VallesCaldera.com – The independent news source about the Valles Caldera

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who had planned to adjourn the Senate on Dec. 17, has threatened to keep the upper chamber in session after Christmas and into the new year in order to attempt to secure passage of his key legislative priorities, including an omnibus lands package that features a bill to transfer management of the Valles Caldera to the National Park Service.

Reid’s declaration means that hopes for passage of the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act, which had faded rapidly with the realization that the Senate was to adjourn in three days, are now still very much alive. The Senate must adjourn by January 4, 2011, which is exactly three weeks from today. As the political blog Talking Points Memo notes, this sets up a “complicated and grueling schedule for the next two to three weeks” for senators and their staff members.

According to the Las Vegas (NV) Sun:

Well, he said it: Congress may go through Christmas.

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delivered a pre-Christmas lump of coal that could last through the whole holiday season: Yes, he knows everyone’s itching to get home, but he’s prepared to have them hunker down through the new year, if that’s what it takes to finish his agenda.

“There’s still Congress after Christmas,” he said. “We’re not through … Congress ends on Jan. 4. We’re going to continue working on this stuff until we get it done.”

Legislation that Reid wants passed includes a bill to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, passage of the federal budget, a repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, the DREAM Act, funding health care for 9/11 responders, confirmation of a slew of judicial appointees, and the aforementioned omnibus lands bill.

Read about Reid’s declaration below:

“Reid Pledges Post-Christmas Votes If GOP Keeps Stalling,” Talking Points Memo

“Harry Reid: Congress will ‘get it done,’ even if it means working into new year,” Las Vegas Sun

“Harry Reid’s Holiday Jam,” Wall Street Journal

“Will Harry Reid keep the Senate in session through Christmas?” Christian Science Monitor

According to an article in the publication Environment & Energy Daily today, key members of the Senate Democratic leadership are lobbying Republicans to support passage of an omnibus public lands bill that would transfer management of the Valles Caldera to the National Park Service during the short lame-duck session of Congress:

The full-court press is on to assemble and pass a monumental package of waterways, public lands and wildlife bills in the final days of this Congress.

Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) last night to discuss packaging a slew of waterways bills that won bipartisan endorsements from her committee with measures that emerged with similarly broad-based support from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee aimed at protecting more than 2 million acres and creating new national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and wildlife sanctuaries.

“It was great,” Boxer said of her meeting with Reid. “What we’re doing is we’re talking to the Republicans now who voted for all the bills in my committee to see if they will go along with doing a package of bills.”

Boxer added it was unlikely that such a bill could pass the Senate with unanimous support; thus, work is under way to obtain the necessary 60 votes.

“I think we have a good chance because they are bipartisan bills,” Boxer said.

However, the article quotes Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and George Voinovich (R-OH) as declaring that chances for success of this bill are “uncertain” and “tough,” respectively.

E&E is also reporting that the Pew Environment Group is taking out ads tomorrow in the influential Capitol Hill newspapers Roll Call and Politico urging members of Congress to support this omnibus lands bill:

“More than twenty wilderness bills are now before Congress, thanks to Republicans and Democrats alike,” the ad says, against a backdrop of New Mexico’s Organ Mountains, which are part of a bill to protect 270,000 acres of wilderness and 110,000 acres as a national conservation area.

“Hunters, anglers, business leaders, conservationists and other local citizens who’ve worked together to get these measures this far are counting on Congress to take action before it adjourns,” the ad says.

As New Mexicans who have long advocated for National Park Service stewardship of the Valles Caldera closely follow events on Capitol Hill, a proposed omnibus lands bill containing the legislation that would emblazon the Park Service arrowhead to the gates of the scenic crown jewel of the Land of Enchantment has yet to be introduced in the U.S. Senate. According to the New York Times, the bill has a less-than-favorable chance of passage before the end of the current lame-duck session, after which the Caldera legislation would have to be reintroduced if the Park Service is to replace the Valles Caldera Trust, as has been endorsed by a broad spectrum of New Mexico organizations, newspapers, and officials (see a partial list here).

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee spokesman Bill Wicker told VallesCaldera.com that the omnibus bill will be introduced only if circumstances permit. “We’re just trying to be ready in the event that there’s an opportunity to offer that during the lame duck,” Wicker said. “We really don’t know if we’re going to have a chance to do it this year. We don’t know if there will be floor time given to it, or if there will be objections or what have you, but we do know that we have an obligation to be ready… Nobody has any idea if it’s going to be able to go forward or not.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times covered this issue in a story headlined “Outlook Dim for Lame-Duck Omnibus Lands Package.” An excerpt of the article is below:

Congress may lose its best chance to pass a suite of public lands proposals that would protect more than 2 million acres of federal lands as wilderness if it fails to move an omnibus measure in the lame-duck session, conservation groups say.

But while a key Senate lawmaker last week said he was bundling several dozen public lands bills into a draft package, Democratic leadership is mum about whether such a measure could move amid a crowded Senate schedule of higher-profile issues including a continuing resolution, tax extensions and other measures.

