By failing to renew the conservation fund for the first time since 1965, Tester said, the Republican majority leadership was sending a message that public access to public lands is no longer a priority.
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Learn more about why the Land and Water Conservation Fund is important to sportsmen and outdoor recreation.
Legislators ranging from Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to former Bainbridge Township GOP Rep. Steve LaTourette decried the lapse on Thursday, with Reid taking to the Senate floor to denounce Republicans who kept it out of the government funding bill despite bipartisan support.
It’s not like Congress didn’t see this deadline coming. Since President Johnson signed it into law in 1964, the LWCF has pumped nearly $17 billion into federal, state, and local parks. They have protected a few of our most important natural treasures, such the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. The fund comes from fees companies pay to drill offshore for gas and oil.
He said he supports reauthorization – this year – but he wants more LWCF money sent to states and for programs that could grow the fund into the future and support education.
One of the fund’s major contributions has been to smooth out boundaries and patch up holes in parks.
“We’re going to fight to get this thing not only reauthorized but fully funded”. Planning trails and roads can be challenging, as can fighting forest fires.
Last-minute legislation that Congress passed Wednesday to prevent a government shutdown did not contain language sought by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to keep a federal land conservation program that’s been used in places including Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
We could not agree more. “The program has benefited communities with many projects in Montana, and with that drying up … it’s just that more hard”, he said. She points to a pier in the San Francisco Bay that a LWCF project restored and a languishing state beach near Santa Barbara that was reopened after LWCF money fixed its broken sewage system. Since its inception, the fund has provided $16 billion for conservation projects, including about $500 million in Montana.
In order to receive money from the LWCF, the Hoosier National Forest writes proposals for specific projects it plans to complete if provided with funding. “These parks demonstrate that American history is not static”, he says.
The fund even has strong bipartisan support in Congress. Yet, thanks to a handful of ideologues, it has expired.
Decades ago, during the Reagan administration, axing the LWCF was a prime goal of U.S. Interior Secretary James Watt, the man who said famously that he didn’t like to paddle and didn’t like to walk.
But the fund has fallen victim to such critics as Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the new chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “Under my chairmanship, the status quo will be challenged”, said Bishop in the release. “Any reauthorization of LWCF will, among other improvements, prioritize local communities as originally intended”.
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The failure of Congress to reauthorize the fund drew sharp and immediate criticism from across Montana, from the Montana Wildlife Federation to Businesses for Montana’s Outdoors.
