2 million acres up for 'wilderness' designation

WASHINGTON -- Congress is on the brink of barring all development on huge swaths of forest and desert in nine states, in what would be the most sweeping land-protection law in 15 years.

Land-preservation advocates, such as Paul Spitler of the Wilderness Society, say the bill's passage may usher in a new era of wilderness protection.

"We're likely to see new wilderness legislation for years to come," Spitler says. "This is the start of a wave here."

The House of Representatives is set to vote today on a bill to declare more than 2 million acres of public land to be official "wilderness." That means no logging, mining, or vehicles, not even mountain bikes, are allowed.

Passage is "fairly likely," says Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff, whose boss, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, plans to be at the Capitol today to celebrate.

The bill would then go to President Obama.

Some of the land that would receive wilderness status lies within national parks. Other parcels are federal forestland or rangeland that lack stringent protections.

Among the areas that would be protected:

•Idaho's Owyhee Canyonlands, vast prairies cut by deep river canyons.

•Oregon's Mount Hood, including old-growth forests.

•West Virginia's Roaring Plains, a high plateau clothed in spruce groves and bogs.

The approval of the bill would be a boon for backpackers but a disappointment to the millions of Americans who like to see wild places via mountain bike, snowmobile or four-wheel-drive truck, which are all barred from entering wilderness areas.

"We're sick of condos, same as the environmental groups," says Brian Hawthorne of the BlueRibbon Coalition, which backs motorized recreation. "We want to conserve these public lands but we want the recreational uses there to be maintained."

The bill would also place off-limits reserves of oil and gas in a half-dozen wilderness areas, drawing the ire of some congressional Republicans, including Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee.