{"id":24562,"date":"2010-12-22T07:41:39","date_gmt":"2010-12-22T14:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=24562"},"modified":"2011-01-05T16:13:56","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T23:13:56","slug":"time-runs-out-on-wilderness-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/12\/time-runs-out-on-wilderness-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Time runs out on wilderness bill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Organ Mountains (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid<\/a> abandoning hopes of passing an omnibus public lands bill during the lame duck session, it appears that securing the permanent wilderness designation for hundreds of thousands of acres in Do\u00f1a Ana County is going to have to wait.<\/p>\n

Some think wilderness supporters have missed what may be their best chance for a long time of winning the federal government\u2019s highest level of protection<\/a> for the land.<\/p>\n

Reid confirmed Tuesday<\/a> that plans for an omnibus public lands bill in the lame duck session of Congress are dead. U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman<\/a>, D-N.M., had hoped to pass such a bill<\/a> and was being pushed to include his Organ Mountains \u2013 Desert Peaks Wilderness Act<\/a> in it.<\/p>\n

Not any more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the short time remaining, the Senate is planning to vote on START, a bill to aid 9\/11 first responders, a continuing resolution to fund the government for a few months, and some judicial nominees,\u201d Bingaman spokeswoman Jude McCartin said Tuesday. \u201cSo at this point, it seems unlikely that the wilderness bill will come up for a vote before Congress adjourns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether Bingaman plans to try again next year, McCartin said he will \u201cgive it some thought in the coming weeks and decide in the new year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some believe wilderness supporters have missed their best chance in a long time to assign the permanent designation to the land in Do\u00f1a Ana County. The current congressman representing the area, Democrat Harry Teague<\/a>, is being replaced in January by Republican Steve Pearce<\/a>, who has not supported designating land in Do\u00f1a Ana County as wilderness in the past.<\/p>\n

And the U.S. House will be controlled by Republicans starting in January.<\/p>\n

Teague was never a proponent of the bill. While he said he supported \u201cefforts to conserve\u201d<\/a> the land, he also said he remained concerned about border security<\/a> despite efforts by Bingaman and Sen. Tom Udall<\/a>, D-N.M., to address such concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wilderness supporters have been fighting for years for legislation that would permanently protect the land in Do\u00f1a Ana County. Much of it already has the temporary wilderness study area<\/a> designation.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting asserted that Pearce \u201copposes wilderness altogether,\u201d but Pearce has not made such a definite statement that NMPolitics.net could locate, so the article has been updated to remove that language.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abandoning hopes of passing an omnibus public lands bill during the lame duck session, it appears that securing the permanent wilderness designation for hundreds of thousands of acres in Do\u00f1a Ana County is going to have to wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[115,147,116],"class_list":["post-24562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-environment","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}