U.S. Senate Considers Rare Sunday Passage of Wilderness Bill

Today Democratic senators will force a rare Sunday vote on a 2-million-acre expansion of wilderness area in the U.S. Included in Senate bill 22 are provisions for restoration of the San Joaquin River and the reintroduction of the California Central Valley Spring Run Chinook salmon. “The largest expansion of wilderness protection in 25 years 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.” From the Associated Press.
After the bill was defeated Sen. Tom Coburn and other Republican congressmen last year, deriding earmarks that include “$460 million for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California,” environmentalists and supporters of salmon protections are seeing this as a potential big victory.
Read the entire text of the bill here.