[Senate Hearing 116-326]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 116-326
A REVIEW OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF
THE LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION
FUND PROGRAM
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 25, 2019
__________
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-806 WASHINGTON : 2020
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho RON WYDEN, Oregon
MIKE LEE, Utah MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
STEVE DAINES, Montana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
CORY GARDNER, Colorado MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
Brian Hughes, Staff Director
Kellie Donnelly, Chief Counsel
Lucy Murfitt, Deputy Chief Counsel
Annie Hoefler, Professional Staff Member
Sarah Venuto, Democratic Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
David Brooks, Democratic General Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Alaska.... 1
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from
West Virginia.................................................. 3
WITNESSES
Combs, Hon. Susan, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and
Budget, U.S. Department of the Interior........................ 6
French, Chris, Acting Deputy Chief, National Forest System, U.S.
Department of Agriculture--Forest Service...................... 13
Imgrund, Lauren S., President, National Association of State
Outdoor Recreation Liaison Officers............................ 18
O'Mara, Collin, President and CEO, National Wildlife Federation.. 25
Yablonski, Brian, Executive Director, Property and Environment
Research Center................................................ 35
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
American Hiking Society:
Letter for the Record........................................ 91
Back Country Horsemen of Washington:
Letter for the Record........................................ 93
Combs, Hon. Susan:
Opening Statement............................................ 6
Written Testimony............................................ 8
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 78
French, Chris:
Opening Statement............................................ 13
Written Testimony............................................ 15
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 81
Imgrund, Lauren S.:
Opening Statement............................................ 18
Written Testimony............................................ 20
Response to Question for the Record.......................... 83
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
Opening Statement............................................ 3
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
National Trust for Historic Preservation:
Statement for the Record..................................... 94
O'Mara, Collin:
Opening Statement............................................ 25
Written Testimony............................................ 28
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 84
Outdoor Alliance:
Letter for the Record........................................ 96
Property and Environment Research Center (PERC):
Public Lands Report entitled ``How We Pay to Play'' by Tate
Watkins dated May 2019..................................... 99
Yablonski, Brian:
Opening Statement............................................ 35
Written Testimony............................................ 37
Response to Question for the Record.......................... 89
A REVIEW OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND
PROGRAM
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TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 2019
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lisa
Murkowski, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
The Chairman. Good morning, everyone. The Committee will
come to order.
We are here this morning to talk about the Land and Water
Conservation Fund, the ``LWCF.''
The last hearing that we held on this was back in 2015. The
authority to credit the LWCF with $900 million each year was
expiring that September, if you will recall. Our Committee was
trying to piece together an energy bill. We were looking to
ultimately include a permanent authorization of this authority
and programmatic reforms.
It did not happen then, but four years later, our lands
package, including the LWCF provision, became law as the John
D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act.
Now that the collection and deposit functions of the LWCF have
been permanently authorized and we have made some important
reforms along the way, it is time to look at what has worked
with the program and the areas that can be improved.
When LWCF was established in 1965, it was largely focused
on building a recreation system. There was an understanding
that in order to build the system, the Federal Government would
need to acquire land, but that acquisition would be focused on
the states east of the 100th Meridian. That made sense, as
eastern states had far fewer public lands and therefore fewer
opportunities for outdoor recreation.
The House and Senate Committee reports made this point, and
the original LWCF Act includes an express provision limiting
Forest Service acquisitions in the west to ``not more than 15
percent.''
The Congressional intent expressed back then about federal
land acquisition still rings true with this particular Senator.
In Alaska, close to 63 percent of our lands are already held by
the Federal Government. That is more than 220 million acres and
just by size comparison, it is more land than there is in all
of that State of Texas, and people think that Texas is a big
state. So it just, kind of, puts it into context there. I have
been skeptical of the need to acquire more, and I think many of
my colleagues share that skepticism.
Over the last 50+ years, most of the dollars appropriated
to the LWCF program have been allocated to federal land
acquisition. And despite Congress' intent to see land
acquisition occur in the east, the land management agencies, as
evidenced by the prioritization lists they produce for those of
us on the Appropriations Committee, continue to push for land
acquisitions in the West.
Just last week, the GAO released a report that examined how
the land management agencies used $952 million in
appropriations from the Fund between the years 2011 and 2014.
Most of the areas that were acquired were in the West, notably
with North Dakota and Montana topping that list.
I am sure that many of these acquisitions serve important
conservation and recreation purposes, but our challenge now is
to think differently and more creatively about the LWCF.
Instead of federal land acquisition, I think we should ask what
else it can accomplish for conservation and outdoor recreation
into the future. We started to lay the groundwork in our recent
lands package. We brought back a dedicated allocation in the
LWCF for states of no less than 40 percent.
We all know that states are critical partners in
conservation and outdoor recreation, providing some of our
favorite parks and hunting and fishing grounds. As authorizers,
we placed additional parameters on federal land acquisitions so
that we prioritize access to and through our public lands and
enhance recreation opportunities on those lands.
