A push to protect 1.4 million acres of land as wilderness in Colorado, California and Washington advanced in Congress on Wednesday, one of the biggest efforts in a decade to save wilderness that could give the public more opportunities for hiking, rafting and camping away from roads and other development.

House members voted 231 to 183 to pass legislation introduced in May by U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Denver, as the Colorado Wilderness Act and later expanded into the Protecting America’s Wilderness Act. The Republican-controlled Senate now will determine what happens.

If senators approve or meld this legislation into a broader land protection package, Colorado would gain more than 660,000 acres of wilderness — 36 parcels mostly consisting of mid-elevation terrain that serves as habitat for plants and wildlife. This would include land around Handies Peak near Silverton, the Dolores River Canyon in southwestern Colorado and the Little Bookcliffs northeast of Grand Junction.

DeGette staffers said she’s been working with senators to try to make sure the House legislation is included in any land-protection package the Senate may consider this year.

California would gain 630,700 acres and Washington would gain 131,700 acres. Nearly 1,000 miles of relatively pristine waterways would be designated as protected “wild and scenic” rivers.

“They are some of the most pristine and majestic areas on the planet,” DeGette told lawmakers. “And for many of us, the access that we have to these lands is a large part of why we are so proud to call western states our home — and why so many others come to visit us each year. But while we may be the stewards of some of these lands, our nation’s public lands belong to everyone. We as members of Congress should be doing everything, we can to protect them.”

Opponents have argued that wilderness protection limits the ability to use public land and have objected to some of the proposed parcels. Motorized recreational vehicle groups have led opposition in the past, along with fossil-fuel groups such as the Western Energy Alliance and in some cases mountain bikers.

Colorado last gained significant wilderness in 1993, when about 600,000 acres of land were designated. DeGette has been introducing wilderness legislation for two decades without success.

The land would be protected under the 1964 Wilderness Act, which set up a system for saving wilderness. The idea was to preserve land “where the Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain,” in contrast to growing areas nationwide “where man and his own works dominate the landscape.”

Colorado currently contains 3.5 million acres protected as wilderness, mostly high mountain terrain, out of 109 million acres of land protected nationwide in all but six states.

On Wednesday, House members voted after DeGette offered and won approval for an amendment that added four more areas in Colorado: Diamond Breaks near Dinosaur National Monument, Papoose Canyon southwest of Dove Creek, and the North Ponderosa and South Ponderosa gorges along the Dolores River in southwestern Colorado.

Previously, several parcels initially proposed as wilderness were removed, including land that was found to have been leased by the Bureau of Land Management for oil and gas drilling with roads already in place. A Deep Creek area was removed due partly to military pilots flying through the area from a nearby high-altitude Army National Guard aviation training site, and a Snaggletooth parcel was removed amid concerns about mining and drilling in the area.

Wilderness designations are expected to help boost a booming multibillion-dollar recreation industry. DeGette said protecting pristine land also will help fulfill House commitments to take action that helps deal with climate change, referring to scientific estimates that protecting 30% of public land by 2030 would make a difference for the planet.

“Preserving more of our public land is one of the best short-term solutions we as a nation can take to respond to the climate crisis,” she said.