Senate ENR Committee holds hearing on full funding of LWCF – NASORLO Testifies
Supporters of mandatory funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund do not want the escalating deferred maintenance backlog on public lands and in national parks to eclipse their efforts to boost the popular bipartisan conservation program.
“I know some of my colleagues believe we must choose between funding LWCF and a deferred maintenance backlog,” said Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing yesterday.
“I’m just not in that camp at all,” said the panel’s top Democrat, who is the chief sponsor of legislation, S. 1081, to provide full, permanent funding for LWCF at its current annual authorized level of $900 million.
Manchin said he recognized it will be “a challenge” to pass his bill along with separate legislation to create a five-year, $6.5 billion restoration fund for fixing infrastructure in national parks but that “broad bipartisan support” exists for both.
Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, called the “Restore Our Parks” bill, S. 500, “very complementary” to Manchin’s LWCF legislation but “separate.” The parks bill “should be supported in its own right” rather than merging it somehow with the LWCF legislation, O’Mara said.
Lawmakers from both parties and administration officials from the Interior Department and Forest Service agreed the roughly $19 billion deferred maintenance backlog on the country’s public lands is an enormous problem right now.
But some Senate Republicans leery of creating mandatory funding for LWCF and acquiring more federal land view the conservation program as a way, at least in part, to address deferred maintenance needs.
“LWCF itself recognizes the importance of maintaining what we already have,” said Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, who supports the program’s permanent reauthorization but is not fond of establishing mandatory funding for it.
“The act states that it is not just about the quantity of recreation resources — it is about the quality,” said the Alaska Republican. “Addressing the maintenance backlog is the best way to put the conservation and recreation system we have built over the last 50 years, with the help of LWCF, on the path to long-term viability.”
The public lands package signed into law earlier this year permanently reauthorized LWCF and mandated certain reforms to the program’s allocation formula. The changes allocate 40% of the fund’s money to its state grants program, 40% to the federal government and 20% for other necessary activities that could include deferred maintenance needs.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) cautioned against making LWCF a crutch for maintenance repairs. “If LWCF becomes the go-to for maintenance, no one will have a maintenance budget anymore,” he said, calling it “a moral hazard problem.”
Manchin’s bill would allow offshore oil and gas revenues deposited into the LWCF to be spent without being subject to the appropriations process. In recent years, LWCF’s annual appropriation has been about half the authorized level of $900 million. It has received full funding only twice, in 1998 and 2001.
Murkowski asked the witnesses if they supported mandatory funding for LWCF. Susan Combs, Interior assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, said it was up to Congress, while acting Forest Service Deputy Chief Chris French said the administration didn’t have a position.
The Trump administration’s fiscal 2020 budget request basically zeroed out funding for LWCF, which several senators criticized yesterday.
Combs in particular tried to thread the needle on the issue, telling lawmakers that while the department supports LWCF as a program, the administration’s top priority for Interior right now is tackling the deferred maintenance backlog and creating a public lands infrastructure fund.
“I’m having an impossible time squaring what you are saying with your budget,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told Combs, calling the administration’s zero request for LWCF “absolutely ridiculous.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said the multibillion-dollar maintenance backlog begged the question of whether the federal government should continue to acquire more land under LWCF. “Is this really the best use of these dollars to buy more land rather than taking care of the land we already own?”
Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, who supports mandatory funding for LWCF and faces a tough reelection in 2020, maintained that addressing the backlog and using LWCF to acquire “opportunities” were both doable.
Combs agreed. “I do think we can strike a balance,” she said. “I think we have to be creative.”
NASORLO Testimony from President Lauren Imgrund attached.
