was unnecessary and would block energy development on millions of acres of federal land. The bill moved forward this week after Coburn was allowed to submit six amendments for approval. Five were defeated.
A sixth provision, softening a provision to impose criminal penalties for collecting some fossilized rocks on federal land, was included in the final bill.
Because of a parliamentary maneuver adopted in the Senate, the House is expected to take up the bill under a rule that blocks amendments or other motions to derail it. Republicans used the threat of an amendment to allow loaded guns in national parks to defeat the wilderness bill last week.
