January 23, 2001
Dear Colleague:
We invite you to be an original cosponsor of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) to ensure biodiversity in the Wild Rockies. We plan to reintroduce this bill on Wednesday, February 7.
Introduced in the 106th Congress as H.R. 488, NREPA is a comprehensive proposal for ecosystem protection. Under the legislation, public lands in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon --home to grizzly bears, elk, caribou, wolves, bison, bull trout and salmon -- would be protected.
The bill makes five types of land designations. Specifically, NREPA:
- Designates more than 18 million acres of new Wilderness Area;
- Establishes two national park and preserve study areas, comprising about 1.7 million acres;
- Designates 1,810 miles of eligible waters as Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers;
- Designates roadless lands in corridors as Wilderness Areas, and additional lands as special Corridor Management areas; and
- Establishes a pilot system of nine National Wildland Recovery Areas, comprising 995,924 acres, where roading, clearcutting, grazing and mining have been severely damaging.
In addition to making good environmental sense, the bill also makes economic sense. According to a
University of Utah study, the bill would save the federal government at least $100 million from 1999 to 2008. This does not include savings resulting from reduced maintenance costs associated with logging roads. The legislation is also estimated to create more than 2,300 jobs restoring wildlands.We hope you will join us as an original cosponsor of NREPA. If would like to do so, please contact Paul Pimentel (Shays) at 5-5541 or Joe McKelvey (Maloney) at 5-7944.
Sincerely,
Christopher Shays Carolyn Maloney
Member of Congress Member of Congress