“It is on a list of items that are possible for consideration during the lame duck,” Regan LaChapelle, a spokeswoman for Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said of a draft public lands proposal by New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D). “We have a long list of items that are possible and not much time to do so.”

Reid is speaking with fellow Democrats and Republicans, House leaders and the Obama administration to decide what is possible over the coming weeks, LaChapelle said.

The proposal by Bingaman, who is chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, would include most of the 60-plus public lands bills his panel has passed in the 111th Congress, and none that have failed to pass, said spokesman Bill Wicker.

Bills that have passed the committee include a proposal to designate the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico as a unit of the National Park System, a proposal to turn the Devil’s Staircase in Oregon into federally protected wilderness where logging and road development would be banned, and a bill to expand the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington and extend the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and Pratt River wild and scenic rivers.

The Los Alamos Monitor also covered the Caldera legislation and the proposed omnibus bill that contains it in a story headlined “Clock ticks on Valles Caldera: With a new Congress waiting in the wings, passing the Omnibus Bill this year deemed critical.” Below is an excerpt:

After jumping through 24 months of bureaucratic hoops, the management at Valles Caldera National Preserve is poised to become part of the National Park System.

Management of the 89,000-acre dormant volcano field by a troubled private sector trust has had activists campaigning for its inclusion this year, to stave off possible indefinite postponement by a new Congress January 1.

The article quotes Los Alamos County Councilor Robert Gibson as summarizing why the Council and the town’s Chamber of Commerce both have endorsed this proposal:

The Valles Caldera Trust was a management experiment driven by a 2000 political requirement for economic self-sufficiency. The Trust has tried, but will not achieve that economic goal. The insurance costs and regulatory burdens on this small federal entity are too great. While the special character of the Valle Caldera may be vulnerable to excessive use, the National Park Service is experienced in managing similar natural resources and appears to be the best potential manager going forward. There should also be some synergy and administrative efficiency from multiple adjacent Park Service units here.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) is preparing to introduce an omnibus public lands bill for passage during the lame-duck session of Congress, which begins on Monday and ends in early January, according to a story from yesterday in Greenwire, a publication of Environment & Energy Publishing. In this story, Bill Wicker, the spokesman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (which is chaired by Bingaman), refused to divulge which bills would comprise the omnibus legislation, stating only that there will be “dozens and dozens of bills” included. However, Wicker and Bingaman’s Senate office spokeswoman, Jude McCartin, have indicated to VallesCaldera.com that the bill that would transfer administration of the Valles Caldera to the National Park Service would likely be one of the pieces of legislation that will be included in the omnibus bill that Bingaman is planning to attempt to shepherd through Congress.

The Energy and Natural Resources Committee has approved more than 60 bills this session that would create new national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and wildlife sanctuaries, according to Greenwire, including the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act, which passed the committee unanimously.

However, many pitfalls loom for Bingaman’s objective of passing this omnibus bill before the 112th Congress is sworn in early next year. From the Greenwire story:

Congress is grappling over a possible extension of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts and has to pass another budget extension if it wants to keep the federal government in business past Dec. 1. And Republicans — fresh off a shellacking of their Democratic rivals in last week’s midterm elections and preparing to run the House come January — aren’t in a hurry to do much more than that.

The package’s quickest road to passage is by unanimous consent, but there are several voices in the Senate that could keep that from happening, Wicker said.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) leads that list, having promised earlier this year to block any bill that did not offset all spending with cuts elsewhere. Coburn threatened to filibuster an omnibus in the final months of 2008, delaying it all the way into the current congressional session.

Wicker said that if the bills could not fit through the agenda, they could quickly be reintroduced and passed through the Senate next session, again as an omnibus.

National Parks Magazine, the quarterly publication of the National Parks Conservation Association, features in its fall edition an in-depth profile of the Valles Caldera National Preserve and legislation currently in the U.S. Senate that would transfer it to the National Park Service. Read this article here. You can also click below to watch an accompanying video, which features some magnificent shots of the Caldera’s scenic splendor, as well as an interview with Bob Parmenter, the Preserve’s director of science and education:

Below are the first few paragraphs of National Parks Magazine’s profile of the Caldera:

Standing on Rabbit Ridge, on the southern rim of the Valles Caldera, two worlds unfold below you. Gaze to the north and you see a stunning, 14-mile-wide volcanic crater: Ponderosa-covered mountains ring a grassy basin so vast, you have to turn your head to take in its immensity. No roads or buildings mar these meadows.

It’s a profoundly calming landscape, yet occasional bits of glassy black obsidian embedded in the boulders at your feet hint at the volcano’s cataclysmic past. Magma once exploded from this yawning mouth in eruptions that molded the New Mexico landscape for miles around—including 33,000-acre Bandelier National Monument to the south.

In fact, Bandelier’s boundary sits just steps away from this hike-to viewpoint. A signed fence on Rabbit Ridge delineates Park Service land from Valles Caldera National Preserve, two separately managed parcels that have something in common: The ash spewed in one of Valles Caldera’s eruptive fits created Bandelier’s tuff, the chalky stone that ancestral Puebloans carved into dwellings. You can’t discern Bandelier’s ruins from here, but you can admire big swaths of tuff that give the whole panorama a rosy glow.

