The United States Senate recently took steps to advance two longstanding pieces of legislation aimed at adding new protections against development for beloved landscapes in Southwest Colorado.
These include areas across some of the highest realms of the San Juan Mountains surrounding Ice Lake Basin and the Sneffels Range near Ouray, along with the Ponderosa Gorge and downstream sections of the Dolores River Canyon near Dove Creek.
Congress hasn’t passed any legislation that adds to Colorado’s protected federal lands since 2014, when the popular Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act was enacted. Advocates support federal legislation as the most permanent means of ensuring lasting protections against expanded development and for retaining the existing primitive character of key areas across the state.
In early December, a Senate subcommittee held a hearing on the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act. This is the first step on its legislative journey, hopefully to be followed by a committee vote and eventual action by the full Senate.
Just this past week, the full Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted to pass the Dolores River National Conservation Area Act. Its next stop will be a vote on the floor of the Senate.
The gist of both the CORE Act and the Dolores River legislation is to prohibit new development in the form of roads and mining while emphasizing existing nonmotorized recreation activities. Toward that end, the CORE Act expands the existing Mount Sneffels Wilderness to include the east half the Sneffels Range that encompasses Whitehouse Mountain, Teakettle and Potosi Peak. The existing Mount Sneffels Wilderness does not extend across the entirety of the Sneffels Range, which many sightseers admire from Dallas Divide each fall.
Closer to home, the CORE Act also creates a Sheep Mountain special-management area free of new development around Ice Lake Basin and its surrounding ring of peaks.
The Dolores River National Conservation Area extends from McPhee Dam north through the spectacular Ponderosa Gorge to Big Gypsum Valley. The boundaries are generally defined by the canyon rims, and the bill precludes any new road construction, oil and gas leasing, or mining within the canyon.
While the CORE Act has passed the House of Representatives in years past, it’s never been approved by the Senate. The Senate is particularly challenging with its filibuster rules that effectively require a supermajority to pass any bills. The Senate doesn’t like to spend time discussing and debating individual bills of a seemingly parochial nature like the CORE Act or Dolores bill.
To get around these objections, bill sponsors often pursue a legislative strategy to package together dozens of smaller bills into one overarching public lands bill, and thereby garner support from enough Senators to avoid the threat of a filibuster.
The Senate committee action this past week provided an example. The committee voted to pass a dozen bills en masse that encompass priorities for Senators across the political spectrum. In addition to the Dolores legislation, it included a land transfer to the town of Brian Head in Utah, protection of wild horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and a Chugach National Forest land exchange in Alaska, among others.
The CORE Act legislation has been pending for 16 years, and the Dolores bill for only a few after many years of prior collaboration. The bills are sponsored by both Colorado Senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. Some might wonder if the long-running effort is worthwhile, but the reward is gaining certainty about securing these areas for generations to come. And knowing that reversing protections granted through legislation will be equally as arduous.
Mark Pearson is executive director at San Juan Citizens Alliance. Reach him at mark@sanjuancitizens.org.
