Reid made the statement on the floor of the Senate and his staff confirmed it Thursday.

The Omnibus Public Land Management Act — S. 3213 — is a bipartisan collection of bills that have passed through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during this session of Congress.

It includes the Craig Thomas Snake Headwaters Legacy Act, which would protect 387 miles of rivers and streams in the Snake River drainage under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

It also includes the Wyoming Range Legacy Act, which would prohibit further energy leasing in the Wyoming Range south of Jackson Hole and would allow conservation groups to buy and retire existing energy leases. Both measures were championed by the late U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who heads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, added another 53 bills to the measure Friday, adding to the more than 90 pieces of legislation already in the package. Besides the Wyoming Range and Snake River measures, it includes other additions to the Wild and Scenic River system, additions to wilderness areas and national parks, and other land-management actions.

Tom Reed of Sportsmen for the Wyoming Range said members of his group were “elated” at the news.

“A lot of folks worked on it really hard in Wyoming,” he said. “It is homegrown, and a lot of sportsmen are going hunting right now and that is what it’s all about — the future of hunting and fishing and keeping the Wyoming Range like it is.”

Protecting the Wyoming Range in particular has drawn a diverse group of residents together, including sportsmen from across the country and local residents who have organized into a handful of interest groups such as Sportsmen for the Wyoming Range and Citizens Protecting the Wyoming Range.

“Today’s news about the lame-duck session is some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time,” Citizens Protecting the Wyoming Range member Mindi Crabb of Pinedale said in a release. “I have hope that this bill will pass soon as a legacy for our state and in honor of Senator Thomas.”

The congressional session was supposed to end Wednesday, but discussion of the proposed $700 billion economic bailout has kept Congress in Washington and postponed work on other measures.

Members of the Wyoming Wilderness Association, including Forrest McCarthy, who works out of the group’s Jackson office, traveled to Washington on Sept. 7 to lobby on behalf of the package.

Both the Snake Headwaters and Wyoming Range bills cleared the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in early May.

If they are not considered before a new Congress is sworn in at the beginning of 2009, both may have to start the long legislative process over again. But there are also a host of avenues they could travel to approval. The omnibus bill could be split and all provisions reintroduced separately, or the larger bill could be reintroduced in its entirety. Finally, the individual bills could be attached as riders to other legislation.