Cranston’s Desert Protection Measure Fails for Sixth Year : Environment: He blames Seymour, who stalled the bill in committee. Seymour says it would cost 20,000 jobs.

Pronouncing desert protection legislation dead for this year, retiring Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) conceded defeat Tuesday in his six-year quest to preserve millions of acres of the state’s southeast corner.

Cranston blamed his counterpart, Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.), for undermining legislation that sought to protect 4.8 million acres of desert from mining exploration, cattle grazing and off-road vehicles.

The desert bill, which passed the House last year but was stalled Tuesday by Seymour before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, fell victim to Seymour’s “shortsightedness and environmental illiteracy,” Cranston said. “Sen. Seymour appears to view the environment as a luxury of minor importance . . . nothing more than pretty scenery for a weekend family outing.”

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), who represents portions of the proposed desert protection area, accused Cranston of walking away from the bargaining table in compromise negotiations with Seymour.

“Alan Cranston has no one to blame but himself for the failure of this legislation,” Lewis said. “Quite simply, the Cranston desert bill is the victim of Alan Cranston’s unwillingness to negotiate in public a balanced desert plan.”

Environmentalists and Cranston remain hopeful that, with Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer leading in the state’s two U.S. Senate races, the desert bill will get passed next year. Both Feinstein and Boxer support the legislation.

“I’m very confident (the desert bill) will sail through next year,” Cranston said. “Then the mission will be accomplished.”

The two senators were 1.1 million acres apart on wilderness protection areas and expanded National Park Service territory. Cranston had offered to withdraw proposed Park Service protection of East Mojave National Monument from the bill, but Seymour wanted more than that: He wanted language that would keep the East Mojave under less restrictive oversight by the Bureau of Land Management.

Seymour, who is running against Feinstein for a two-year Senate seat, interrupted his campaigning in California to attend Tuesday’s committee hearing to consider legislation before Congress adjourns in early October. Just as he did the last time the desert bill was heard on Aug. 5, Seymour prevented the committee from taking up the bill by invoking a parliamentary rule that prohibits committees from meeting for more than two hours while the full Senate is in session.

Seymour said Cranston’s bill would have cost California a total of 20,000 jobs and $3 billion in income. These estimates have been disputed by environmentalists.

“Real men and women live in the desert,” Seymour said. “They work there, they raise their families there and they matter. Sen. Cranston sold them out.”

The partisan feuding left the legislation stranded at the Senate committee level for the sixth consecutive year since Cranston first introduced a desert protection bill in 1986.