Land Protections Reintroduced in New Congress!
Trinity Alps, native land of the Wintu. Photo credit: Department of Interior
In the last few weeks, the House has introduced eight ambitious bills to protect public land in a package they are calling Protecting America’s Wilderness Act Plus (PAW+), an expanded version of a package we worked together to advance last year.
This package of bills, detailed below, is the first significant vote of this Congress on outdoor issues. It’s incredibly important that the outdoor community shows up in force to support these efforts. Our support now not only promises to protect important outdoor landscapes, but also greases the skids for future protections. For new members of Congress especially, these early votes are a litmus test for public lands issues. Lawmakers need to hear right off the bat that their voters are enthusiastic about conservation and the outdoors – let’s make this public lands package the beginning, not the end, of what we accomplish together this Congress.
PAW+ includes eight bills that will protect spectacular outdoor recreation, including:
The Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act.
The Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act.
The Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
Colorado Wilderness Act of 2020.
The Northwest California Wilderness, Recreation, and Working Forests Act.
The San Gabriel Mountains Foothills and Rivers Protection Act.
The Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act.
These bills are long-standing efforts from Outdoor Alliance, our partners, and local groups to protect outstanding recreation, including climbing, mountain biking, hiking and camping, and paddling. They will protect cherished landscapes across the West, from parts of the Trinity Alps in California, to Castle Peak in Colorado, to climbing on Mt. Ellinor, Mt. Washington, and Jefferson Peak in Washington. In addition, the 4 million acres of protections included in these bills will help the U.S. advance toward its stated goal of protecting 30 percent of its lands and waters by 2030. With protections that are both remote and close to urban areas, this package will also improve equitable access to protected outdoor places. You can read our full letter of support to Congress about this package right here.
You can read more about efforts to protect these places, including past letters to legislators and maps of the proposed protections, right here.
These protections will also bring us closer to our goal of protecting 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030, a goal known as 30x30 that the Biden administration has also embraced in its recent executive orders. And getting these bills reintroduced is a goal on our 100 days checklist for this administration.
What can you do to help? Use the tool below to ask your House rep to cosponsor these bills and your Senators to support action on their side of the Hill. We’ve made it easy: