Congress came together this week to pass the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, but missing is a rider bill that U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet hoped would be included: the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act.
Despite the omission, Bennet said he plans to continue pushing for the bill’s passage.
“Michael is disappointed that the CORE Act wasn’t included in the final defense authorization bill, especially because it’s had a Senate hearing, passed the House and has strong bipartisan support across Colorado,” a spokesperson from Bennet’s office said in a statement to The Durango Herald. “He’ll continue to pursue every opportunity to pass this critical bill for Colorado.”
This week’s negotiated version of the NDAA passed both the Senate and House with a large enough margin to potentially override a presidential veto, which President Donald Trump has threatened in recent days. The House passed a version of the NDAA earlier this year that included provisions such as the CORE Act that were later removed from the defense bill’s language during negotiations.
The House’s earlier NDAA was the second time the CORE Act passed that chamber, but it had not yet been brought forward for a vote in the Senate. Bennet had in recent weeks been pushing for the bill to be included in the final NDAA as Democratic and Republican leadership negotiated the package.
The CORE Act combines four previous Colorado public lands bills to establish and expand protections for a number of areas throughout the state, including in the San Juan Mountains near Silverton.
It had a hearing last month before the Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests & Mining for the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources. The hearing was an important step in the bill’s progress, although during the hearing representatives of the Trump administration expressed some concerns about provisions in it.
The NDAA is passed yearly and specifies the Department of Defense’s budget for the coming year. Although its primary purpose is defense funding, in past years it has also been used as a vehicle to pass public lands legislation, such as protections for the Hermosa Creek watershed, which passed as a part of the NDAA for 2015.
The CORE Act had seen support from a number of local and statewide stakeholders from across Colorado. Various county commissioners from several of the counties with land affected by the bill, including outgoing San Juan County Commissioner Pete McKay, have supported the CORE Act.
“Our local economy depends on outdoor recreation and protected lands,” McKay said. “That’s why we’ve supported protecting the San Juan Mountains for a decade, and support the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act.”
However, others, including outgoing Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, whose 3rd Congressional District includes much of the land affected by the bill, declined to support the act, citing concerns as to whether the bill adequately took local concerns into consideration.
Representative-elect Lauren Boebert, who will fill Tipton’s seat in January, has also spoken against the bill, calling it a “land grab” after the House attached the CORE Act to the NDAA.
Now that the NDAA has moved through Congress without the CORE Act, the bill’s next steps are undecided. Bennet has vowed to continue pushing for the bill’s passage moving forward, but because Congress is entering its final weeks before the end of the year, it is likely the effort to pass the CORE Act will continue into the 117th Congress.
John Purcell is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.
