Legislature passed Wilderness for Boulder White Clouds; on to Obama! (Challis: houses, campers)
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Wilderness is much better, period. It's the only way to keep the wild wild in perpetuity.
Simpson's bill was masterful. It expanded our protected wilderness by 265,000 acres, securing the area that is the most beautiful to be found in the nation, while also protecting the privately owned lands within the area, securing the trails used by mountain bikers, ATV users, snowmobile users, hikers, campers, and all others.
At the same time, it provides federal funding for all the surrounding small towns, so they will all be able to provide all the necessities that will come from a huge influx of visitors. For the first time, the little towns like Challis will have EMT services, a medical emergency clinic, and other facilities they couldn't afford as only a small community. Access roads will be improved. Management will be a combination of federal, state, and local.
I fully believe Mike Simpson's bill will become the prototype for many similar recreational areas that will follow. it has been the only one that took all sides into consideration by brining them all into the process, and was worked out through a long series of compromises until everyone got some of what he wanted, while no one got everything he wanted.
No single entity could have done this well alone. Mike is to be congratulated for his persistence as much as for his intelligence. Sticking with a good idea for 15 years is pretty remarkable in itself.
The timing finally came around. This bill is the only major legislation that has passed through Congress with 100% approval from both houses this year, so its all good on all sides.
It's also good for Simpson personally as well. He just joined the sparse ranks of Idaho's best politicians in history, a mighty short list.
In doing so, his achievement has surpassed all of those done by Cecil Andrus, our most popular governor ever, and a former Sec. of Interior, and the achievements of Dirk Kempthorne, another former Interior Secretary from Idaho. Even Senator Frank Church's wilderness bill, which created the largest wilderness in the USA, wasn't as good as this one.
I think Simpson may now be sitting in the catbird's seat for Speaker of the House if John Boehner wants to give up the job after next years' election.
Simpson has the seniority, the caucus-building ability, and the personal connections to get the Speakership if he goes for it, and he's still young enough that he might do just that. If he does, he earned it fair and square, for sure. If anyone really deserves a shot at the Speakership, it's Mike. It doesn't hurt that he was a long time Speaker of the Idaho House as well.
Why is that? (Not being antagonistic, just curious as I don't know enough about the differences between the two.)
The short answer: Wilderness takes an act of congress; monuments require a signature of the President (through the Antiquities Act).
Both processes involve a long process of study, stakeholders negotiations, and building consensus. But a monument designation is seen as less democratic because a president can simply sign a monument into effect, whereas with Wilderness you have to, at the very least, get your state legislature on board, and have them stump hard for it in D.C. Considering Idaho is a GOP state, and consider that, in general, the GOP is somewhat opposed to Wilderness declarations, this is a momentous achievement.
The longer history of Boulder White Clouds is that groups have been trying to protect them for over 30 years. In the past 15 years alone Mike Simpson has tried various bills to garner their protection (CIEDRA), each time failing because, among other reasons, the stakeholders could never agree on the terms. Also, much of the time it was a political nonstarter.
After trying and failing so many times, various groups decided to push and campaign for a monument declaration which, while having less "perpetual" protection and being subject to rules revisions, would actually have protected more acreage while at the same time allowing for continued mountain bike use, among other things. This was a plan that the various groups worked, including a heavy campaign by mountain bike groups. Users in the area by and large supported monument designation because of the extra land protection (almost double), the better conservation and ecological protection, and because it kept mountain bike access open. Custer County commissioners and OHV groups opposed wilderness, as did many of the conservative leaning groups who oppose Presidential declarations on principle.
So these groups were somewhat pressured into choosing between wilderness or a monument, because one or the other was going to happen. The master craftsmanship on the part of Simpson is that he crafted a bill that, while protecting less land and leaving all OHV trails open, seemed to at least partially satisfy the needs of everyone (except the mountain bike community).
To correct something Banjomike pointed out, mountain bikers lost about a dozen of some of the most unique and excellent trails in the world. None of the mountain bike or human powered recreation community prefers wilderness to a monument, but I bet in their heart of hearts they will take the sacrifice (if they really understand the issues). The rest of his analysis is very, very good.
Hardliners of any persuasion will detest the bill, but hardliners always detest compromise anyway. This bill works for the majority of us.
I'm not familiar with the area at all, so maybe I have no business posting about it.
That said, I read Simpson's note on his website about the mountain biking issue, and it seems that while some trails will be closed to mountain biking, there are still many other popular trails that will remain open. He made a pretty good case that the area will still have enough mountain biking trails available that it will continue to draw in mountain bikers. He also made a good case that the area in which the trails will be closed was a core wilderness area that really deserved that protection.
It sounded to me that, as our own Mike says above, it's a case of in a good compromise nobody gets everything they are looking for, but everybody gets some of what they are looking for.
Dave
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