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OPPOSE the Biggs
Amendment #129 to Cut the Land and Water Conservation Fund
- Biggs’ amendment #129 is an
attack on the Land and Water Conservation Fund, America’s most
important conservation and recreation program. It presents a false
choice between key investments in our public lands, which have long
been underfunded by shortchanging both LWCF and the parks maintenance
budget. This misguided amendment would rob Peter to pay
Paul, defunding key Bureau of Land Management conservation priorities
to address just a tiny fraction of deferred parks maintenance
needs. That is an unacceptable trade-off.
- In addition to National
Parks, forests, trails, wildlife refuges, and historic sites, LWCF
protects working landscapes and state and local parks, so that
Americans can hunt, fish, camp, paddle, climb and otherwise recreate
close to home or far afield, from backyards to the backcountry. This
program has a 53-year track record of success touching every state
(indeed nearly every county) and fuels the $887 billion outdoor
recreation economy, which supports 7.6 million homegrown,
non-exportable American jobs.
- LWCF has broad bipartisan
support. More than 200 Members signed a letter supporting strong
appropriations for LWCF in FY19, and 230 are now cosponsors of
legislation to make this critical program permanent. HR 6147
already cuts LWCF by 15% from the enacted level, meaning that
now-or-never projects all over the country will be left behind, new
access to public lands denied, and special places lost forever.
Additional cuts would add insult to injury, and would further
frustrate already-underfunded sportsmen’s access and other needs.
- The maintenance backlog at
our national parks is a serious problem that needs attention, but this
amendment presents a false choice that should be rejected. Any
marginal increase in maintenance spending should absolutely NOT come at
the expense of hunting and fishing access and other community needs.
- Sportsmen, recreationists,
outdoor business owners, ranchers, conservationists, land trusts
working in their local communities, and indeed advocates for our
National Parks all agree—these issues are two sides of the same coin,
and cannot be pitted against each other. Now-or-never conservation and
recreation access priorities, faced with imminent sale and
development, cannot be put on hold or traded away.
- The unwarranted reduction
in LWCF funding proposed by the amendment ignores the value of
inholding acquisition to solving ongoing management problems. Nearly
all LWCF-acquired lands are inholdings amid other federal lands, where
consolidated ownership improves management efficiency without raising
operating costs. These acquisitions often reduce management
costs (including wild land-urban interface firefighting costs
that have been exponentially growing), resolve conflicts, and help
communities address ongoing management issues such as invasive
species, wildfire, etc.
- LWCF is the only source of
funding to protect the key missing pieces of our public land puzzle
from being sold off. This applies as strongly to BLM-administered
National Recreation Areas, National Scenic and Historic Trails,
National Conservation Areas, and National Monuments as it does to
NPS-administered National Parks. It makes no sense to invest in
maintaining our public lands at the expense of losing pieces within
them.
- This amendment is a tired
replay of the same attack on LWCF led by ideological opponents of
federal land, who are using the sentimental attachment of Americans to
the National Parks as a wedge to prevent any further conservation of
places we all love, use and enjoy. A majority of this House is already
on record rejecting reductions in funding for this critical, bedrock
conservation law. The Biggs amendment proposes to do just that despite
the already-expressed will of the House , and so the amendment must be
forcefully rejected.
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