CORE Act Committee markup ‘first step to success’
Local officials confident in bill’s progress
By Eva Thomas, Telluride Daily Planet Staff Reporter
The Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act made it to Washington Monday for Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee markup and vote. The committee's party-line vote positions the bill to proceed to the Senate floor, which would put the bill in play for public lands legislation and would then be sent to President Joe Biden to become law.
San Miguel County Commissioner Hilary Cooper spoke Monday in a video conference with Colorado’s Senator Michael Bennet, Senator John Hickenlooper and Congressman Joe Neguse. The group spoke about the bill’s possible impacts. Cooper has been a key supporter of the CORE Act since 2007, when it was called the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act.
"After the unexpected increase in visitor numbers to our surrounding public lands, we need the CORE Act more than ever to preserve the existing balance of the use of our public lands within San Miguel County and our surrounding counties. The provisions in the CORE Act have been tested over time, and they're still needed more than ever," Cooper said in Monday's conference.
The CORE Act would protect 400,000 acres of Colorado lands. More than 31,000 acres in the San Juan Mountains would be protected, including Mount Sneffels and Wilson Peak.
"It also safeguards beloved high-country destinations, like Ice Lake Basin, from future mining in the more than 21,000-acre Sheep Mountain Special Management Area, as well as protecting more than 6,500 acres of community watershed from energy development," according to COREAct.org.
Cooper said that in 2007, it started with a very grassroots process. They worked on developing a list of potential stakeholders, and drafted maps of existing and potential wilderness areas. When Cooper was executive director of Sheep Mountain Alliance, she said they did a lot of groundwork on several bills and developed boundaries. Over a decade later, she has continued to work on the project through various roles.
In the early days, Cooper would go to Washington and attend committee meetings. She was confident the bill would pass, but then the bill would fall short of the votes needed.
"It has been a real lesson in democracy, congressional process and changing leadership, and ongoing communication, and really the importance of building lasting designations that will continue to have support," Cooper said.
Bennet, Hickenlooper and Neguse have been champions of the bill. In 2019, Neguse cosponsored the bill with Bennet. The bill was the first Colorado public lands bill to go through in more than a decade.
"Communities in these areas came together to write this bill from the ground up, literally. This is a model for collaboration," Hickenlooper said at the committee markup.
Current Sheep Mountain Alliance Executive Director Mason Osgood has been watching the bill closely over the past few years. Sheep Mountain Alliance has been working to support the CORE Act by gathering support from local businesses and elected officials, as well as getting the word out within the region.
After the party-line vote, the bill could now be sent to the Senate majority leader to call up the bill, or it could be sent into a larger public lands package and called to a Senate hearing, Osgood explained. Either way, he added, Tuesday was the "first step to success."
"I still hold a lot of optimism for this bill. It obviously moved quite quickly through the House of Representatives and passed several times in different forms. The Senate has been a little trickier. But I think it's a huge win that we got this committee hearing. It paves the pathway for this bill to be voted on the Senate floor," Osgood said.
Cooper also has high hopes for the bill following Tuesday's markup.
"I continue to remain confident that someday it will pass. We've gotten as close as we've ever gotten. We have two very strong leaders in Senator Bennet and Senator Hickenlooper," she said. "With that strong, capable leadership and the hard work and knowledge of their staff, I am confident that this time we will see it."