It was just last week that we held a hearing on deferred
maintenance at our federal land management agencies and
reinforced where we are with the backlog. The backlog totals
nearly $20 billion, and it continues to grow despite our
efforts to increase funding on the Appropriations committees.
A lot of folks say we can't cut the backlog in half without
providing full dedicated mandatory funding for LWCF. I think
most people know I don't like mandatory funding, adding
mandatory funding, and I question whether tying these together
makes good sense.
LWCF itself recognizes the importance of maintaining what
we already have. The Act states that it is not just about the
quantity of recreation resources, it is about the quality.
Addressing the maintenance backlog is the best way to put the
conservation and recreation system that we built over the last
50 years, with the help of LWCF, on the path to long-term
viability.
Congress and the Executive Branch have previously
recognized this related purpose, choosing to fund maintenance
activities through the LWCF. From FY98 through 2001, LWCF was
used to address the maintenance backlog at all four land
management agencies. And it is no coincidence that it was in
those fiscal years that appropriations from the LWCF reached
and slightly exceeded the $900 million authorized level.
LWCF also has strong ties to offshore drilling, as most of
the funding credited to the Fund is coming from OCS revenues.
That is not lost on me, and I know that Senator Hyde-Smith,
Senator Cassidy and other coastal state members who support
revenue sharing also recognize and appreciate that.
As an appropriator, I continue to hold the view that
Congress should determine the appropriate level of funding for
LWCF and how it should be allocated. We should look at it on a
yearly basis and determine its funding levels relative to all
of our other needs and priorities.
I know we have diverse views in this Congress, certainly
even in this Committee, so the conversation that we are having
today is a very important one.
The witnesses that we have gathered, I think, will give us
a good perspective on these very important issues on how we
might possibly move forward. Today we have our newly confirmed
Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget, Susan
Combs, from the Department of the Interior (DOI). Ms. Combs, we
were really getting tired of seeing your name on that calendar
for confirmation. So after 600 some odd days, it is nice to see
you in an official position.
We also have Deputy Chief Chris French, from the U.S.
Forest Service, here to help discuss the federal side of the
program. Congrats to you on your recent promotion.
Lauren Imgrund is with the National Association of State
Outdoor Recreation Liaison Officers (NASORLO), and she will
discuss how states use financial assistance to run and support
their recreation programs.
Mr. Collin O'Mara from the National Wildlife Federation can
speak to how outside partners are able to support the program.
We have had some really good conversations, and I appreciate
that.
Mr. Brian Yablonski will provide a think tank perspective
from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), based
out of Montana. I know you have had some good ideas out there
on the table.
I thank you all for being here with us today, and I look
forward to a productive discussion.
I now turn to my friend and Ranking Member, Senator
Manchin.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA
Senator Manchin. Chairman Murkowski, thank you for
scheduling this important hearing to examine the implementation
of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I want to thank the
panel for coming with all their expertise to help us through
this.
I am excited for today's discussion about a program that
continues to demonstrate the benefits of conservation
throughout this country and enables access for millions of
Americans and visitors from around the world to enjoy our
treasured public lands while preserving them for generations to
come.
Since 1965, the LWCF has played a vital role in keeping our
public lands public, and I trust that the program will go on to
achieve greater success following the permanent reauthorization
earlier this year. By overwhelming votes of 92 to 8 in the
Senate and 363 to 62 in the House, Democrats and Republicans
came together to pass the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation,
Management, and Recreation Act of 2019 which we worked on and
which is the Lands package which President Trump signed into
law in March.
I firmly believe the glue that held the Lands package
together was the inclusion of LWCF for permanent authorization.
The Lands package included numerous important provisions that
will enhance conservation, recreation, hunting and fishing and
shooting opportunities on federal lands. Nevertheless, Senate
bill 47 will always be remembered as the legislation that made
permanent the most successful land conservation program in our
nation's history.
I have long supported LWCF which has played a critical role
and a crucial role in making my little State of West Virginia
all the more wild and wonderful. In fact, since 1965, $243
million of LWCF funds have been spent to enhance recreation and
conservation in West Virginia alone. I know that is not much
concern to the coastal states which do so much, but we do
appreciate it very much, I can assure you.
LWCF funds have been used to provide public access and
protect many of West Virginia's most popular recreation sites
including the Dolly Sods Wilderness and Monongahela National
Forest as well as every access point in the Lower Gauley River
and the Gauley River National Recreation Area. And if you
haven't gone rafting, you should.
While LWCF funds are used to protect important federal
conservation and recreational lands, the program also provides
essential funding to states to enhance state and local parks
and outdoor recreational opportunities. These are not free
giveaways to states, but rather are matching grants that result
in increased recreational opportunities at the state and local
level.
