Colorado Wilderness Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Chair, I thank my colleague from Idaho for yielding.

I rise in opposition to H.R. 2546. This package of land bills will impact California, Colorado, and Washington creating nearly 1.5 million acres of new wilderness.

H.R. 2250, one bill included in this package will impact northern California, my area. It adds 262,000 acres of new wilderness designations, despite concerns from local communities as to how they would be impacted.

We have seen the devastation that wildfires cause in northern California time and time again, so why are we putting more land into this restrictive wilderness category, which will make it even more difficult to properly manage forests and to access them?

Potential wilderness is typically treated as wilderness anyway, so you have 51,000 acres that will probably be enforced as if it were wilderness.

We should be prioritizing forest management, not making it more difficult for access and the work needing to be done desperately. In rural northern California, much of the land is already owned by the Federal Government. The local economies depend on access and use of these lands to thrive.

Seventy-six percent of Trinity County is controlled by the Federal Government. Ninety-five percent of the land added to wilderness designation by 2250 is located there.

The town of Weaverville located in Trinity County has had several occasions where fire has burned right up to their doorsteps, and even then, we still pursue endangering them because these lands are not managed.

Even due to the best efforts of our firefighters, our CCC groups out there trying get ahead of it, we put ourselves behind by having wilderness designations that take away options, take away ability to access and properly manage these lands.

Currently within that county, 520,000 acres, or 25 percent, are designated as wilderness. It would increase that number to 770,000, or 37 percent of the county.

There are concerns with these lands being designated as wilderness that should have been addressed with the local communities, ranging from questions about forest management, grazing implications, to road decommissioning and stewardship contracts. How does that help the public have access? How does that help our firefighters and CCC have access to do the work?

Consensus from these local communities most impacted by these designations should be a priority. This legislation does not do that.

None of the language changes recommended to help mitigate local concerns were accepted, so I urge you to vote in opposition.

If it is all about protecting lands, what is it we are actually protecting when we are endangering them even more so?

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