U.S. House Subcommittee to Hear Wilderness Bill

It's still out there.

A mega wilderness bill affecting 23 million acres across five states, including 7 million in Montana, has been scheduled for a hearing before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee Oct. 18.

While a subcommittee hearing is one small step in the long process of creating law, it's still the biggest movement the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act has taken in 13 years.

NREPA, as the bill is called, attracted lots of attention and no small amount of controversy in the early 1990s. It would designate as wilderness vast chunks of public land in the Northern Rockies.

The tally would include 7 million acres in Montana, 9.5 million acres in Idaho, 5 million acres in Wyoming, 750,000 acres in eastern Oregon and 500,000 acres in eastern Washington.

That total includes three million acres in Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Teton national parks. Wilderness is the strongest protection the federal government can install on public land.

NREPA also calls for establishing a "wildland recovery project" that would restore or eliminate 6,000 miles of roads.

The bill's lead sponsors are U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, and Christopher Shays, R-Conn. There are 114 total co-sponsors.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has traditionally opposed the bill.

"Max doesn't favor the top-down approach to resource management, let alone someone from New York telling Montana how to manage public lands," spokesman Barrett Kaiser said Monday.

The act has been sponsored by dozens of congressmen, most from one coast or the other, several times over the past decade, but never has it been able to get so far as a committee room while Republicans were running those committees.

Now, with the Democrats in the majority, they say the bill has a chance.

"NREPA's time has come," Maloney said in a news release.

The Helena-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies has been pushing the bill for nearly 20 years. Alliance Executive Director Michael Garrity said it will protect rare species like grizzly bears, bull trout and lynx, while creating jobs through restoring old roads and clear cuts.

Spokesmen for U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., could not be reached for comment Monday, a federal holiday. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester's spokesmen said they couldn't respond immediately to questions about the act.

The bill will be heard by the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Scott McMillion is at scottm@dailychronicle.com