This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land, Don’t Blow It

More than 2 million acres in nine states will be set aside as protected wilderness as soon as President Obama signs a bill just passed by Congress. Land in California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia will be off-limits to development.

AP via Google:

The bill — a collection of nearly 170 separate measures — represents one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in a quarter-century. It confers the government’s highest level of protection on land in California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

The bill also protects land in Alaska under a controversial land swap that allows the state to go forward with a planned airport access road in a remote wildlife refuge near the Bering Sea. Critics call the project a “road to nowhere.”

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Flickr / Ken Lund

California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains are among the treasures to be protected by the legislation.