WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Interior is expected to recommend to advance the Cascade Locks casino proposed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, in an environmental report due out today.

The report provides a jolt to a casino effort that sat in limbo for two years, while federal policymakers wrangled over larger Indian gaming issues. It also gives Warm Springs officials time to make a final push to move the casino through the regulatory process before current Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s term runs out and a politician with a less favorable view of the casino takes office.

A Federal Register notice published online Thursday afternoon said the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement will recommend the Cascade Locks site as the best site for a new Warm Springs Casino. The full report by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs is scheduled to be released this morning.

“The Final EIS considers casino alternatives in Hood River County and on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation,” the notice said. “The Final EIS identifies the Cascade Locks Resort and Casino Project as the BIA’s preferred alternative.”

Warm Springs officials hailed the news that the process will finally begin to move forward.

The last federal decision, to release a draft environmental impact statement, came in early 2008.

Publishing the environmental impact statement “moves the process forward pretty significantly,” said Warm Springs consultant Len Bergstein. “This is great news from our perspective.”

It wasn’t a surprise that the BIA recommended the Cascade Locks site, given the agency’s draft environmental impact statement, said Friends of the Columbia Gorge Conservation Director Michael Lang. The group opposes locating a casino near the Columbia River Gorge, and has argued it would speed up development at Cascade Locks and increase traffic in the gorge, creating sprawl and air pollution that would harm the area’s wildlife and scenic qualities.

“We don’t think the agency has taken a hard look at the alternatives,” said Lang.

Lang said his group will ask for a 90-day public comment period on the impact statement, which would extend into early November, rather than the 30-day comment period outlined in the Federal Register notice.

“We’ll be asking for an extension to 90 days, considering the environmental impacts,” Lang said.

A 90-day comment period would also shorten the time between when a final federal recommendation is made and when Kulongoski’s term expires. Kulongoski, a strong supporter of the Warm Springs tribes, leaves office at the start of next year, and both Republican candidate Chris Dudley and Democrat John Kitzhaber have vowed to oppose the Cascade Locks casino.

That’s a problem, because under the Indian Gaming Act of 1988, tribes must reach an agreement with the state’s governor before they can build most casinos. And even though Warm Springs has already signed a compact with Kulongoski, a future governor would be free to reverse the deal.

Because the tribes proposed building their casino on an industrial park parcel that is outside their reservation, but within their historical land, they need federal permission to take the land into tribal “trust” ownership. That decision is the next step once the public comment period on the EIS ends.