Wilderness Legislation Released by Compromise.

This article presents an update on the proposed wilderness legislation in the U.S. as of December 1984. A compromise reached in May 1984 by U.S. Senate-House negotiators on the management of national forest lands not designated by U.S. Congress as wilderness unleashed a tide of previously stalled bills that resulted in the designation of over six million acres of new wilderness areas in October 1984. Besides protecting millions of remote and pristine acres in their natural state, the enactment of these bills released for possible logging, mining, petroleum production, and intensive recreational use over 40 million acres of roadless national forest lands whose status has been in question since the 1970s when they came under study for possible wilderness designation. The pending legislation also will put to rest lawsuits challenging the adequacy of a Forest Service environmental impact statement and contesting federal forest development plans. The 98th Congress had before it more than two dozen bills that would have created roughly 11 million acres of new wilderness in national forests in 22 states. Wilderness bills were enacted for Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.