President Signs Public Lands Bill That Contradicts His Budget Proposal

President Trump on Tuesday signed into law a massive public lands bill/Gary Vogt

Though President Trump's Fiscal 2020 budget proposal zeroes out funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, on Tuesday he signed into law a massive public lands bill that permanently reauthorizes the fund.

"The Trump administration does not appear to be dealing in reality. Just one day after proposing devastating budget cuts to the National Park Service and the Land and Water Conservation Fund, President Trump and Acting Interior Secretary Bernhardt patted themselves on the back today while celebrating bipartisan legislation to save the LWCF and conserve public lands across the nation," said Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. "We can only hope that Congress will stand up to this hypocrisy and take action to ensure that our parks and public lands are safe from this administration's relentless attacks."

Along with permanently reauthorizing the LWCF, the legislation, which had overwhelming congressional support, expands the size of both Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks, creates a national monument honoring civil rights icon Medgar Evers in Mississippi and a Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument in Kentucky, while changing the designations of some other park system units. It also protects Yellowstone and North Cascades national parks from mining on their doorsteps, and designates some 1.3 million acres of wilderness.

"The Land and Water Conservation Fund is America’s most beloved land conservation program – and for good reason. This law ends the uncertainty around the program and ensures it will endure for generations to come," said Tracy Stone-Manning, associate vice president for public lands at the National Wildlife Federation. "This milestone ironically coincides with the release of the administration’s budget, which shows the president is not putting his money where his mouth is. He recommended just $8 million for land purchase — a pittance of what is needed to provide public access and protect our resources. The next step is to make sure Congress fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund in the future. For too long, money has been siphoned away for pet projects, leaving conservation and recreation plans under-funded. That practice must stop.”

The bill, officially known as the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, was made up of more than 100 individual bills that were introduced by 50 Senators and several House members. 

“President Trump knows that federal lands are meant to provide both peace and prosperity for the American people, and signing this bill allows us to continue managing public lands in a balanced way,” said Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who was in the Oval Office when the president signed the measure. “This bill is extremely beneficial to the American people and I look forward to working with Congress and local communities to implement the many local conservation wins within the bill.”

Interior Department staff did not immediately respond to a Traveler question regarding the seeming contradiction between signing the bill that permanently reauthorizes the LWCF while providing no funding for it in the president's budget proposal.

At the Center for American Progress, Mary Ellen Kustin, director of policy for public lands, pointed to the irony of the president signing the package.

"As President Trump signs this bill into law, it’s worth remembering that he and his administration have stripped protections from far more acres of public lands than this bill protects," she noted. "Since taking office, Trump has removed protections from 13.5 million acres of land through executive actions. This bill happened in spite of President Trump’s anti-conservation crusade and neither he nor his administration deserves a shred of credit for this congressional accomplishment."

Still, a strong bipartisan effort in Congress pulled the package together and passed it, noted Paul Edmondson, interim president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“This package of public lands bills represents an important victory in preserving programs and places of great cultural importance to our nation: Ocmulgee National Monument, a land rich in meaning and spiritual significance to several Native American tribes; LWCF, which has enabled the preservation of lands and landmarks where our human history is written; historic sites that reveal important and difficult stories of the Reconstruction Era, and HBCU campuses, which are integral to the story of equality, civil rights, and higher education in our country," he said.

"Passage of this legislative package speaks to the power of historic preservation to transcend party lines and unite lawmakers through a shared appreciation for our country’s rich heritage and the places that illuminate our diverse and complicated histories," added Edmondson. "We commend the many members of Congress who played key roles in advancing the individual legislation to this point and thank the many citizens and partner groups we worked with for years, in some cases, to help advocate for this outcome.”