Now that Richard Pombo the former chair of the House Resources Committee has been voted out of office, wilderness designation bills are starting to move in Congress. In recent weeks the House has passed six wilderness bills, including the Wild Sky Wilderness in Washington State, that would protect more than 500,000 acres. The Senate Energy and Resources Committee has approved another four wilderness bills and the panel could pass more, an effort that Chairman
Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) told the
Washington Post was aimed at addressing "some pent-up demand for bills that had been in the works for most of the last decade." As many as a dozen bills are expected to pass this year, and another seven have been introduced recently. One of the pending designations is an expansion of the Mt. Hood Wilderness adjacent to metro Portland, Oregon. Pombo made it his business to block every wilderness bill pending in Congress. He was defeated for reelection in 2006 thanks in large part to a targeted public relations offensive mounted by a coalition of environmentalists
{Got Pombo? 11/2/06}. 
Conservationists are generally pleased with the new attitude toward wilderness in Congress, but point out that even larger amounts of public lands have been open to oil and gas exploration. Some of the lands are relatively unspoiled wild habitats such as the
Roan Plateau in north central Colorado. All together the Regime has offered more than 40 million acres in the Rockies and 70 million acres in Alaska to extractive industries for development. "When I changed the name from Resources to Natural Resources, it wasn't just for cosmetic reasons -- it's for what I view as the real guts of the responsibility of this committee," said Pombo's successor,
Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.). Earth's mechanism for absorbing
[photo cedit: Black bear footprint on Roan Plateau, Brandon Jett]
Conservationists are generally pleased with the new attitude toward wilderness in Congress, but point out that even larger amounts of public lands have been open to oil and gas exploration. Some of the lands are relatively unspoiled wild habitats such as the Roan Plateau in north central Colorado. All together the Regime has offered more than 40 million acres in the Rockies and 70 million acres in Alaska to extractive industries for development. "When I changed the name from Resources to Natural Resources, it wasn't just for cosmetic reasons -- it's for what I view as the real guts of the responsibility of this committee," said Pombo's successor, Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.). Earth's mechanism for absorbing