Omnibus Bill Cuts Off Access to Millions of Acres of Federal Land

WASHINGTON – U.S. Representative Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., has voted against S. 22, the “Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009.”

“This was not an easy vote for me to cast,” Lummis said. “Senator Craig Thomas was a dear friend of mine, and I want honor his legacy the best way I know how. But folks in Wyoming need to understand this was not an up or down vote on the Wyoming Range Legacy Act or the Snake River Wild and Scenic bill.”

These two Wyoming specific bills were two of more than 160 bills wrapped up into a single, unamendable public lands omnibus.

“I fully understand the need for a balanced approach toward energy development and land conservation in our state. Folks in Wyoming do a terrific job protecting our state’s natural treasures. Good stewardship of the land is a Wyoming value. As a rancher, I hold that ideal in the highest regard.

“As I have consistently stated, I support the Wyoming Range bill with a couple of targeted revisions. For starters, I believe the boundary lines should be based on topography rather than arbitrary lines that fail to acknowledge resource realities. I also want to consider restricting drilling for a period of years as opposed to locking up those lands and resources forever. As currently drafted, the bill does not allow for the possibility that future advances in production technologies can extract the energy resource with little to no impact on the land.”

“I also support the position held by the Lincoln County commissioners to remove the parts of the river located in Lincoln County covered by the Snake River Wild and Scenic bill. Unfortunately, leadership in both the House and the Senate did not give us the opportunity to make these revisions or even consider the bills separately on their own merits.”

Lummis stated she could not support the omnibus lands package because of its enormous cost to Wyoming taxpayers and restriction to millions of acres of federal lands.

“With the federal deficit reaching record highs and the economy struggling to get back on its feet, the people of Wyoming should not be forced to carry an even greater burden,” Lummis said. “This bloated bill increases Washington spending by more than $10 billion. That might seem like a small amount of money to some here in Washington, but folks in Wyoming understand that is a big chunk of change.”

“This omnibus package contains more than 150 projects outside of Wyoming that will put the nation further into debt and will only slow our economic recovery. For example, one single provision calls for a $1 billion water project in California to settle a lawsuit with environmental groups for the restoration of 500 salmon.”

The omnibus package will also codify the National Landscape Conservation System designation which includes roughly 575,000 acres of Wilderness Study Areas (WSA’s) within Wyoming. WSA’s are units of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management while their wilderness potential is supposedly being reviewed by the agency.

Unfortunately, once these lands are listed as WSA’s, there is no requirement as to when they must either be designated as full Wilderness Areas, or released if it is found they are unfit for listing.

“Currently, far too much land is held in temporary status, not yet designated as protected, but not available for multiple use public access either,” Lummis added. “This single provision will only make it more difficult to enjoy a wide range of activities on the hundreds of thousands of acres of land not suitable for full wilderness designation.”

S. 22 is a package containing more than 160 bills and more than 1,200 pages in length.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ryan Taylor
(202) 225-2311
March 11, 2009
Lummis Votes No On Big Spending Lands Package