Sponsors (9)
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Sheldon Whitehouse · Last progress March 27, 2025
The bill protects large tracts of public land, water, and wildlife connectivity—delivering long‑term environmental, recreation, and tribal benefits—while imposing significant restrictions on extractive uses, creating economic impacts for resource communities and adding federal management, permitting, and fiscal burdens.
Residents, visitors, and wildlife across large regions gain permanent protection of millions of acres (new wilderness, river segments, and biological corridors) that preserve habitat, biodiversity, and scenic landscapes.
Downstream communities and water users experience improved water quality and protected watersheds—reducing contamination risks and potential treatment costs—through river protections, restoration plans, and roadless/ mining development prohibitions.
Local economies that rely on outdoor recreation and tourism (hiking, fishing, hunting, scenic tourism) will gain stable long‑term recreation assets that can support businesses and community economic diversification.
Timber, mining, oil and gas, and other extractive and development jobs and revenues are likely to decline for many resource-dependent communities as large areas are closed or restricted to development.
Federal implementation, land acquisitions, enforcement, and long‑term management of new protections will increase government costs and could divert agency resources or require new appropriations, with potential fiscal impacts for taxpayers and other programs.
Restrictions on motorized access, road construction, grazing, and certain management tools can reduce recreational uses for some users, complicate grazing operations, limit utility/energy and infrastructure siting, and may hinder emergency or forest‑management access in affected areas.
Based on analysis of 26 sections of legislative text.
Designates large swaths of federal land across Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming as new or expanded wilderness areas, wild and scenic river segments, biological connecting corridors, and wildland recovery areas. It restricts new roads, timber harvest, mining, and oil and gas development in those areas (subject to valid existing rights), requires restoration and recovery planning on specified lands, establishes interagency monitoring and a satellite GIS, preserves Tribal access and federal water rights, and directs agencies to report on progress and cooperative agreements.