REDWOOD NEEDLES

Presented by the Sierra Club Redwood Chapter Newsletter, The REDWOOD NEEDLES

Return to

WILDLANDS Campaign supports major conservation funding

By Dana Wolfe

Your help is needed to support conservation funding that doesn't threaten our coastal environment. For over a hundred years, Americans have been setting aside special places to preserve them for future generations. Today, Congress has before it an extraordinary opportunity to revitalize a cornerstone of American conservation&emdash;the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Several bills in Congress this year would fully and permanently fund the LWCF, as well as an array of other valuable conservation and wildlife protection efforts. However, watch out, several of these measures could create incentives for oil and gas production in sensitive offshore areas and provide hundreds of millions of dollars for pro-jects that could actually harm our environment!

The Land and Water

Conservation Fund

The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) was created in 1964 to preserve "irreplaceable lands of natural beauty and unique recreational value." The Fund uses revenues from offshore oil and gas leasing to purchase land in and around National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, National Forests and other public lands. The Act also provided for a state matching grants program, under which states and local governments can get aid for the acquisition and preservation of wildlands and open space, as well as outdoor recreation facilities.

Unfortunately, the tremendous promise of the LWCF Act has never been fulfilled. Of the $900 million promised annually, only a fraction has ever been provided. Year after year, Congress has siphoned off funding intended for the LWCF to mask the federal deficit. The result is a huge backlog in the federal acquisition of valuable wildlands. And for the last several years, Congress has provided zero funding for the stateside portion of the LWCF, depriving state and local governments of a crucial tool in efforts to provide Americans precious open spaces and outdoor recreation opportunities.

Resources 2000 - Wildlands and Wildlife for the Future

The same groundswell of public demand for the protection of our natural heritage that produced bond initiatives for open space protection in several states last fall has inspired legislative initiatives in Congress. Most sweeping of these is Resources 2000, introduced by Representative George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA,) and currently co-sponsored by an undetermined number of House members. The bill would provide full and permanent funding for the LWCF, which could help further the protection of such spectacular places as the new Mojave and Joshua Tree National Parks in the California Desert, the Northern Forest in New England and upstate New York, and Everglades National Park.

Based on the "Lands Legacy" initiative announced by President Clinton during his State of the Union address this year, Resources 2000 would fund an array of additional conservation programs based on the same principle as the LWCF&emdash;that revenues from offshore oil and gas production should be reinvested into the protection of our wildlands and natural resources. In addition to the $900 million guaranteed for the LWCF, the bill provides $1.4 billion in permanent funding from offshore oil and gas revenues for seven other vital environmental and preservation programs including coastal and marine habitat restoration, wildlife conservation, endangered species recovery, federal and Indian lands restoration, historic preservation, urban park development, and farm and rangeland conservation.

Caution against CARA

Unfortunately, many state natural resource agencies are so eager to gain funding for wildlife and state LWCF programs that they are broadly and uncritically supporting a similar bill that could actually have damaging effects on our coastal environment and on the future of the LWCF. The Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) sponsored by Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Frank Murkowski (R-AK), would also permanently fund the LWCF, and would provide permanent funding for wildlife protection at the state level. However, there is serious concern that CARA would create incentives for coastal states to undermine the current moratorium on new offshore oil leasing on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and to accelerate offshore production in Alaska, California and the Gulf. The bill does not sufficiently exclude these sensitive areas as a designated revenue source and it would even allocate money to state and local governments based on proximity to offshore oil production.

CARA would direct roughly $1 billion to coastal states in the guise of "impact assistance," the bulk of which would go to a few states with oil and gas production off their coasts. This new fund would have virtually no guidelines to ensure that funds are used for environmental restoration. In fact, some states have already identified port development and highway construction as priority projects.

In addition, CARA would place new and damaging restrictions on the use of federal LWCF funds. For example, the legislation requires that if the cost of a proposed acquisition exceeds $1 million (House) or $5 million (Senate), the project must be sent back to Congress for authorization. CARA would also limit LWCF acquisitions to areas within existing protected units, hamstringing efforts to restore ecosystems and create new parks and refuges.

What you can do

Sierra Club activists across the country are excited about the prospect of a comprehen-sive package for funding the protection of our wildlands and natural heritage. The Sierra Club is encouraging the major bill sponsors to work together to create a consensus package that fully protects our environment. Representatives Miller and Young are already having discussions toward that end.

You can help by contacting your Representatives and Senators and urging them to co-sponsor Resources 2000&emdash;H.R. 798 in the House and S. 446 in the Senate. If they're already signed on, say thanks. If not, urge them to oppose CARA (H.R. 701 and S. 25) in its current form, and support only effective conservation initiatives that fully and permanently fund the LWCF without damaging restrictions, and that don't pose a threat to our coastal environment.

Return to