Citizen efforts protecting Valles Caldera National Preserve

By Tom Ribe, Executive Director, Caldera Action

The yawning expanse of the Valles Caldera National Preserve in north-central New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains has drawn generations to its streams, grasslands and wild forests. This outstanding remnant of a recent cataclysmic volcanic event has been cloaked in peace that belies its geologic and tumultuous human history.

The public is intensely interested in this fragile landscape, which was purchased by the federal government in 2000 from willing private owners. In 2000 when the Sierra Club and others lobbied Congress to put up funds to buy it, resistance from some conservative interests forced a compromise where the Valles Caldera would be operated by a government corporation (sort of like the Post Office) rather than being managed by an agency like the U.S. Forest Service or National Park Service.

Though still under the Forest Service budget umbrella, VCNP is operated by a nine-member, presidentially appointed Trust that supervises the preserve staff. This “experiment in land management” has had a multitude of intractable problems that have inspired continued citizen activism to revise the 2000 legislation that created the trust.

My organization, Caldera Action, has since 2007 led efforts to watchdog the Trust and seek protection and preservation of the Valles Caldera while working with the New Mexico Congressional delegation to pass a bill that would transfer the VCNP to the National Park Service as a “preserve” (not a national park).

The National Park Service manages 18 other national preserves across the United States, and the preserve concept would allow the NPS to give Valles Caldera the high level of protection and interpretation for which the NPS is known while allowing some traditional uses like fishing and hunting.

In 2009, Sen. Bingaman introduced an excellent bill for Park Service management in the U.S. Senate. His bill passed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which he chairs, and awaited action by the full Senate, which was nearly paralyzed by partisanship. At the end of the Congressional session in December 2010, the Valles Caldera bill was included in a big Omnibus Public Lands bill that came up for a vote in the last hours of the “lame duck” session.

Objections by Sen. McCain and others caused Majority Leader Harry Reid to withdraw the Omnibus bill, and the Valles Caldera bill died with 100 other measures contained within the omnibus. Had this bill passed, it would have moved to the White House for signature without a need for a vote in the House of Representatives since the individual bills within it had largely been considered in the House.

Rebirth
In early March 2011, Senators Bingaman and Udall reintroduced in the Senate the same bill for the Valles Caldera that had been considered in the previous Congress. This Congress will be far more difficult for all public-land conservation bills since several new senators with anti-conservation stances have joined the Senate and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Likewise, the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans who already have directly attacked budgets for public lands, clean-air, and clean-water programs.
Caldera Action will resume a more nuanced and diversified effort to see the Valles Caldera National Preserve Management Act pass this Congress. With the retirement of Senator Bingaman looming in 2012, our efforts are urgent.

Caldera Action urges Sierra Club members to join efforts to press and support the new Valles Caldera bill in the U.S. Senate (SB564) and urge Congressmen Luján and Heinrich to introduce a similar bill in the House. Also please make comments to planning efforts currently underway at the Preserve through the Trust website: http://www.vallescaldera.gov. You may follow all of the Preserve’s news through the excellent news blog at http://www.vallescaldera.com.

Tom Ribe can be reached at info@caldera-action.org