The vote is on passage of the bill (HR 1149) to designate 1.113 million acres of national forest land in Oregon as federally protected wilderness. This bill represents one of the most extensive wilderness proposals to come before Congress since the 1980 Alaska Lands Act. It creates 19 new wilderness areas and expands 7 others. Included are extensive additions like the Middle Santiam in the spectacular Cascade Mountain Range; the north fork of the John Day River, the largest remaining spawning stream for wild salmon; the Range; and huge areas of forest land in eastern Oregon. Some areas include virgin old growth timber with trunks up to eight feet in diameter.

The bill was opposed by Oregon's powerful timber industry, as well as by the Reagan Administration, despite the fact that it would make available more board feet of timber--by releasing wilderness candidate areas now off-limits to lumbering-- than it preserved in designated wilderness areas. The bill also would protect some 8,900 commercial and Indian fishing jobs by preserving up-stream and coastal watersheds on which salmon depend.

Bill adopted 252-93; March 21, 1983. YES is the pro-environment vote.