Sponsors
The bill provides durable protections for forests, rivers, recreation, ecosystems, and tribal rights while improving certain management authorities—at the cost of restricting some local development and extraction opportunities, adding procedural and planning requirements, and imposing potential fiscal and administrative burdens on agencies and communities.
Residents, visitors, and nearby rural communities gain permanent wilderness protection for roughly 131,900 acres (≈126,554 wilderness + ≈5,346 potential wilderness) that conserves habitat, scenery, and non-motorized recreation and prevents most development on those lands.
People in nearby communities and recreation users gain long-term protections for 19 river segments through Wild and Scenic River designation and related federal withdrawals, preserving river scenery, recreation access, and preventing new mining or mineral leasing that could degrade waterways.
Tribes, state and local agencies, and communities gain legal certainty because the Act affirms existing tribal treaty-protected hunting, fishing, gathering, and cultural/religious rights and clarifies that the Act does not alter treaty obligations.
Owners, local workers, and businesses in nearby rural communities face limits on development, logging, mining, and motorized access across the designated wilderness and river withdrawal areas, reducing some economic opportunities and altering local land uses.
Withdrawal of lands from mineral leasing and prohibitions on new mining claims eliminate potential mineral development revenue, jobs, and tax base that some local governments and workers might have expected.
Applying FERC licensing to the Big Quilcene segment and preserving treaty rights may introduce additional federal relicensing, consultation, and compliance requirements that increase costs and procedural hurdles for local utilities, agencies, and developers.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Introduced May 13, 2025 by Patty Murray · Last progress May 13, 2025
Designates about 126,554 acres in the Olympic National Forest as new wilderness units or additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System and adds roughly 19 river segments in Washington to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The bill requires Forest Service and Interior management under existing wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers law, withdraws designated federal lands from mining and mineral leasing (subject to existing rights), preserves private and State rights, and affirms that tribal treaty rights are unchanged. It also requires maps and legal descriptions to be filed, allows about 5,346 acres to convert to wilderness once nonconforming uses end, and sets timelines for updating National Forest management plans (generally within 3 years, extendable to 5 with a timely funding request).