Wild and wonderful: One more reason to love Obama

Hooray! This just in: a breaking Associated Press story just announced that “The House has passed and sent to President Barack Obama a long-delayed bill to set aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness” and Obama will sign!

More:

Supporters said the bill would preserve national forests, parks, rivers, battlefields and other public lands.

Opponents, mostly Republicans, call the bill a “land grab” that would block energy development on vast swaths of federal land.

The bill would confer the government’s highest level of protection on land in California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

Virginia , my beautiful  home state.  It’s such a gift to have all this — mountains and rivers and forests a short drive away. I can go hiking in my backyard with a view of the Great Falls and the Potomac River.

Last November Virginia turned blue and now Obama is enclosing his arms around our beautiful mountains and forests. Just one of many reasons why this Virginian Democrat is one of many for whom Obama is The Man.

Green Pond, a boggy remnant of the summit peneplain in Big Levels. Picture from The Virginia Wilderness Committee website.