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

Legislation that would have ended the Valles Caldera Trust experiment and replaced it with National Park Service leadership, an objective that won broad and bipartisan support throughout New Mexico, appears dead today as Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office confirmed that he has abandoned plans to pursue passage of the America’s Great Outdoors Act of 2010, an omnibus lands package which included the Caldera bill as its keynote item.

According to Reid’s spokeswoman, Regan Lachapelle, the fault lay with Republicans: “Critical bipartisan bills for all regions of the country are included in the America’s Great Outdoors Act of 2010. Unfortunately, certain senators have made it clear that they prefer delay over bipartisan action on non-controversial bills.”

Though Reid’s staff indicated today that he would attempt to pass some of the measures in this omnibus bill that Republicans in the Senate were willing to support, the spokeswoman for Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Jude McCartin, told VallesCaldera.com that the Caldera legislation would not be included in this group of bills because it had not gained GOP backing in the U.S. Senate, effectively killing the bill for the hyper-partisan 110th Congress.

However, Bingaman’s office asserted that he will certainly attempt to pass a similar bill next year. Bingaman, who co-sponsored the legislation along with New Mexico’s junior senator, Tom Udall, continues to chair the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, making it a simple proposition for him to reintroduce a like-minded measure.

Although Republicans took control of the U.S House of Representatives in November, presenting an additional challenge for future passage of a Democratically-sponsored Senate bill, a majority of New Mexico’s House delegation supports the move (Reps. Ben Ray Lujan and Martin Heinrich), as well as both aforementioned U.S. Senators from the Land of Enchantment. Additionally, significant local support for this move exists in the area, as the state’s major newspapers have endorsed the measure, along with the governors of Jemez and Santa Clara Pueblo, the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce and City Council, and a slew of grassroots organizations that run the ideological spectrum (from Republicans for Environmental Protection, to the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, to the Sierra Club). See a partial list of endorsers here.

Today’s news from Capitol Hill leads to questions about the prospects of the Valles Caldera Trust’s long-term viability. A Government Accountability Office study of the Preserve from last year stated that “according to current Trust officials, becoming financially self-sustaining, particularly by the end of fiscal year 2015 when federal appropriations are due to expire, is the Trust’s biggest challenge.”

Unfortunately, Preserve management has concluded that this goal of financial self-sustainability cannot be attained. Specifically, the chairman of the Valles Caldera Trust, Stephen Henry, has explicitly gave up hope of the Preserve ever achieving profitability, writing in an Oct. 9, 2009, letter to the Government Accountability Office (PDF) [on p. 37]: “Simply stated, the Valles Caldera Trust can never achieve financial independence under this legal regime.” The Preserve’s Executive Director, Gary Bratcher, also dismissed any possibility of the VCNP ever paying its own way on Oct. 19, 2009, in a letter written to Sens. Bingaman and Udall (PDF) [on p. 5]: “[The Valles Caldera Preservation Act] is defective… The requirement that the Trust be financially self-sustaining is impossible to achieve.”

Unless Congress fails to take action, the U.S. Forest Service will take the reigns at the Preserve if the Valles Caldera Trust fails to achieve the requirements of the Valles Caldera Preservation Act, including that of financial self-sustainability. Since the two top-ranking leaders of the Preserve have declared the goals of the experiment unattainable, it appears likely that, without Congressional action, the Valles Caldera National Preserve will eventually become national forest, possibly extending the overuse of resources common in areas of the Santa Fe National Forest to the scenic crown jewel of New Mexico.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid officially introduced on the Senate floor on Friday an omnibus public lands bill containing legislation to transfer the Valles Caldera to the National Park Service, as well as approximately 100 other measures, entitled the “America’s Great Outdoors Act of 2010.”

A former boxer, Reid appeared eager to fight to push this act into law. “I want to get this package done before Congress adjourns,” Reid said. “These are bipartisan bills. There is nothing divisive about protecting historic battlefields, improving our most critical water sources, or making sure that our best wildlife habitat remains wild and healthy. These are things that people in Nevada and across America want, and they expect us to work together to achieve them. I sincerely hope that the delays and obstruction we are seeing from my Republican colleagues will not prevent us from taking up this critical legislation.”

Reid has stated that he will keep the Senate open into the new year in an effort to secure passage of his key legislative priorities, including this omnibus lands bill.

Reaction by the media to prospects of success for this new piece of legislation has run from optimistic (“Public Lands Bill May Yet Pass Senate,” Salt Lake City Tribune), to downbeat (“Senator Reid Introduces Massive Lands Bill, Though Opposition is Plentiful,” National Parks Traveler).

Reid’s office also stated the following with regard to the America’s Great Outdoors Act of 2010:

For decades, the U.S. Senate routinely considered non-controversial legislation dealing with natural resource protection issues. But over the past six years, members of the minority party have intentionally and methodically obstructed normal consideration of these bills. As a result of this breakdown in comity, the Senate has been forced to group large numbers of these bills into omnibus packages to break the ongoing filibusters. This was the case with the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 and the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, both of which passed with overwhelming bipartisan votes.

Among other important provisions, the legislation introduced today designates new wilderness areas in three states, adds 4,600 miles to the national trail system, preserves important Revolutionary and Civil Wars sites, increases resources for protecting the worlds remaining marine turtles and great cats, restores critical waterbodies like Lake Tahoe, the Columbia River and the Long Island Sound, slows the decline in the world’s rapidly dwindling shark populations, and permanently authorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

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

Legislation to abolish the Valles Caldera Trust and replace it with management by the National Park Service is the first measure included in an omnibus public lands bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) hopes to introduce for a vote before the current lame-duck session of Congress ends.

Click here to read the entire omnibus public lands bill in PDF form.

The omnibus bill includes over 80 separate measures, with the Caldera legislation leading the bill. Reid has stated that he intends to adjourn the Senate on December 17, giving this legislation a scant four days to pass.