Senate OKs Massive Public Lands Bill
By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press
April 11, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Thursday approved a massive bill designating federal wilderness protection in Washington state, creating heritage areas in Illinois and New York and approving water projects across the country.

The bill, approved 91-4, combines 62 proposals related to public lands from coast to coast.

The measure also would boost a project to create a memorial in Washington, D.C., to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and create a commission to study a possible National Museum of the American Latino.

The bill also would extend federal immigration and labor laws to the U.S. commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Marianas, in the western Pacific, have been tainted by past associations with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and reports of sweatshop labor.

The bill also would grant the commonwealth a delegate in the House with limited voting powers. Currently Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia have a delegate in the House.

The overwhelming vote in favor of the bill belied a behind-the-scenes controversy that had delayed action on it for months.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., wanted to amend the bill to allow gun owners to carry loaded, accessible firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges. Current regulations ban gun owners from carrying easy-to-reach firearms onto lands managed by the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service.

Democrats and some Republicans objected, saying Coburn and his GOP allies were trying to score political points by injecting a ''wedge'' issue such as gun rights into a noncontroversial bill.

Coburn disputed that, saying Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had agreed to allow him to bring a host of amendments to the floor. A spokesman for Coburn accused Reid of trying to protect the two leading Democratic candidates for president by shielding them from a politically difficult vote on an issue that many rural voters consider crucial.

Eventually, Coburn agreed to drop the amendment -- but not before drawing the ire of even some Republican colleagues.

New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, senior Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Coburn was trying to ''frustrate the legitimate business of the committee'' and, more broadly, congressional stewardship of federal lands.

''Frankly I believe much of this problem can be attributed to a lack of understanding of the structure of this committee and the importance of its business,'' Domenici said during debate on the bill.

Coburn said he had ''a difference in philosophy'' from other senators, adding that he would not give up efforts to rein in federal spending. Coburn called the lands bill bloated and unnecessary.

The Senate defeated four other amendment Coburn offered before approving the overall bill.

The Washington state measure would designate approximately 106,000 acres of low-elevation, old-growth forest 90 minutes east of Seattle as federal wilderness, one of the highest levels of protection Congress can bestow to public lands.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who has championed the so-called Wild Sky Wilderness for nearly nine years, said the proposed wilderness offers more than 2 million people in the Seattle area access to ''rolling hills and rushing rivers and low-elevation forests for generations to come.''

The bill also would establish the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area in Illinois and Niagara Falls Heritage Area in New York state, and expand Idaho's Minidoka Internment National Monument to include a site commemorating Japanese-Americans imprisoned in Bainbridge Island, Wash., during World War II.

It now heads to the House.

http://www.gopusa.com/news/2008/april/0 ... ands.shtml

Now; my question is does these now fall under the UN Parks Protection plan that gives away more property and falls under the UN's jurisdiction. Sounds like another soverenty give-away by our US Government Representitives