Letter to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House Transmitting Proposals for 18 Additional National Wilderness Areas

PURSUANT to the Wilderness Act of September 3, 1964, I am pleased today to transmit proposals for 18 additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System.

The proposed new wilderness areas, which cover 1.3 million acres in all, are enumerated in my Special Message on the Environment of today's date. Two other possibilities considered by the Secretary of the Interior in his review of roadless areas of 5,000 acres or more--Martin National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland, and Wupatki National Monument, Arizona--were found to be unsuitable for inclusion in the Wilderness System. I concur in this finding and in the 18 favorable recommendations of the Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture, all of which are transmitted herewith.

Timely and farsighted action is imperative if we are to preserve America's irreplaceable heritage of wildness as part of our legacy to the future. I urge that protected status be promptly extended to the lands covered by these proposals and by the 31 previous wilderness recommendations already pending before the Congress.

Sincerely,

RICHARD NIXON