I wasn't able to pay it much attention at the time due to all the excitement surrounding Obama's inauguration and the major concern over our economic downturn, but about ten days ago, the Senate passed a measure that purports to protect large areas of federal lands in numerous states.
According to at least one news article (from ENN), it provides "the largest expansion of the National Wilderness Preservation System in 15 years." The one 15 years ago must be the California Desert Protection Act, passed in October 1994 as one of the last acts of the Democratic-controlled Congress. The Gingrich/DeLay GOP, and their antipathy to the very concept of land that belongs to everyone in the country, took over Congress a few weeks later.
Virtually ever since then, we've had to play defense in public lands protection, including numerous fights over preventing the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress from selling off our lands to developers and other special interests. It is nice to be on the offensive again.
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