State Senate

New senate bill adds 4,600 miles to National trail system, Protects Civil War Battlefields

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week filed a catch-all bill " aimed at improving and protecting public lands, waterways, ocean resources and wildlife -- which Republican leaders have already threatened to block," reports Paul Quinlan of Environment & Energy News. Prospects for passage in the final days of the lame-duck Congress are unclear.

The measure, called America's Great Outdoors Act, incorporates 100 separate bills passed by Senate committees; about half the bills have passed the House with broad support, Reid said. It would "designate new wilderness areas in three states; add 4,600 miles to the national trail system; preserve battlefield sites; protect marine turtles, sharks and great cats; and restore water bodies like Lake Tahoe, the Columbia River and the Long Island Sound, according to a news release," Quinlan writes. "The bill would also slow the decline in the world's shark populations and permanently authorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund."

The bill would add to the national park system the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico and create the Waco-Mammoth National Monument in Texas and the Chimney Rock National Monument in Colorado. It would create national heritage areas in the Alabama Black Belt and the Susquehanna River Gateway, and the Devils' Staircase Wilderness Area in Oregon.