Thesis
Legislating the Landscape: The Battle for a Federal Wilderness Bill for Montana, 1979-1988
University of Iowa
Bachelor of Arts (BA), University of Iowa
Spring 2022
Abstract
Federally owned lands in the western United States have long been a point of legal and political conflict. Clashes between development interests, environmentalists, legislators, and indigenous groups throughout the 1980s defined federal land policy in Montana, among other states. In 1988, after nearly a decade of effort, S.2751 – the Montana National Resources Protection and Utilization Act – was poised to designate over 7 million acres of federal land in Montana as wilderness, recreation areas, or for development, ending years of legal limbo. Despite broad support from both houses of Congress, President Reagan killed the bill with a pocket veto, and the vast majority of those lands remain undesignated today. This paper examines the political actors and processes behind S. 2751, and investigates the bill’s place in the changing political climate of 1980s American politics, particularly on issues of environment in the west.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Legislating the Landscape: The Battle for a Federal Wilderness Bill for Montana, 1979-1988
- Creators
- Megan Christianson
- Contributors
- Alyssa Park (Advisor) - University of IowaRichard Tyler Priest (Mentor) - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Project Type
- Honors Thesis
- Degree Awarded
- Bachelor of Arts (BA), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- History
- Date degree season
- Spring 2022
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- 44 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2021 Megan Christianson
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Honors Program; CLAS Honors Theses
- Record Identifier
- 9984273658802771
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