A bill to protect the Wyoming Range from new energy development should finally get a hearing on the Senate floor next month, the Senate majority leader announced this week.

Some backers of the bill had feared it might have to wait for the next Congress before receiving a vote, but Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the full Senate will consider the legislation on or around Nov. 17, after the elections, in what's called a lame-duck session.

The Wyoming Range Legacy Act was bundled this summer into an omnibus package of more than 150 public land and water resources bills. A vote on the package was repeatedly delayed because Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., threatened to filibuster the measure.

Coburn is philosophically opposed to using legislation to put public lands off-limits to exploration and development, which the Wyoming Range bill, and others in the package, would do.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said the Senate now has the 60 votes it needs to override Coburn's hold, but the vote has been further delayed as the Senate has crammed to complete the Wall Street rescue plan, among other things, before the recess.

The Wyoming Range Legacy Act of 2007 was introduced by U.S. Sen. John Barrasso a year ago this month, based on legislation that the late Wyoming Republican Sen. Craig Thomas had planned to offer.

Under the bill, no additional oil and gas leasing, mining patents or geothermal leasing would be allowed in a 100-mile-long stretch of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in western Wyoming.

No currently producing areas within the boundaries would be affected.

The Wyoming Range bill has the support of a broad coalition of conservation, union and sporting groups, Wyoming's two Republican senators and its Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal.

Freudenthal flew to Washington and back on the same day to testify for the legislation in February.

Recently, the Wyoming Association of Churches gave the legislation its endorsement.

"The Wyoming Association of Churches is urging full support for this bill which will protect the Wyoming Range from over development while still allowing for responsible energy production in surrounding lands," said Rev. Warren Murphy, director of WAC, in a prepared statement. "We are proud to join with a diverse and ever-growing number of citizens and organizations to protect Wyoming's natural heritage such as hunting, outfitting, camping, hiking and traditional ranching through passage of this legislation."

The Petroleum Association of Wyoming opposes the measure.

Freudenthal told the Star-Tribune on Friday he hopes the post-election Congress can muster enough will to get some of its long-overdue work completed, including a vote on the omnibus package.

"I remain incredibly unimpressed with Congress," Freudenthal said. "We hope the Senate will get this done (after the elections) and that somebody will bring the House back. These lame-duck sessions can be incredibly productive sometimes but other times (nothing gets done)."

If the House and the Senate fail to vote on the legislation before the winter recess, it will once again be delayed, this time until the new Congress and new president are installed in 2009.

"It's amazing that one senator from Oklahoma - one human being - can thwart the whole process. I find that to be indicative of why a little change in America wouldn't be a bad idea," Freudenthal said.