Potential Legislation

Potential Legislation

Keep Big Bend Wild is consulting with legal experts familiar with public land laws, as Congressional legislation will ultimately be required to designate lands within Big Bend National Park as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Most wilderness designation laws have similar, standardized language, establishing the wilderness area and noting that its management shall remain consistent with the laws applicable to the National Park System, and any specific to that national park unit.

It will be important for such legislation to note that the wilderness would only apply to lands owned by the United States within Big Bend National Park, and those lands would remain both part of the national park and managed by the National Park Service. There would be no land acquisition associated with the designation of wilderness.

It would also be important to acknowledge the importance of border security and direct the NPS and the Border Patrol to cooperate to achieve the mission of both agencies.

Examples of legislation that Congress passed to create wilderness areas within units of the National Park System include the following public laws. Note it is necessary to search (using control-F) the text of the laws linked below, using the section numbers unless otherwise noted:

• Rocky Mountain National Park (2009), Public Law 111-11, sections 1951-1952
• Zion National Park (2009), Public Law 111-11, section 1973
• Apostle Islands National Lakeshore (2004), Division E, Section 140 of Public Law 108-477   (Search for “Gaylord”)
• California Desert Protection Act (1994) Public Law 103-433, sections 601-603, establishing or expanding existing wilderness in Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks, and Mojave National Preserve. 

While these are good models of national park wilderness legislation, no Big Bend National Park wilderness legislation has yet been introduced by any member of Congress. Keep Big Bend Wild’s emphasis is currently on raising awareness and building support for wilderness at Big Bend.

For more information, questions, or suggestions about potential Big Bend wilderness legislation in the future, please write to info@keepbigbendwild.org. KBBW welcomes substantive input.