Sponsors
The bill permanently protects large tracts of forest and river corridors—benefiting wildlife, recreation, and tribal rights—while imposing trade-offs in local resource-based economic opportunities, infrastructure flexibility (water and energy projects), and additional federal management responsibilities.
Rural communities, recreationists, and fisheries-dependent residents gain long-term protection of ~126,554 acres of Olympic National Forest and dozens of river miles, preserving landscape and river habitat for wildlife (including ESA-listed species), scenic values, and outdoor recreation that supports local tourism economies.
Indigenous tribal communities retain and have clarified protection for treaty-reserved hunting, fishing, gathering, and cultural/religious rights, reducing legal uncertainty and lowering the risk of costly litigation.
State governments and private parties retain existing management authority and property/contract rights on state-managed and private lands, preserving local control and avoiding sudden loss of private contractual or property interests.
Businesses and workers in timber, mining, motorized recreation, and other resource sectors near the new designations face restrictions or lost opportunities from permanent wilderness and federal withdrawal of lands from mining/leasing, reducing local economic activity and jobs.
Local governments, homeowners, and utilities could see constrained options for water development, dams, diversions, hydropower, or transmission on designated river reaches, potentially limiting local water supply projects and adding costs or delays to energy infrastructure.
People who rely on motorized or mechanized access (certain recreationists, outfitters, and some land managers) will lose or see limited access and altered recreation patterns on newly designated wilderness lands.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Creates ~126,554 acres of wilderness in Olympic National Forest and adds multiple Washington river segments to the Wild and Scenic Rivers System, preserving rights and withdrawing certain federal lands from development laws.
Introduced May 13, 2025 by Emily Randall · Last progress May 13, 2025
Designates about 126,554 acres of Olympic National Forest in Washington as wilderness and adds multiple river segments in the region to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The measure assigns administration to the appropriate land managers, preserves existing private and State rights, withdraws federal lands in the designated river corridors from many development and mining laws (subject to existing rights), and explicitly preserves Tribal treaty rights for hunting, fishing, gathering, and cultural uses. The bill requires maps and legal descriptions to be filed and made available to the public, creates a set of named wilderness units plus a parcel that will convert to wilderness when nonconforming uses end, clarifies allowed resource-management actions (fire, insect and disease control), and specifies which departments (Agriculture or Interior) will administer each new Wild and Scenic river segment and how some segments will be cooperatively managed with the State of Washington.