MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – New Hampshire’s two U.S. House members ripped a Vermont congressman Tuesday for trying to scuttle a bill expanding the White Mountain National Forest because it lacked similar provisions for Vermont.
U.S. Reps. Charles Bass and Jeb Bradley accused U.S. Rep. Bernard Sanders of “holding our bill hostage,” to try to ensure passage of legislation to expand the Green Mountain National Forest and extend stronger environmental protections to areas within the forest.
In an interview, Bradley said the New Hampshire forest plan was supported by everyone from logging groups to environmentalists, which is not the case for the provisions affecting Vermont.
“I just think it’s a shame that the consensus that we worked really long and hard to achieve in New Hampshire is being held hostage to a process that apparently hasn’t received consensus in Vermont,” said Bradley, R-N.H. “I find that really objectionable.”
Sanders said the Green and White Mountain National Forest protections – which passed the Senate as a package – had been separated by the House leadership in a “cynical Republican abuse of power.”
In a letter to his House colleagues, Sanders, an Independent, argued that “by separating the New Hampshire wilderness areas into two pieces of legislation and not including the Vermont wilderness area in either bill, the Republicans guaranteed that none of these wilderness areas will be signed into law this year.”
The cross-border sniping came a week after legislation containing both Vermont and New Hampshire forest enhancements passed the Senate.
The bill includes provisions that would:
• Designate 47,700 acres in the Green Mountain National Forest as wilderness, protecting it against logging and motorized uses;
• Set aside other National Forest land as “remote backcountry,” slightly less restrictive areas that would still ban logging;
• Designate a new national recreation area around Mount Moosalamoo in Addison County.
It had the unanimous support of House and Senate delegations from both sides of the Connecticut River, even though seven Vermont towns are on record opposing parts that would designate areas within their borders for heightened protection against logging and other activities.
The measure didn’t have the support of Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas.
He wrote to the chairmen of two House committees, complaining that the Senate legislation went beyond the forest management plan developed by the U.S. Forest Service for the Green Mountain National Forest.
The Republican House leadership, siding with the Republican governor, sought Monday to pass two bills dealing only with the New Hampshire forests.
Moving those bills required two-thirds votes to suspend the House rules, and Sanders was able to rally enough Democrats to block the moves.
By Tuesday, it appeared much less likely that any New England wilderness protection bills would pass this year. Congress breaks Friday, and will have a lame-duck session after the Nov. 7 election.
While the two New Hampshire congressmen sought to blame Sanders, an independent strongly allied with Democrats, environmental groups took aim on Douglas.
“We had an opportunity and it slipped away,” Leanne Klyza Linck, of the Wilderness Society said Tuesday. “Had Douglas not sent that letter we would have seen a New England bill. It’s an easy thing, a bipartisan issue. It would have just flown through.”
Douglas said he wanted “to reduce the rhetoric, and to recognize that there are very different, legitimate points of view on the question of how much additional wilderness ought to be set aside by the Congress.”
He said there had been extensive public participation on the Forest Service’s plan, but that the Senate bill went well beyond that plan.
Douglas said while he belives the towns’ concerns need to be taken into account more than they have been, they should not have veto power over the plan.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