For now, barbed wire separates the two properties, but advocates seek to close that rift by bringing Valles Caldera under Park Service management. Not only would its inclusion recognize this corner of northern New Mexico as a geological treasure, it would expand access to it—something would-be visitors have long desired.

More than a century of private ownership and ranching kept Valles Caldera off-limits to all but a few. Even after 2000, when it was purchased by the federal government and became public land, access was limited. Valles Caldera sees just 17,000 visitors annually, compared with 212,500 at Bandelier.

UPDATE – Sept. 6: The Associated Press published a widely-reproduced article on the Trust’s ten-year restoration plan and its accompanied website. Click here to read the entire article, the opening of which is quoted below:

Visitors line the highway, most peering through binoculars, as they strain to get a better look at dozens of brown specks in the distance.

The specks — members of Valles Caldera National Preserve’s infamous elk herd — are munching in green pastures that stretch for miles. They are surrounded by mountain peaks blanketed with ponderosa pine, spruce and fir trees.

The expansive preserve is a sight to behold, but caretakers say Valles Caldera’s forests, grasslands and wetlands are not as healthy as they look. Nearly a decade of research has provided them with statistics to say so, and now they have developed a 10-year plan to get the preserve back into shape by using everything from prescribed fire and thinning to weed control and wetland restoration.

ORIGINAL POST: The Valles Caldera Trust has debuted a new section of its web site designed to educate the public regarding its “10-year strategy for the restoration and management of the forest, grassland, shrubland, and riparian ecosystems” on the Valles Caldera National Preserve, and to take public input regarding this plan.

Click here to visit the new section of the Trust’s official government web site.

While replete with information and supporting documents, the web site does lack some particulars. Namely, it does not mention how the proposed strategy would change if the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act, legislation that would transfer management of the Preserve to the National Park Service, is passed by Congress. This bill has been unanimously approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is now up for consideration by the full Senate. In fact, the National Park Service is not mentioned at all on the site. The document also mentions enhancing objectives of surrounding National Forest lands, but fails to discuss how to enhance objectives of the forests of the National Park Service’s Bandelier National Monument, which shares a boundary with the Preserve.

The Associated Press ran a story about the new section of the Preserve’s web site:

The web page includes documents, maps and other links related to the proposed 10-year strategy for restoring and managing the forests, grasslands and riparian ecosystems on the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Trust officials say restoration and management of the preserve’s resources is at the heart of their stewardship responsibilities and will be 1 of the most important planning efforts undertaken by the trust.

The plan will guide decisions on forest thinning, prescribed fire, wetland restoration, travel management and noxious weed control, among other things.

Comments will be accepted through Sept. 29.

UPDATE: Sept. 3: Marie Rodriguez, the Natural Resources Coordinator of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, sent the following email to VallesCaldera.com today in response to the above post:

In your posting regarding the proposed Landscape Restoration & Management Plan you noted that we had provided no information about how the possible transfer of the Preserve to the National Park Service would affect this plan.

We simply cannot provide any official statement of certainty as to how a transfer would affect the proposed restoration.

However, the Bill that was actually voted on in committee (your link is to the Bill as introduced, not as voted on) states, “The Secretary shall undertake activities to improve the health of forest, grassland, and riparian areas within the Preserve, including any activities carried out in accordance with title IV of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of
2009 (16 U.S.C. 7301 et seq.)”

Further, it allows the Secretary to continue activities and programs developed by the Trust until planning is completed in compliance with Interior regulations.

One administrative issue is funding. The funding awarded under title IV can only be expended on National Forest System land. Should the transfer occur the current funding would no longer be availble for expenditure on the Preserve. However, we would be optimistic that the Secretary would support the collaboration and commitments made by all stakeholders.

In policies and documents such as the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and the New Mexico Restoration Principles, federal land managers recognize that the management of ecosystems including habitats and disturbance must be considered across administrative boundaries.

The goals and objectives of the proposed plan are completely consistent with the current and proposed legislation that guides (or would guide) the management of the Preserve.

The Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act (S.3452), which would transfer control of the Caldera to the National Park Service, is a candidate for inclusion in an omnibus lands bill this fall, according to the Federal Parks and Recreation Bulletin, a biweekly publication for federal employees of parks and recreation areas. An omnibus bill is a piece of legislation that packages together multiple measures into one. From the Bulletin:

Two important outdoor bills took major steps forward last week, raising the possibility they will be eligible for an omnibus lands bill this fall. Assuming of course an omnibus lands bill is assembled.
…
The Senate Energy Committee, which usually assembles the ingredients for an omnibus measure, has not yet begun to put together a new omnibus, but that doesn’t mean one will not be prepared. The ultimate call will be made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Obvious candidates for the omnibus are a bill to transfer the Valles Caldera area in New Mexico to the Park Service, as well as measures to designate wilderness and trails in central Idaho, to extend a popular federal land sales bill, to designate a national park in Delaware (the state has none now), designate a handful of national heritage areas, and much more.

The Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act was introduced in the Senate on May 27. Hearings on the bill in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee were held on June 30.