Coalition for Public Access

e-ALERT (March 2, 2009)

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Support Needed for Nevada Legislative Resolution

Dear CPA Friend,

CPA needs your help in support of Nevada Senate Joint Resolution No. 2 (S.J.R. 2) that “Urges Congress to take certain actions concerning wilderness areas and wilderness study areas”.

Background Nevada currently has 2,552,457 acres of Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) created pursuant to a federally mandated inventory conducted almost 30 years ago. This inventory and the resulting studies concluded that 1,831,979 acres were “not suitable for wilderness designation” – yet the U.S. Senate has not passed a bill to remove the WSA classification from these lands. As an aside and to make matters worse, the U.S. Senate recently passed S.22 – The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 – that will put all WSAs, regardless of their suitability for wilderness, into a newly created protection class – The National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS).

S.J.R. 2 is a resolution that urges the Nevada Congressional Delegation (Reid, Ensign, Berkley, Heller and Titus) and the U.S. Congress to:

Complete a timely release of the WSAs that are not suitable for wilderness; and

Not to adopt any legislation that creates new wilderness areas, wilderness study areas or alters the use of public lands without obtaining supporting resolutions from the Board of County Commissioners from the affected counties.

S.J.R. 2 (full text here) has been assigned to the Senate Natural Resources Committee. This committee must vote to send the resolution to the full legislature or the resolution could “die in committee”.

Take Action Please show your support for this resolution by:

Vote and comment – this link will take you to the Nevada Legislature opinion poll website. CAUTION: be sure to select S.J.R. 2 NOT S.J.R. 2* (the * indicates a completely different resolution). Select Vote FOR, and add any comments you like and fill the required identification fields (your identity is confidential).

Send an email to the Senate Natural Resources Committee members:
- The email Subject should be - I support S.J.R. 2
- The body of the email can be as simple as - I support S.J.R. 2 - or any message you wish to send.
- The list of committee members is below.
  - As a shortcut you might try to SELECT, COPY and PASTE the following into the To: line of your message. dparks@sen.state.nv.us, acopening@sen.state.nv.us, bmathews@sen.state.nv.us, bcoffin@sen.state.nv.us, drhoads@sen.state.nv.us, mamodei@sen.state.nv.us, dnolan@sen.state.nv.us
  - Senator David R. Parks, Chair (dparks@sen.state.nv.us)
  - Senator Allison Copening, Vice Chair (acopening@sen.state.nv.us)
  - Senator Senator Bernice Mathews (bmathews@sen.state.nv.us)
  - Senator Senator Bob Coffin (bcoffin@sen.state.nv.us)
  - Senator Senator Dean A. Rhoads (drhoads@sen.state.nv.us)
  - Senator Senator Mark E. Amodei (mamodei@sen.state.nv.us)
  - Senator Senator Dennis Nolan (dnolan@sen.state.nv.us)

The Senate Natural Resources Committee meets this Thursday, March 5th at 3:30PM in Room 2144 of the Legislative Building, 401 S. Carson St., Carson City and the public is invited. CPA will be giving testimony in support of S.J.R. 2 at this meeting.

Last year CPA was active in meeting with the Nevada Legislative Committee on Public Lands (LCPL) and made several recommendations regarding the protection of our rights of access and use of Federally Managed Public Lands. Senator Rhoads, LCPL Chair and Senator for the Rural Nevada Senatorial District, submitted a Bill Draft Request in support of one of our recommendations – our recommendation became S.J.R. 2.

Thank you,

Board of Directors, Coalition for Public Access