Note, though, that because we are in a new Congressional session, the bill has to be passed by the House of Representatives again.WASHINGTON -- Crashing through a barrier that has blocked a popular lands bill for more than a year, the Senate on Sunday voted overwhelming in favor of legislation that would permanently protect more than 200,000 acres of threatened land near Mount Hood and other Oregon locations.
The 66-12 vote on a rare weekend session cleared the way for final passage later this week of a sprawling public lands bill that extends formal wilderness status and protection to more than 2 million acres of federal land in Oregon and eight other states.
The legislation, which combined 164 separate bills that had earned unanimous or near-unanimous approval by the Senate Energy Committee is the largest expansion of wilderness protection in 25 years. It has bipartisan support and would include California's Sierra Nevada mountain range, Oregon's Mount Hood, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and parts of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia.
More here: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/inde ... prote.html
Splintercat, if all goes well, we'll have to use crosscut saws to clear deadfall on the Old Vista Ridge trail next summer. But at least this will kill the planned ORV "park" in that area!