CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - A bill that would add nearly 20,000 acres of wilderness area in Tennessee has stalled in Congress for more than a year.
The bill has support from both parties and the Forestry Service and doesn't cost any money. Jeff Hunter, director of the Tennessee Wilderness Campaign, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press the measure is simply caught up in the partisan rancor that has stalled progress on most matters.
The bill sponsored by Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker would create the state's first new wilderness area in 25 years, the Upper Bald River Wilderness in southeast Tennessee.
It also expands five existing wilderness areas in the Cherokee Forest in East Tennessee.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
