Bill protects 4,700 miles of Oregon rivers from mining.
S. 5647 — River Democracy Act · Filed by Ron Wyden (D-OR) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Sep 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill adds 4,700 miles of Oregon rivers to a federal protection system. This stops mining and mineral leasing on these rivers. Federal offices must write plans within 10 years. The bill lets wildfire reduction work and prescribed burns happen. It keeps current water rights, private land, and power plants safe.
Who it affects
People who use rivers for fun and drink river water gain protection. The bill protects current water rights and private land owners. It requires federal offices, states, and Indian Tribes to work together.
One thing to notice
Wildfire reduction work in protected river areas could remove large amounts of plants like juniper and weeds. This might change the river habitat. Plans will take 10 years to finish, so some river parts may run under temporary rules at first.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Sep 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 30, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- prescribed burns — Fires set on purpose by experts to reduce wildfire risk.
- mineral leasing — Renting federal land to companies so they can dig for minerals.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (50,094 characters) on Oct 16, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
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