Bill to Protect Desert Lands OKd by Panel : Environment: House committee passes measure to designate 4.4 million acres as wilderness areas and create two national parks. The legislation is opposed by the Bush Administration.

Moving quickly on a bill that has languished in Congress for years, the House Interior Committee approved legislation Wednesday that would protect 4.4 million acres of California desert from off-road vehicles, mining and other potentially damaging uses.

Interior Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Martinez) and fellow Democrats on the panel fended off three Republican amendments that Democrats said would have gutted the bill by permitting current mining, grazing and hunting rights.

“After over a decade of controversy, the watchword has become one of balance,” Miller said. “This legislation goes a long way toward achieving that balance.”

Although the desert protection bill is expected to win approval on the House floor, the partisan battle is far from over.

The Bush Administration reiterated this week that it strongly opposes the measure, preferring legislation that would provide wilderness protection for 2.1 million acres. Moreover, the bill’s fate is uncertain in the Senate, where California’s two senators--Democrat Alan Cranston and Republican John Seymour--remain at odds over how large an area should be protected.

The House measure would designate 77 wilderness protection areas encompassing 4.4 million acres, and create national parks in Death Valley and the east Mojave Desert. The bill enjoys overwhelming support from virtually all environmental interests.

Meanwhile, the committee cleared another hurdle in reaching a compromise with the California State Lands Commission over the fate of about 320,000 acres of land and mineral interests included in the desert areas protected under the legislation. The commission manages the investment property on behalf of the state teachers’ retirement fund.

Under the settlement, Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. would be directed to negotiate a swap: the privately held land within the designated acreage in exchange for federal property, including lands with potential for mineral development.

If no such exchange is worked out by 1995, the Interior Department would reappraise the value of the land held by the teachers’ retirement fund and issue a credit to be used to bid for other federal lands. The amount of any credit remaining by the year 2000 would be paid directly to the lands commission.

A similar agreement also must be negotiated with Catellus Corp., a California real estate firm that owns about 400,000 acres of desert land in the 4.4 million acres. About 20% of the company’s stock is owned by the California Public Employees Retirement System.

Republicans’ attempts to limit the scope of the bill were thwarted by Democrats on the Interior Committee.

Calling the legislation the “great California land grab,” Rep. Ron Marlenee (R-Mont.) raised concerns that the measure was being rushed to the House floor without the input of four California Republicans who represent the desert area and oppose the bill.

Democrats noted, however, that the bill has been introduced in Congress during each of the last five two-year sessions and that more than 500 witnesses have testified in public hearings in California and Washington.

Committee Republicans tried to insert amendments to allow livestock grazing to continue under current terms, permit hunting and trapping on desert land, and authorize continued mining activity pending further mineral studies by the federal government.

All were defeated on votes cast largely along partisan lines.

The Administration outlined its opposition to the bill Tuesday in a letter to Miller. Assistant Interior Secretary David O’Neal wrote that the bill includes far more wilderness and parkland than is required to protect the desert, would transfer huge blocks of land to Death Valley and Joshua Tree monuments costing millions of dollars to maintain, and would shut down mineral exploration and development on 7.4 million acres of desert land.

“This is just another example of this so-called Environmental President leading an anti-environmental Administration,” countered Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), co-author of the desert bill and a candidate for the U.S. Senate. “. . . It is a little exasperating that after years and years of negotiating, the Administration essentially has not budged in its efforts to stop decent desert protection legislation.”