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Democratic

Ron Wyden

Oregonians know Ron as a senator who listens and innovates. For example, Ron has secured landmark health care and economic wins for our workers and retirees. Always citing the need to "throw open the doors of government for Oregonians," he holds an open-to-all town hall meeting in each of Oregon's 36 counties each year. Thus far he has held more than 970 meetings, as well as several virtual town hall meetings sponsored by the nonpartisan Town Hall Project. Wyden's dedication to hearing all sides of an issue and looking for common sense, nonpartisan solutions has won him trust on both sides of the aisle and put him at the heart of so many of the Senate's most important debates. In 2011, the Almanac of American Politics described Wyden as having "displayed a genius for coming up with sensible-sounding ideas no one else had thought of and making the counter-intuitive political alliances that prove helpful in passing bills." The Washington Post's Ezra Klein wrote: "The country has problems. And Ron Wyden has comprehensive, bipartisan proposals for fixing them."

WILDERNESS

Senator Wyden is proud to have introduced the Lewis and Clark Mount Hood Wilderness Act of 2007, which will permanently protect nearly 125,000 acres of wilderness on Mount Hood and in the Columbia River Gorge. The bill would also grant Wild and Scenic River protections to more than 80 additional miles of rivers in Oregon. This proposal, which was recently approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, represents an increase of almost 70 percent over existing wilderness protections and a 65 percent increase to the Wild and Scenic Rivers network on Mount Hood.  Proposed wilderness additions in the bill include cathedral old growth forests, historic lava beds, prime habitat for salmon and steelhead and popular recreational destinations such as Mirror Lake and Roaring River. The bill also includes protections for almost 35,000 acres of National Recreation Areas.

Senator Wyden has previously cosponsored other wilderness legislation pertaining to land both in and out of Oregon.  He introduced legislation with Senator Smith to create the Soda Mountain Wilderness in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. 

In the 109th Congress, he was also an original cosponsor of the following legislation:

  • The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Bill, S. 261, which designated a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as wilderness;
  • The America's Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2005, S. 882, which designated certain Federal land in the State of Utah as wilderness; and
  • The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Voluntary and Equitable Grazing Conflict Resolution Act, S. 3858, which would authorize the Secretary of Interior to cancel certain grazing leases on land in Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and would designate certain Monument land as wilderness.