Wilderness bills will have new allies, new foes next year Now that two Idaho wilderness bills are officially dead for the year, the Republicans behind the proposals are planning how to get ideas crafted during the Bush era to pass through a Democratic Congress and White House. Sen. Mike Crapo's Owyhee Canyonlands plan to protect 500,000 acres of wilderness and help ranchers in Owyhee County was one of more than 100 provisions in a sweeping lands bill now delayed until January. And Rep. Mike Simpson's proposal to protect 319,000 acres in the Boulder and White Cloud mountains in Central Idaho never even got a start in the Democratic-controlled House. "You never rule it out," Simpson said this week. "Weird things happen in the last days of session, but it looks unlikely right now." Both Simpson and Crapo are confident they'll do better in 2009 - but though they'll pick up new allies on some aspects of their bills, they'll see new pressures as well. Each bill is built on a fragile coalition of traditional land users, conservationists and local governments - but each has been attacked by conservatives concerned about property rights and by the environmental left. New people - and environmental advocacy groups - will have more power, but appeasing the new majority could cost Crapo and Simpson the Republican and Western support they worked to cultivate....