Eastern Wilderness Areas Act

Eastern Wilderness Areas Act
Great Seal of the United States
Other short titlesEastern Wilderness Act
Long titleAn Act to further the purposes of the Wilderness Act by designating certain acquired lands for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System, to provide for study of certain additional lands for such inclusion, and for other purposes.
Enacted bythe 93rd United States Congress
EffectiveJanuary 3, 1975
Citations
Public law93-622
Statutes at Large88 Stat. 3433
Legislative history
  • Introduced in the Senate by George Aiken (R–VT) on May 2, 1974
  • Passed the Senate on May 31, 1974 (passed)
  • Passed the House on December 18, 1974 (passed) with amendment
  • Senate agreed to House amendment on December 19, 1974 (agreed)
  • Signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975

The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act (Pub. L. 93–622, 88 Stat. 2096) was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975. The Act designated 16 new wilderness areas in the Eastern United States, including 207,000 acres (84,000 ha) of wilderness on national lands in 13 states.[1] Although it was originally untitled, the bill signed by Ford has come to be known as the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act.[2]

The Act built upon the Wilderness Act, which was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. While the Wilderness Act created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act applied only to land east of the 100th meridian west.[3]

  1. ^ Rennicke (1992), p. 55.
  2. ^ Johnson (2006), p. 252.
  3. ^ "The Wilderness Act of 1964". Western North Carolina's Mountain Treasures. Archived from the original on 2019-01-03. Retrieved 16 June 2010.