Two Historic Public Lands Bills Getting a Vote This Week

Photo credit: Diego Lozano

This week, the House is taking two huge votes for public lands and waters. The first, likely happening on Tuesday, will be on two proposed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

What does defense spending have to do with public lands and waters? Well, because Congress generally needs to package many things together to get anything to move, there’s actually a history of moving public lands protections through the NDAA. It happened most recently in 2014 when Congress protected areas around Hermosa Creek, near Durango, Colorado, and the Alpine Lakes area and Middle Fork Snoqualmie River in Washington through the NDAA.

 This week, the House is going to vote on two proposed amendments (Amendment 7 and 8) to the NDAA. These amendments were introduced by Reps. DeGette and Neguse, both from Colorado. They include the Protecting America’s Wilderness Act, the CORE Act, and the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act. Because there’s a preliminary step involving the House Rules committee before amendments can actually get a proper vote on the floor, this seemed like a bit of a longshot, but their work and the work of other bill supporters paid off, and there will be a vote on the House floor this week. This is probably the best chance we have this year to enact significant new public lands protections.

Now, because this came up quickly, and because there are approximately 400 amendments to the NDAA up for consideration, we REALLY need your help to help educate lawmakers about this opportunity. There’s a good chance your congressperson may not even know about these amendments, and a quick note of outreach has the potential to make all the difference. Can you drop your member a quick line today? We’ve made it really easy to send a quick message: