Sponsors (4)
The bill secures large swaths of public land for conservation, recreation, watershed protection, and tribal uses while allowing targeted infrastructure and hazard management, but does so by restricting new mineral development and imposing new administrative costs and access limits that could reduce local industry opportunities and create regulatory uncertainty.
Residents and visitors across multiple regions benefit from large-scale protections—new wilderness, Special Management Areas, and a National Recreation Area—preserving roughly tens of thousands of acres of habitat, scenery, and recreation.
Communities and emergency managers get explicit authority to conduct wildfire, insect, and disease management and hazardous fuels treatments in designated areas, helping protect communities, watersheds, and public safety.
Established recreational uses and events (hunting, fishing, boating, permitted races/helicopter access) are preserved, reducing disruption to local recreation and tourism businesses.
Large withdrawals and prohibitions on new mining, geothermal, and leasing across multiple units remove opportunities for mineral development, reducing potential local jobs, private investment, and state/local royalty revenue.
Establishing and managing new protected units and special management areas creates new administrative responsibilities, studies, and staffing needs for federal agencies, likely increasing federal costs or shifting agency resources.
Designation of wilderness and SMAs and bans on permanent roads or motorized access will limit certain recreational uses (motorized access, new roads) and management access, affecting hunters, motorized users, mountain bikers, and some recreation businesses.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Adds multiple Colorado wilderness and special management designations, creates Curecanti National Recreation Area, withdraws lands around Thompson Divide, and establishes a fugitive coal-mine methane pilot.
Official title: To provide for the designation of certain wilderness areas, recreation management areas, and conservation areas in the State of Colorado, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 27, 2025 by Joseph Neguse · Last progress February 27, 2025
Designates multiple new wilderness additions and Special Management Areas in Colorado national forests, creates the Curecanti National Recreation Area, and establishes a Thompson Divide program that withdraws specified federal lands from mineral disposal and sets up a pilot to capture fugitive methane from coal mines. The bill adds acreage and map-based descriptions into existing wilderness law, preserves certain grazing and resource-management authorities, authorizes agency management actions and interagency agreements, and creates a framework and definitions for a methane-use pilot program and land-withdrawal protections in specified Colorado counties.