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H.R. 6365 · House bill · 119th Congress
This bill directs the Department of the Interior to issue a right-of-way through the Blue Ridge Parkway for an additional emergency exit from Wintergreen in Nelson County, Virginia, once certain requirements have been met. Specifically, Interior must grant the right-of-way if it reports to specified congressional committees that the following have been completed: (1) an evaluation of alternatives to the right-of-way for exiting Wintergreen that do not cross federal land, including an evaluation of whether existing trails can be converted to roads; (2) an analysis of expected fire ecology behavior in the event of a fire emergency with respect to the right-of-way; and (3) any required reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the National Historic Preservation Act.
This Act may be cited as the “Wintergreen Emergency Egress Act”.
Section 2 of the Act of June 30, 1936 (49 Stat. 2041, chapter 883; 54 Stat. 250, chapter 277; 16 U.S.C. 460a–3), is amended—
(1) by striking “Secretary of the Interior may issue” and inserting the following:
“(1) may issue”;
(2) by striking the period at the end and inserting “; and”; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
“(2) shall issue the right-of-way generally depicted as “Proposed Egress” on the map entitled “Blue Ridge Parkway, Proposed Wintergreen Emergency Egress Near Milepost 9.6”, numbered 601/194,694, and dated September 2024, if the Secretary reports to the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate that—
(A) an evaluation has been completed of alternatives to the right-of-way for egress that do not cross Federal land that includes evaluating whether existing trails can be converted to roads;
(B) an analysis of expected fire ecology behavior in the event of a fire emergency has been completed with respect to the right-of-way; and
(C) any required reviews with respect to the right-of-way have been completed in accordance with—
(i) the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.); and
(ii) division A of subtitle III of title 54, United States Code.”.