New Secretarial Order restores the intent of Land and Water Conservation Fund
San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, CA
Wondercamp
Today's order reverses harmful changes to LWCF made by the previous administration on its way out the door
WASHINGTON – Today, Acting Secretary of the Interior Scott de la Vega moved to restore the Land and Water Conservation Fund to its intended potential by overturning Secretarial Order 3388 and a host of last-minute changes to the State Assistance Program made by the previous administration.
A new Secretarial Order restores funding to improve outdoor access for communities with the greatest need, reverses restrictions on federal conservation projects, and brings LWCF programing back in line with the intent of Congress.
The following statement can be attributed to Tara Brown, Senior Government Relations Representative at The Wilderness Society:
“Today’s Secretarial Order is a critical step by the new administration to restore the Land and Water Conservation Fund to its full, intended potential by rejecting and reversing the last-ditch attempt by the previous administration to rewrite the rules for the program and undermine Congress’ intent in passing the Great American Outdoors Act last fall.
The pandemic has brought into sharp relief just how vital equitable access to the outdoors is to the health and wellbeing of communities, and we are pleased to see the Biden administration has restored funding to the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership program for parks and greenspaces in the communities and cities that need it most. Using the momentum of today’s order, we must now pass the Outdoors for All Act and codify the ORLP program to ensure similar attacks don’t happen in the future.”
CONTACT:
- Kerry Leslie, Communications Manager, The Wilderness Society, (415) 398-1111, kerry_leslie@tws.org
- Tara Brown, Senior Government Relations Representative, The Wilderness Society, (202) 429-2647
The Wilderness Society is the leading conservation organization working to unite people to protect America's wild places. Founded in 1935, and now with more than one million members and supporters, The Wilderness Society has led the effort to permanently protect 111 million acres of wilderness and to ensure sound management of our shared national lands. www.wilderness.org
