Joshua Tree Nat'l Park includes federally protected wilderness in the Mojave desert

…even if it isn’t your savings, 401k, job security, financial well being, and overall sanity. Amid all of the noise around the global economic crisis, “octomoms,” and NCAA tournament, a landmark piece of environmental protection legislation was quietly passed, making good on candidate Barack Obamas promise to stick up for the environment. This week President Barack Obama signed the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009. In the act, more than 2 million acres of land across nine states are designated as wilderness. What’s wilderness land? According to the 1964 (LBJ anyone?) law, the wilderness designation applies to land “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” As President Obama noted in his speech during the signing of the bill, “it designates more than 2 million acres across nine states as wilderness; almost as much as was designated over the past eight years combined.” In short: FACE! Bush administration.

The Omnibus Public Lands Management Act is important on a few fronts. Obviously, this is a huge win for the environment and the environmentalists that love it. In addition to the wilderness areas mentioned above, the act protects cultural sites like Fort Davis in Texas and over 1,000 miles of scenic rivers and streams from commercial development. The bill is works to expand management zones to adjust for climate change’s effect on natural habitats. Unlike most environmental legislation that focuses exclusively on the West, the legislation includes wilderness areas in the Appalachian mountains and two new national parks in New Jersey. That’s right: even Jersey is getting preserved - the bill is that omnibus-ent.

A second important takeaway from the passage of the bills is that President Obama is unyielding to fulfilling his campaign commitments.  Admittedly, some of these commitments have been adapting to the political and economic realities (example: rebranding of the War on Terror). That being said, despite the overwhelming pressure to focus the entirety of our/their short term attention on the long term economic situation, the new administration is pushing their agenda through as fast as they can. Why now? Because they have the political capital to spend and the economy running interference against the scrutiny.

Third, despite being categorized as a leftist land grab (do a quick search and it turns up scores of angry hunters and off-roaders), the bill was passed by a bipartisan coalition. 157 Republicans in the House supported the passing of the final bill, as did 21 Republicans in the Senate. Think the economy is more pressing and would garner strong bipartisan support? Don’t, because most of the stimulus and rescue bills have passed by razor thin majorities with neither party dissenting from their respective lines.

Lastly, although the bill seems like a big win for environmentalists, there is some concern about the competing interests between renewable energy spending from the stimulus package(s) and protecting open space. Personally, I’m a little less concerned about this as the bill severely restricted or banned oil and gas company’s ability to do business in a wide swath of fragile areas. This fight will most likely to come to a head soonest in the Mojave desert in California where land previously eyed for solar energy development is now protected or eyed for future protection.

Let’s review:

• Obama + the environment = high five
• Suddenly we’re playing nicely together… should I be more suspicious of Nancy Pelosi or Rush Limbaugh?
• Clean electricity vs tortoises: FIGHT!