It’s time to take care of the public lands we already have before acquiring more.
October 6, 2015 — The federal government’s primary source of funding for land acquisitions, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), expired last week. In response, many groups are pressing Congress to permanently reauthorize and fully fund the program, with no reforms or questions asked.
The LWCF devotes millions of dollars each year from offshore oil and gas revenues to conservation and recreation projects at both the federal and state level, with the majority of the funds going to federal land acquisitions. Although Congress rarely appropriates the LWCF at its annual authorized level of $900 million, more than $10 billion in LWCF funding has been spent on federal land acquisition since the fund was created in 1964.
In its current form, the federal portion of LWCF funding can only be used for land acquisition. Despite the fact that public land managers are struggling to fund and maintain existing public lands, LWCF funds generally cannot be used for the care and maintenance of lands the federal government already owns.
“The LWCF allows the federal government to purchase more land, but it does not provide any means of taking care of those lands, or the critical needs that exist on the hundreds of millions of acres the federal government already owns,” said Shawn Regan, a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana. In April, Regan delivered testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee of Federal Lands on potential reforms to the LWCF.
The federal government owns more than 635 million acres of land in the United States, including nearly half of the West. But the federal government struggles to take care of the land it already owns. The National Park Service, for instance, faces an $11.5 billion backlog in deferred maintenance projects. According to the National Park Service’s own estimates, Yellowstone and Yosemite, two of our most iconic parks, each face more than a-half-billion dollars in unmet maintenance needs.
Overall, the deferred maintenance backlog for the four federal land agencies – the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – is estimated at nearly $19 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“Across the entire federal estate, billions of dollars are needed for wastewater system repairs, campground and trail maintenance, building repairs, and the transportation infrastructure necessary for public access,” said Reed Watson, executive director at PERC, who delivered testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources earlier this year. “Ignoring the deferred maintenance issue threatens the environmental health of our federal lands, as well as the quality of our experience when we visit them.”
The reality is that more funding devoted to land acquisition means less funding is available for land conservation, especially in today’s budget climate. “There is a tradeoff between acquiring more lands and conserving the lands we already have,” said Watson. “With more than 635 million acres now under federal ownership, and a ballooning maintenance backlog on those lands, spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year to acquire more lands is not responsible land conservation.”
LWCF reauthorization presents an opportunity to address many of the critical needs on existing federal lands and prevent further increases in the government’s deferred maintenance backlog.
“As conservationists, we should insist that conservation does not mean simply acquiring more land,” said Regan. “It means ensuring resources are available to adequately care for the land.” The National Park Service will celebrate its 100-year anniversary next year with billions of dollars in unmet maintenance needs. It’s time for conservationists to step up and put forth practical reforms that address these challenges, not just simply add more lands.
For more, visit www.perc.org or see testimony by Shawn Regan before the U.S. House of Representatives and Reed Watson before the U.S. Senate on LWCF reform.
About PERC:
The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) is a nonprofit research institute located in Bozeman, Montana, dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets. PERC’s staff and associates conduct original research that applies market principles to resolving environmental problems. PERC’s latest report, “Back to the Future of Our National Parks,” explores creative solutions for the National Park Service’s second century.
