LWCF awaits a Lame Duck Congress..The latest update

The latest and most accurate update on the status of the expired LWCF..Oct. 25th 2018.

Lapsed Conservation Fund Awaits Lame-Duck Congress: BGOV OnPoint

By Adam M. Taylor | October 25, 2018 03:53PM ET | Bloomberg Government

The debate over simply extending the Land and Water Conservation Fund or making it permanent could be resolved when Congress returns after the election.

The fund’s authorization to receive $900 million in annual deposits expired Sept. 30. It supports conservation and recreation on state and federal land, including through land acquisition and grants to aid state outdoor recreation planning and development.

Despite pending stand-alone proposals in the House and Senate to permanently extend the LWCF, it’s more likely that a reauthorization measure will hitch a ride on an end-of-year spending package.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said he and other senators were “going to be fighting for” the fund to be permanently authorized, rather than extended, Bloomberg Environment’s Dean Scott reported.

The LWCF was last extended for three years under the fiscal 2016 omnibus spending law (Public Law 114-113), which also appropriated $450 million from the fund for its authorized activities.

Funding History

The bulk of the money deposited into the LWCF — almost 95 percent — comes from federal receipts from offshore oil and gas leases. Smaller sources of deposits in the LWCF include motorboat fuel taxes and proceeds from sales of surplus federal land.

Of the $40 billion that has been deposited into the fund since it was created in 1965, Congress has appropriated about $18.4 billion from it, according to aSeptember memo from the House Natural Resources Committee. As a result, the fund has an unappropriated balance of $21.6 billion.

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Appropriating the full $900 million annual authorization would equal 11.5 percent of federal oil and gas revenue, the National Park Service wrote in April 2016.

Federal Land Acquisition

The LWCF provides money to the Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management to acquire properties. The acquired land is generally incorporated into national forests, parks, wildlife preserves, and other units of public land.

The agencies can allocate funding for land acquisition only when it’s been authorized by law, including for “inholdings” — privately owned parcels within the boundaries of national parks and other federal land units.

Through the LWCF, 2.37 million acres have been protected, according to the Interior Department.

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State Grants

The National Park Service is the principal agency administering state grants from the LWCF, according to the Congressional Research ervice.

Most of the funding goes to matching grants for state and tribal governments to acquire and develop outdoor parks. The grants have supported more than 40,000 projects across every county in the U.S., according to the Interior Department.

Some states receive additional funding for those grants from oil and gas leasing revenue under the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (Public Law 109-432). Since fiscal 2009, as much as $125 million in mandatory funds can be provided each year to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, though it’s dependent on the amount of offshore leasing revenue.

That mandatory spending was typically less than $1 million a year before ballooning to $62.6 million in 2018. With expanded oil and gas drilling in the Gulf, that figure is likely to stay at that level or grow even higher, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Other LWCF grant programs include:

• The Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation program, which supports state work with private landowners and conservation groups to voluntarily conserve threatened habitat.
• The Forest Legacy program, through which states pay private landowners to conserve privately owned forestland that’s environmentally sensitive.

Pending Bills Include Changes

The authorization to deposit money into the LWCF and to appropriate from it lapsed on Sept. 30. It also lapsed briefly in 2015 before it was reinstated by the fiscal 2016 omnibus spending law.

House and Senate committees have approved bills to permanently reauthorize the fund.

Under the House Natural Resources Committee’s bill (H.R. 502), at least 40 percent of offshore energy lease receipts deposited in the fund would have to be used for state grants. That would match the current requirement that 40 percent go to federal purposes. Additionally, no less than $20 million each year would be used for “priority projects” to improve recreational access to federal land, including for hunting and fishing.

That measure, which the committee approved by voice vote on Sept. 13, reflects a deal between Reps. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the panel’s chairman and ranking member, according to a Sept. 13 news release.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s legislation (S. 569) wouldn’t set minimum spending percentages for state grants or federal land acquisition. It would require that at least 1.5 percent of the authorized amount be used to secure access to existing federal land for hunting, fishing, and other recreation.

Under the Senate bill, deposits in the fund from motorboat taxes and surplus land sales would be available to spend without further appropriation, though the vast majority of deposits would still be subject to appropriation.

The Senate measure also would direct the White House to include a detailed accounting of proposed spending from the LWCF, which Congress could reallocate through appropriations acts.

The panel approved that measure 16-7 on Oct 2. Five Republicans joined the panel’s Democrats and Independents to support the legislation. Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted against the bill, muddying its prospects.

Conservation Groups Line up in Support

Conservation groups are pushing Congress to reauthorize the fund. The LWCF Coalition, which lists more than 1,400 partner groups, called the fund “America’s most important conservation program, responsible for protecting parks, wildlife refuges and recreation areas at the federal, state and local levels,” in an Oct. 2 news release following committee approval of the Senate bill.

The Heritage Foundation called for Congress to allow the LWCF to expire in aJuly 18 issue brief.

“Taxpayers in Louisiana shouldn’t subsidize a golf course in Iowa, a boat ramp in Minnesota or a soccer field in Missouri,” Nicolas Loris, a fellow with the group, wrote in a Sept. 24 piece. “If these projects have value and communities want them, the people who live there should pay for them.”

With assistance from Dean Scott

To contact the reporter on this story: Adam M. Taylor in Washington atataylor@bgov.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Adam Schank ataschank@bgov.com; Danielle Parnass at dparnass@bgov.com