On Tuesday, Senator Alex Padilla testified before the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining in support of his bill, the PUBLIC Lands Act (S.1459). This legislation would protect more than one million acres of public lands and well over 500 miles of rivers in California’s Northwest, Central Coast, and Los Angeles regions. Senator Dianne Feinstein is an original cosponsor of the legislation in the Senate. On the House side, the Protecting America’s Wilderness (PAW) Act (H.R. 803) passed the House on February 26th by a vote of 227-200. The PAW Act includes federal public land conservations bills from Washington, Colorado, Arizona, and California, with California focused legislation being led by Representatives Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), Jimmy Panetta (D-Carmel), and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael).
