With time running out on the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund that sends billions of dollars out into the states to support recreation, efforts are ramping up to garner public pressure to ensure Congress renews the program.
A "new and urgent Care2 petition," signed by more than 55,000 people (through Thursday afternoon), calls on the Interior Department to take immediate action to protect the National Park System and save the critically important Land and Water Conservation Fund that helps fund them.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund is set to expire at the end of September. It is funded through revenues from offshore drilling leases auctioned by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The Care2 petition calls on the Interior Department and U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt the August 19 offshore oil lease auction in Louisiana until Congress reauthorizes the fund.
The petition signers fear that if Congress fails to reauthorize the fund, major oil corporations will be able to secure leases to drill without revenues contributing to national parks.
Ahead of the scheduled BOEM auction, Care2 petition creator Aaron Viles and organizers from Environment Texas will hold a protest on August 17 in Lafayette Square, New Orleans, to protest the expiration of the LWCF and urge the Interior Department to halt the oil lease sale.
LWCF was established in 1965 and receives no taxpayer funds. If it’s allowed to expire, hundreds of local, state, and national park and preservation projects will be delayed or abandoned, petition author Aaron Viles says.
Already, LWCF revenues from offshore drilling have conserved more than 7 million acres of land and funded more than 40,000 parks and preservation projects, according to the Center for American Progress.
“The Obama administration can show important leadership for outdoor conservation and recreation by cancelling the Gulf of Mexico energy auction, currently scheduled for August 19, 2015,” Mr. Viles writes on the Care2 petition. “This bold action would encourage Congress to take their responsibility for our nation's natural heritage seriously.”
On Thursday, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced $42 million in LWCF funding to states to promote outdoor recreation and conservation. The funding is distributed to all 50 states, territories, and the District of Columbia. In announcing the grants, Secretary Jewell also urged Congress to reauthorize the program and to pass President Obama’s proposal to guarantee permanent full funding of $900 million a year that is authorized under the law.
“A half century ago, Congress established a landmark law to use some revenues from offshore oil and gas development to help states and communities across America set aside green spaces, build boat docks and ball fields, and undertake other recreation projects,” Secretary Jewell said. “Today, Congress has the opportunity to continue this great legacy by permanently reauthorizing and fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund.”
The National Park Service, which administers the LWCF State and Local Assistance Grant program (State-side), is distributing the $42 million to states for recreational and conservation projects. States match the funding by at least 50 percent and determine how to leverage the funding to support the priorities of local communities, such as building parks and ballfields, providing hunters and anglers access to rivers or public lands, and conserving natural landscapes for public use and enjoyment.
Secretary Jewell made the funding announcement with Cleveland, Ohio, Mayor Frank Jackson at the dedication of the first segment of the Cuyahoga-Lake Link's Cleveland Foundation Centennial Trail. The trail, when completed, will provide the first-ever connection of Cuyahoga Valley National Park to Lake Erie, helping provide public access to the river.
To date, Cuyahoga Valley National Park has received more than $148 million in funding through the LWCF, according to Interior officials, who added that the funding has made it possible for the Park Service to protect more than 20,000 acres within the park boundary. The Centennial Trail, made possible through private-public partnerships, is an example of an urban park project that could benefit from future state-side LWCF funding.
Since the inception of the Fund, more than $4 billion has been made available to state and local governments to fund more than 40,000 projects located in nearly every county throughout the nation.
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Comments
I'm not sure the number is "miniscule," EC, and if you can point to it, please do. But you raise a point that the NPS should address: making it easy to see the benefits of the program.
Digging around in some of the NPS links produced a page -- http://www.nps.gov/ncrc/programs/lwcf/fed/images/LR_Report_Final_SPREADS... -- that summarizes LWCF benefits to the national parks, but the latest data is from 2010.
How has the fund helped the parks since then? Or hasn't it due to lack of funding by Congress?
