Rep. Mike Simpson's strategy for passing the Central Idaho Economic Development Act hasn't changed since he started working on the Boulder-White Clouds wilderness bill 14 years ago.
He tried to give each of the many players as much of what they wanted, without taking away too much of what somebody else wanted.
Preservationists started from the position that they wanted all of the areas identified for wilderness study when the Sawtooth National Recreation Area was established by Congress in 1972.
Opponents, including Custer County and motorized recreation groups, started from the position of opposing any new wilderness. In the early versions, Simpson offered lots of land transfers and goodies like the Challis Civic Center to satisfy the county. Eventually, when he couldn't deliver such goodies, he turned to appropriating money for the county.
Ranchers got permanent buyouts to help them deal with the grazing cutbacks already working their way through the system. Machines are not allowed in wilderness, which means no bicycles, motorcycles, chain saws or generators. Motorized recreation groups - motorcyclists, ATVers, snowmobilers - lost access to just one major trail in the proposed wilderness. But even that was too much for them to bear and they never signed on.
Preservationists had to live with the motorized corridors criss-crossing and subdividing their wilderness area, but they agreed. Mountain bikers wanted the popular Fisher Creek Trail in the White Clouds out of the wilderness and open to biking, and it was.
Motorized recreation's opposition became more important after 2010, when they got Sen. Jim Risch to stop Simpson's bill. The bill is revived now because those groups are satisfied, having that single trail remain open under CIEDRA and a snowmobile area left open to snow play.
In the meantime, mountain bikers cut a deal with preservationists to allow them in the spectacular Ants Basin and Castle Divide trails in the proposal for a Boulder-White Clouds national monument.
Simpson doesn't support the monument, and kept those two trails within his wilderness proposal and off-limits to mountain bikes. He told the mountain bikers this week there are plenty of biking opportunities in the area without the two trails and he's sticking to his guns.
Mountain bikers in general want more access to wilderness, Simpson wrote in a detailed response this week, and want to use his bill as a proxy in the national debate over allowing these human-powered machines in wilderness. He's got enough of a challenge without trying to resolve that larger conflict.
But that leaves mountain bikers today in the same position that motorized users were in previous CIEDRA fights: They either have the political muscle to stop Simpson or not. They are banking on a more flexible presidential monument declaration instead of the rigid wilderness designation.
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