The Point Reyes Farmland Protection Act apparently will not get a hearing in the House of Representatives this year.

As recently as last week, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's staff was insisting there would be a hearing on Oct. 30.

Although Congresswoman Woolsey has been "very persistent" in promoting the bill since first introducing it in 1993, the National Parks subcommittee is "wrapping down" its hearing schedule for 1997, said Dan Smith, a legislative aide to Congressman Jim Hansen, who chairs the subcommittee. Hansen is a Republican from Utah.

"Just to show how busy we've gotten," Smith said, "we did 15 bills last week. About 2,300 bills have been introduced to this Congress, and only a portion of them will be heard."

But the busy schedule of the National Parks subcommittee may not be the only reason Woolsey's bill is gathering dust. Smith noted, "It's a very controversial bill, and it's a park bill - not an agricultural bill. I know a park bill when I see one. To say it's a solution for 'protecting' farmland is a very far-reaching idea.

"Once you put in a [federal] recreational area or a seashore, the park begins to acquire. This happened with the Point Reyes National Seashore."

Some ranchers lost their autonomy when their property became part of the park during the early 1960s, Smith said, adding that the Republican majority in Congress is "very sensitive to private property rights."

Woolsey would have had more luck in preserving farms in West Marin if she had rallied members of the House's Agricultural Committee, Smith said.

But the bill "wouldn't have a chance" there either, responded Bob Berner, executive director of Marin Agricultural Land Trust. If the farmland bill is ever passed, MALT would receive $30 million to purchase conservation easements from ranchers on the east shore of Tomales Bay.

"As federal legislation, a farm bill doesn't carry the same urgency as a park bill," Berner explained. "The national importance of the farmland in West Marin is that it's 'the gateway' to the Point Reyes National Seashore. That's why it's been structured as a park bill."

MALT, like Republicans in Congress, is committed to keeping ranchland in private ownership, Berner noted, "but obviously the Republicans are hostile to environmental and park bills in general."

Even if the bill eventually gets a hearing before the National Parks Subcommittee, it would still have to win approval from the Subcommittee on Forestry, Resource Conservation and Research before the full House could vote on it.

"It takes more time and effort to get a bill through two committees because they each have to approve parts of the bill under their respective jurisdictions and then join together to produce a single bill," explained former Congressman Charles Pashayan, a Republican.

"That usually means opponents have twice the chance of killing the bill or favorably amending it."

In West Marin, the bill would authorize MALT to buy development rights within 38,000 acres along the Marshall shore. Ranchers would not be obliged to sell, but some have opposed the bill because they don't want their land included within the bill's boundaries.

Such inclusion, they fear, could lower property values and might lead to future government regulations.

Other ranchers have supported the bill since it would provide them with cash while allowing them to continue ranching.

Environmentalists meanwhile see the bill as continuing MALT's work, which slows the spread of subdivisions. For now, MALT does not have the money to buy anymore large conservation easements.

Congress was on vacation this week, and The Light could not reach Woolsey's office for comment