Looking at 2010 figures, LWCF dollars helped San Juan National Historical Park acquire 312 acres, nearly 5,000 acres surrounding the Appalachain National Scenic Trail were protected from development, more than 1,000 acres were added to the Chilkoot Trail within Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, and 1,100 acres within Grand Teton National Park will be protected if Congress provides the necessary funding through LWCF. And the list goes on.
And then there are the tens of thousands of state and local projects LWCF made possible.
In the end, it doesn't appear that the benefits are miniscule, either in dollars spent or lands protected.
Thank you, anon, for pointing out something most of us already know -- that ec has no interest whatsoever beyond constantly spouting a continual stream of opposition to almost anything that might advance environmental progress. While constantly accusing others of "unsubstantiated" comments, only rarely does he make any attempt to provide back up information to his own claims. Trying to reply to any of his postings is simply a waste of time.
For those who are interested in learning something, though, here are a couple of links I found in about ten seconds with Google:
http://www.nps.gov/lwcf/index.htm
www.rff.org/files/.../RFF-BCK-ORRG_LWCF.pd...
(Not sure if that one will work or not, but it can be found easily in Google) [EDIT : It doesn't work. But simply Google lwcf nps and it's one of the first on a very, very long list of sources ]
Even here in Utah, where the Federal government is not at all popular except as a source of funding, LWCF plays a big role in providing outdoor recreation opportunities for our neighbors
http://stateparks.utah.gov/resources/grants/conservation-of-use/
NPS doesn't benefit as much from LWCF as do states and cities. It's the job of NPS to administer LWCF more than it is to use it.
Kurt, the NPS has received about $50 million a year the last decade. That is 15% of the LWCF allocations, 6% of what LWCF is supposed to generate and 2% of the NPS budget. LWCF contribution to the NPS operations is miniscule.
While the LWCF helps the NPS with land acquisition based on the annual amount appropriated by the Congress, the real benefits of the fund go to local and municipal governments. And it is not a miniscule amount. If we believe that open spaces, parks and recreation areas improve the quality of life in our local communities, then this program should be reauthorized. But, God forbid that its reauthorization should get in the way of such important items as debating the defunding Planned Parenthood.....
Half-a-billion dollars over a decade is miniscule? Perspective is everything, I guess.
But don't confuse park ops with what LWCF aims for: in the realm of the parks, the funds go to land preservation/protection, not park ops, and I'd say the impact has been quite significant, not miniscule. How much of the annual park budget -- your park ops -- goes to land acquisition?
Correct. NPS is a small part of LWCF and LWCF is a miniscule part of the NPS. Again LWCF may be worthy but I hate seeing people use misinformation to try to support a program/cause. The NPS does not depend on LWCF.
Lee - perhaps instead of railing at me for trying to bring out the facts, you should turn your ire towards those that are essentially embezzling from the LWCF. That fund is suppossed to be receiving $900 million a year and while the monies are collected, the fund is only receiving about a third of that. Perhaps the LWCF is not the most effective way of achieving its goal. But hey, its goal is "environmental progress" so whether it is effective really doesn't make any difference to you, you just blindly follow along.
Okay, ec, how about telling us exactly WHO is "embezzling" from the LWCF?
In the meantime, I hope you had a great holiday weekend. I spent part of it in a park that displays a sign that reads something like this: "Park Development funded by the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act."
What a great place to watch my grand daughters playing so hard that as soon as we finished dinner, two of them promptly fell asleep all over my lap as we sat in a rocking chair. (I kinda fell asleep, too.)
You and I are not the most important recipients of the benefits of this fund and other conservation efforts. Your grand kids and mine and all grandkids of every other American will be the fund's beneficiaries.
We need to keep it going.
So please share your knowledge with us. WHO is embezzling this money. We need to know so we can try to stop it. Could it be Big Oil companies that resent anything that might cut a little into their profit margins? Is it Congress? Who?
Please tell us.
So far, none of your comments on this thread have contained any facts. Here's your chance to provide some. And remember, opinions are not facts.