Seymour Maneuver Bottles Up Desert Bill in Committee : Congress: Procedural move makes it unlikely that an accord on wilderness protection will be reached this year.

Vowing to do everything in his power to block passage of a bill to protect the California desert, Sen. John Seymour used a procedural tactic Wednesday to prevent a Senate committee from taking its first vote on the 7-year-old proposal.

The action makes it unlikely that a compromise on desert legislation will be reached this year.

Seymour, a Republican appointee who is running against Democratic candidate Dianne Feinstein to fill one of California’s two U.S. Senate seats on the ballot this year, thwarted any progress on the desert bill in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), would designate 4.5 million acres of wilderness areas in the state’s southeast corner and place 3 million acres, including the East Mojave National Scenic Area, under management of the National Park Service. In November, the House passed a similar bill in the face of a threatened veto by the Bush Administration.

The two California senators have been at odds over how to best protect the desert, with Cranston promoting the far-reaching measure backed by environmentalists and Seymour supporting a less restrictive measure favored by desert residents, mining companies and ranchers.

“I made no secret it was my intent now that negotiations have broken down between Sen. Cranston and I . . . to do everything I can to block that bill, even though I am outgunned and outmanned,” Seymour said.

If no compromise is reached this year, Cranston said, he is counting on the bill being passed next year with the help of two new California Democratic senators and a new Democratic Administration.

“If, as seems likely now, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein are elected and (Democratic presidential nominee Bill) Clinton is elected, there will be no difficulty in enacting the desert bill next year,” Cranston said.

Cranston has struggled to move the desert bill, which enjoys the support of the Sierra Club and a host of other environmental groups, through the Senate since it was introduced in 1985. Environmentalists say the legislation is necessary to protect threatened species such as the desert tortoise and to prevent the destruction of pristine territory by mining and ranching operations and off-road vehicle use.

Seymour and the four California Republican House members who represent the desert area contend that the bill is so expansive that it would put miners and ranchers out of work and make large areas of the desert inaccessible to weekend vacationers and off-road vehicle users.

Last week, Cranston decided to cut off stalled negotiations with Seymour and bring the legislation before the the Senate Energy Committee. On Wednesday, the committee scheduled two controversial measures for consideration--Cranston’s desert bill and a Republican-sponsored timber bill that would free the government from some environmental restrictions when logging national forests in the Pacific Northwest.

After Sen. Tim Wirth (D-Colo.) offered an amendment to lump the desert and timber bills together to ensure that both measures would be addressed by the committee, Seymour ended the hearing by invoking a parliamentary procedure that prohibits a committee from meeting for longer than two hours after the Senate convenes without a unanimous floor vote waiving the provision. When Seymour objected five minutes past the two-hour limit, the panel was forced to recess immediately without acting on the desert bill.

Afterward, Seymour said that Wirth, as newly appointed issues coordinator for Western states for the Clinton-Gore campaign, decided to “carry the Sierra Club’s political water on this issue.” Seymour also noted that the Sierra Club is a financial supporter of Feinstein, is Democratic opponent, who supports the Cranston bill.

“So what we have here is the rawest, most cynical hardball politics you will ever have an opportunity to see,” Seymour said. “To have (the bill) taken up in such a blatant political fashion is unheard of. . . . It has nothing to do whatsoever with policy.”

Asked if his own political maneuvering could be construed as hardball politics, Seymour said, “If you are a member of the Sierra Club, I suppose it would.”

Sierra Club officials in Washington, noting that Seymour would have used the rules of the Senate to derail the desert bill regardless of Wirth’s involvement, accused Seymour of “throwing a procedural tantrum.”

Debbie Sease, the Washington director of the Sierra Club’s Public Lands Program, said, “What Seymour did, though, was demonstrate for the people of California where he stands on the environment. He doesn’t want to take up desert protection.”

Seymour’s actions were hailed by the California mining industry, which opposes the bill on grounds that it would place thousands of potential mine sites off limits.