Land Conservation gets Congressional Vote of Support
July 16, 2010
The drive to conserve the Chesapeake’s, and the Nation’s, most treasured and ecologically significant lands got a boost yesterday morning when the House Natural Resources Committee passed legislation that would provide $900 million dedicated funding annually for land conservation and outdoor recreation.
The provision, which passed the committee on a 27 to 21 vote, is included in the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2009 (CLEAR Act, HR 3534). It would annually fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) at its authorized level with money that comes from royalties paid by energy companies on offshore oil and gas leases.
The LWCF is a critical source of funding for land conservation. If fully funded, the program would be able to address backlogged conservation and recreation needs at the local, state and federal level.
Full funding has been appropriated only once in the 45‐year history of the LWCF, and recently declined to a low of $138 million in 2007. This shortfall has resulted in a land protection and outdoor recreation backlog of unmet funding needs across our National Forests, Fish and Wildlife Refuges, National Parks and other federal public lands, and state and local parks.
“Expanded public access and conservation of the Chesapeake’s irreplaceable landscapes need support from the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” said David O’Neill, President of the Chesapeake Conservancy. “We applaud the Natural Resources Committee for their work, and Chairman Nick Rahall for his leadership. American’s have always prized the outdoors, and this measure helps us build on the national legacy of parks and conserved lands begun more than a hundred years ago.”
However, O’Neill said the current bill does not contain a key provision that would provide states with an equitable share of the fund to secure and purchase sites for public recreation and to conserve significant landscapes.
“Dedicated state funding, and stronger cooperation between federal, state, and local governments and private interests is vital to the effort to protect the Chesapeake region,” O’Neill said. “We strongly support a provision to create an equitable share of the LWCF between the states and the Federal government, because local knowledge of public needs is invaluable to targeted conservation.”
