Congress set to permanently fund crucial conservation program

A bipartisan group of senators is poised to approve legislation that would establish full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), making good on a 50-year-old promise to bolster parks and public lands without burdening taxpayers.

“Congress has an opportunity to permanently and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a successful conservation program whose funds have been raided and diverted year after year,” said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society, in a statement. “It’s time for our leaders to stand up, break the logjam in Washington, and pass this bipartisan bill. People across the country who love their parks and public lands will be watching.”

The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has protected iconic landscapes in all 50 states and helped complete about 42,000 state and local projects

In addition to ensuring full and permanent funding at $900 million a year, the Great American Outdoors Act  package would address a backlog of maintenance needs for our national parks and other public lands.

Dating to the 1960s, the LWCF has protected iconic landscapes in all 50 states and helped complete about 42,000 state and local projects. It has been used for everything from ensuring access to your favorite trail or climbing area; to protecting critical parts of our national parks from development; to investing in local soccer fields and swimming pools. LWCF has been regarded as a key program for guaranteeing access to public lands, and as we learn more about climate change and the devastating effects it’s already having on ecosystems and communities, the program has a valuable role to play in mitigating and adapting to those shifts. 

About a year ago, months after allowing LWCF to expire, a bipartisan Congress voted to reauthorize the program. That was a vital step, but it didn’t guarantee LWCF the money it needs to protect public lands. Billions of dollars have been diverted from LWCF by Congress for non-conservation purposes, leaving communities with outdoor projects unfinished and parcels of land unprotected. Funding still generally hovers around one-third of the full authorized level, even as new pressures intrude on wildlands and shared spaces become developed, fragmented or otherwise damaged.    

In brief, LWCF is an extraordinarily popular and effective program that nonetheless finds itself at the short end of the budgetary stick every year. Congress now stands ready to remedy that problem and guarantee the health of LWCF moving forward.

• 1964: The year Congress created the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), intending that it would always make money available for completing national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and other protected sites without burdening taxpayers. The program was launched in 1965.

• 1968: The year Congress first started paying into LWCF using oil and gas drilling fees. Nowadays LWCF is almost entirely funded by offshore drilling receipts, a measure to slightly counterbalance damage to natural resources by investing the proceeds in protection of important land, water and recreation areas.

• 42,000: Number of state and local government projects funded through LWCF. This has included support for the protection of 3 million acres of recreation lands and over 29,000 recreation facility projects.

• 70%: Proportion of voters in western states who support fully funding LWCF. A majority of voters in each surveyed state support full funding. 

• 2: Number of times since 1965 that LWCF funds have been allocated in full rather than diverted to unrelated purposes by Congress.

• 97%: Budget reduction recommended for LWCF in the Trump administration's fiscal year 2021 federal budget recommendation, before a recent about-face.