Wilderness Bill Fails!
And now for some good news. The Omnibus Public Lands Bill was defeated in the House today.
The vote was 282 for, 144 against, but it still failed. The reason is that House leaders (Nancy Pelosi) tried to force passage under emergency rules. Emergency rules require a two-thirds majority (290 votes) and that was not achieved.
Normal rules were suspended because nearly 100 of the bills in the 1,200-page package have never passed or have had a hearing in the House. The House leadership (Nancy Pelosi) tried to jam the Omnibus Public Lands Bill through without discussion, debate, hearings, analysis, or any proper legislative consideration.
It was a damn emergency!
But too bad, enough responsible Congress-persons said wait a second, shouldn’t we deliberate through the normal processes?
The vote tally was 248 Dems and 34 Reps in favor, 3 Dems and 141 Reps opposed. Despite the betrayal of 34 Republicans, enough remained in opposition to suspension of the rules to quash the bill. The Democrats were almost uniform in their effort to circumvent due process in order to inflict 100 ill-considered land bills on the nation.
From the failing and close to bankruptcy New York TimesNearlyUp [here]:
House rejects public lands omnibus
By Eric Bontrager, Greenwire, March 11, 2009
The House rejected an amended omnibus package of more than 160 public lands, water and resources bills despite a last-minute change designed to ease concerns about the bill.
By a vote of 282-144, the House failed to pass S. 22 under a suspension of the rules, which barred any amendments from being added to the bill but also required a two-thirds majority for passage.
The bill would have designated more than 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states and established three new national park units, a new national monument, three new national conservation areas, more than 1,000 miles of national wild and scenic rivers and four new national trails. It also would have enlarged the boundaries of more than a dozen existing national park units and established 10 new national heritage areas. …
The House Democratic leadership had held off bringing the bill to the floor since the Senate passed the package in January while they attempted to gather enough support for the bill to pass it under suspension. …
“This is an extreme abuse of considering bills under a suspension of the rules,” said Natural Resources ranking member Doc Hastings (R-Wash.). “Any notion that this is just a package of bills already passed by the House is absolutely false.”
Is this the end of it? Doubtful, but the ugly thing has hit a snag for now.
Finally a little good news!!!!!!!!!