The Latest LWCF Lame Duck Session ..
It was reported today the LWCF reauthorization with a 40% state share will not be taken up in the Lame Duck session.. see second story below.. However late tonite there is a chance something might be done to include it in the CR which was just passed in the Senate.. ( read the latest, as follows..) Stay tuned!!!
” Senior House Republicans want a public lands package, which includes a permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, to be included as part of a continuing resolution, arguing that would ensure the package gets a vote and could help get the short-term spending bill across the finish line. ” If they don’t get that somehow done, the CR might not pass,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a senior appropriator, told reporters.
Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said procedural hurdles in the House would complicate the land package’s path to passage in the chamber as a stand-alone, but acknowledged it could pass that way. He said he preferred its inclusion in a CR because it would ensure the bill gets a vote.
He urged colleagues to ensure the bill gets done this year because of significant policy wins in it, such as guaranteeing 40 percent of LWCF funds go to state grants and 40 percent go to federal programs.
“I don’t even like the damn program, but the 40 percent in there is a such big win,” Bishop told reporters. “I guarantee that in statute now. I can’t guarantee it next year. It would just be stupid for us not to get a win on something with inevitable defeat coming as the only other option.”
Natural Resources Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told POLITICO including the lands package on the CR would “potentially” make passage easier.
“I think that’s a potentially heavier lift down here” if it arrived as a stand-alone, Grijalva said. “
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If We don’t succeed be sure we will try again in the next Congress.. but.. it may be much more difficult to get a state share guarantee. NASORLO and our stateside partners will begin to develop a new strategy, as we will have to start all over again with new bills and new Committee Chairs and staff. Will send out more later…. DKE..
Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2018, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) briefing reporters yesterday. C-SPAN
Congress is likely to pass stopgap funding legislation in the coming days that will avert a government shutdown over the holidays but will punt final spending decisions for EPA and the Interior Department into next year. The move would likely deprive lawmakers of a chance to move various unfinished legislative items, including dozens of land bills, a revival of the expired Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and extensions of expired energy tax provisions that were seen as likely to move as part of a broad spending package.
Public lands
After emerging from a lunch with his Senate Democratic colleagues, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said, “There would not be a lot of appetite for putting nongermane matters” into whatever CR materializes. “The idea would be to keep it clean,” he told reporters. Another CR would deprive a bipartisan group of lawmakers of a legislative vehicle for a public lands package they have been furiously negotiating for weeks. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told reporters yesterday the package was “more or less” done but acknowledged that backers need to find a vehicle. Energy Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who also leads the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, said earlier in the day she thought there was still enough time to resolve the public lands package and LWCF. Later in the day, however, Murkowski said she was frustrated by the growing talk of punting spending decisions into next year. “I want the full omnibus,” she told E&E News. “We worked too hard on this to slow things down now.” Murkowski further lamented that she lacked a vehicle for moving the public lands package, which she said is “in really good shape.”
