S. 888 — Oregon Recreation Enhancement Act

This section defines the term “Secretary” to mean the Secretary of the Interior, with respect to public land administered by the Secretary of the Interior, or the Secretary of Agriculture, with respect to National Forest System land; and defines the term “State” to mean the State of Oregon.

This section designates approximately 98,150 acres of BLM land as the Rogue Canyon Recreation Area and approximately 29,884 acres as the Molalla Recreation Area in Oregon to protect, conserve, and enhance their recreational, ecological, scenic, cultural, watershed, and fish and wildlife values. The Secretary must administer the recreation areas in accordance with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 and other applicable laws, allowing only uses consistent with the designation purposes; prepare maps and legal descriptions; conduct a wildfire risk assessment covering the areas, the Wild Rogue Wilderness, and adjacent federal land within 280 days of enactment (in consultation with the Oregon Governor’s Council on Wildfire Response); and develop a wildfire mitigation plan within one year after the assessment that prioritizes vegetation management, evacuation routes (developed with state and local fire agencies), and public dissemination strategies on non-wilderness federal land to reduce risks to nearby communities. The section further (1) prohibits new permanent or temporary roads except for public safety or temporary roads to implement the wildfire mitigation plan (not in wilderness areas), without affecting the Molalla Forest Road; (2) preserves the Secretary’s wildland fire operations authority; (3) withdraws federal surface and subsurface land from public land laws, mining laws, and mineral/geothermal leasing (subject to valid existing rights); and (4) specifies that included wilderness areas are administered under the Wilderness Act and that no protective perimeters or buffer zones are created.

This section expands the Wild Rogue Wilderness, originally designated under the Endangered American Wilderness Act of 1978, by adding approximately 59,512 acres of federal land in Oregon generally depicted as “Proposed Wilderness” on the map entitled “Rogue Canyon Recreation Area Wild Rogue Wilderness Additions” dated November 19, 2019, with administration by the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture for land under their respective jurisdictions (and statutory references to the Secretary of Agriculture deemed to include the Secretary of the Interior as applicable). The section further (1) directs the Secretaries to prepare and file a map and legal description of the additions with the force of law (subject to correction of typographical errors) and make them available for public inspection in Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service offices; (2) authorizes necessary measures to control fire, insects, and diseases in accordance with section 4(d)(1) of the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1133(d)(1)); (3) withdraws the additions from all forms of entry, appropriation, disposal under public land laws, mining, mineral leasing, geothermal leasing, and mineral materials disposition, subject to valid existing rights; and (4) preserves any treaty rights of Indian tribes.

This section withdraws eligible federal lands in Curry County and Josephine County, Oregon—depicted on Bureau of Land Management maps entitled “Hunter Creek and Pistol River Headwaters Withdrawal Proposal” and “Rough and Ready and Baldface Creeks Mineral Withdrawal Proposal,” both dated January 12, 2015, plus any lands or interests acquired thereafter—from all forms of entry, appropriation, or disposal under public land laws; location, entry, and patent under mining laws; and operation under mineral leasing and geothermal leasing laws, subject to valid existing rights. The section requires the maps to be made available to the public at appropriate Bureau of Land Management offices within 30 days of enactment and provides that the withdrawal does not affect existing recreational uses, hunting, fishing, forest management activities, or other authorized uses.