In the News

Legislation would add 325 acres of land near Maroon Bells area to wilderness

Congresswoman Diana DeGette has reintroduced a bill that aims to designate 715,000 acres in 32 areas in Colorado as wilderness including 325 acres adjacent to the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness west of Aspen, and another 21,900 acres south of Carbondale.

In a press conference on Wednesday morning, DeGette, who has championed wilderness legislation since 1999, announced her plans to roll out the Colorado Wilderness Act of 2015.

An effort to designate 32 areas as wilderness across Colorado was launched again in Washington on Wednesday.

The Colorado Wilderness Act was introduced by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, and it could protect two large areas in Montezuma County, with support from local officials.

Among 715,000 acres up for consideration are 15,000 acres in the Weber-Menefee Mountain area, between Mesa Verde National Park and La Plata County.

Nearly 200 labs around the world have received live anthrax, according to Defense Department testimony before Congress on Tuesday.

The Pentagon announced last week that 86 labs in 20 states, the District of Columbia and seven foreign countries received live anthrax from Dugway Proving Grounds, a military lab in Utah failed to kill the samples before shipment. A private lab in Maryland discovered earlier this year that its sample that was supposed to be inactive was actually live, sparking an investigation that found more than half of all samples from Dugway contained live spores.

1972

The U.S. Forest Service completes a 5-year Roadless Area Review and Evaluation process (RARE I), which found that all the USFS lands within Browns Canyon and surrounding areas, tallying tens of thousands of acres, are suitable to be designated as wilderness.

1973

The Bureau of Land Management recommends 11,000 acres in Browns Canyon area as a "primitive" area.

1976

On a Thursday evening in early July, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton came to the well of the House floor with a poster-board photograph of himself with two smiling blonde girls.

"This is Brook and Brielle. I'm in the middle, so don't look at me," he said. "These two little girls are from my district in Michigan. Our 21st Century Cures effort seeks to capture just a sliver of the hope and optimism that Brook and Brielle exude despite incredible odds."

BUENA VISTA — Like a whitewater rafting trip down the Arkansas River, the dedication ceremony Saturday for Browns Canyon National Monument hit a few rough patches along the way.

The outdoor celebration had to be moved indoors, thanks to an unexpected storm. Two of the monument's most active supporters — former Sen. Mark Udall and former Rep. Joel Hefley — were unable to make it, Udall due to a climbing injury, Hefley because of a death in the family.

Advances in biomedical and pharmaceutical research continue to occur at a dizzying pace. Yet the process of moving these discoveries out of the lab and into the real world where they can benefit people is frustratingly slow.

That could change very soon. In an encouraging show of bipartisanship, the House recently passed legislation — the 21st Century Cures Act (H.R. 6) — designed to speed the process from scientific discovery to health treatments and cures for people who need them.

The excitement was palpable — as it is almost every summer Saturday along the upper Arkansas River — as the who's-who list of federal, state and area dignitaries arrived for the formal dedication ceremony of Browns Canyon National Monument. But nowhere was it more evident than on the bow of Gov. John Hickenlooper's whitewater raft.

There, the governor's son, Teddy, sat with tether in hand and an ear-to-ear smile across his face as he took in the whitewater action and the surreal scenery of Colorado's newest national monument.