For example, Ritter Park in Huntington, West Virginia,
offers miles of walking trails along an area called Fourpole
Creek. Ritter Park also has numerous tennis courts, playground
facilities and an amphitheater that is used by the community
for small events such as concerts and plays. In 2012 Ritter
Park was named as one of the great public spaces by the
American Planning Association. Over the years more than
$625,000 in state LWCF funds has been spent on improvements at
Ritter Park.
LWCF also provides other important financial assistance to
states, including funding for the Forest Legacy Program which
helps protect working forests on private lands. The LWCF also
funds the American Battlefield Protection Program which helps
protect Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefield sites on
state and private lands, and grants to protect endangered
species habitat on state and private lands.
On the federal side, LWCF funds have been used to safeguard
some of our nation's iconic public lands. The Blue Ridge
Parkway in North Carolina and Virginia, Acadia National Park in
Maine, and the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon and Washington
are just a few examples of areas where LWCF funds have been
used to ensure that we can set aside these areas for future
generations and help our public land management agencies follow
their conservation mission as directed by Congress.
LWCF funds help complete protection of and provide
important public access to areas set aside by Congress in
recognition of their national significance, including lands
managed by the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest
Service. These investments maintain and enhance the value,
integrity and public uses of the public lands we already have,
and they are the heart of America's $887 billion outdoor
recreation economy.
Madam Chairman, I was pleased to see GAO recently conclude
the study that you requested that reviewed how LWCF
appropriations were spent over the last five years. Overall,
the report validates the successful implementation of one of
America's most important conservation programs and offers a
number of statistics and examples that highlight the public
value and efficiency of LWCF.
One example from the report that stands out is the ability
of the federal LWCF funds to attract non-federal funds to
advance conservation all over the country.
In 2016 at the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, LWCF
provided $23 million which was one half of the acquisition cost
of a very key tract of state-owned land within the boundary of
the park. That LWCF funding was matched by the National Park
Foundation and the Grand Teton National Park Foundation which
together raised the other $23 million necessary to complete the
acquisition.
Having reliable, federal LWCF funding allows for federal
agencies and conservation organizations to plan for when
opportunities such as this become available.
Unfortunately, although the LWCF is now permanently
authorized, the program does not have any certainty of funding,
as evidenced by the President's budget proposal which
essentially zeroed out--I repeat, zeroed out--LWCF
appropriations.
Today's hearing comes at an important time as the Committee
starts its work on the next phase of making LWCF an even more
effective conservation program providing permanent funding.
I am proud to partner with my friend and fellow Committee
member, Senator Gardner, on Senate bill 1081, the Land and
Water Conservation Fund Permanent Funding Act, along with more
than 40 of our colleagues. Our legislation would provide full,
permanent funding for the LWCF at a level of $900 million
annually so the program can continue to preserve, protect and
invest in our nation's public lands. Permanent funding is the
next step Congress must take after our historic achievement
earlier this year to permanently authorize the LWCF program.
As I noted during last week's hearing on deferred
maintenance, I recognize that passing bills that provide
meaningful, dedicated funding will be a challenge, but there is
broad, bipartisan support for both the deferred maintenance and
LWCF funding bills. I believe enactment of both these bills
would have a lasting benefit to many of our nation's most
treasured lands. It will help improve public access to these
areas and will enhance the economic benefits of our federal
lands.
I look forward to working with the Administration and my
colleagues to find a way to get these bills signed into law.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Let's go ahead and begin with the testimony of our five
witnesses. I have introduced each of you to the Committee. We
would ask that you try to keep your comments to about five
minutes. Your full statements will be included as part of the
record.
Ms. Combs, if you would like to kick off the hearing this
morning and, again, welcome to each of you.
STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN COMBS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY,
MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Combs. Thank you so much.
Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Manchin and members of
the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today
on matters relating to the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Your recent efforts to extend authorization of the LWCF
together with the other elements of Public Law 116-9 provide a
tremendous opportunity to expand outdoor recreation
opportunities for all Americans, and we are working hard to
implement the law.
As a steward for 20 percent of America's lands, Interior
works to strike the right balance to manage the public's lands
and resources, increase access for hunting, fishing and
recreation and create economic prosperity while protecting and
preserving America's treasures. The LWCF is one of several
tools we have to encourage outdoor recreation, manage the
public lands and support state and local conservation and
recreation projects.
Many of Interior's lands are destination areas where
families like mine plan ahead and sometimes travel far for the
opportunity to enjoy time together outdoors in some very
special, natural places.
Access to Interior's lands also plays a major role in
supporting America's outdoor recreation economy. We estimate
that last year Interior lands hosted a combined total of 487
million visitors at BLM, the Park Service, the Fish and
Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Reclamation sites. Part of
Interior's responsibility is to ensure that these visitors have
a safe and enjoyable outdoor experience at the National Parks,
refuges and other public lands so they continue to feel pride
in America's lands and return.
An important part of our balanced stewardship mission is to
ensure Interior continues to care for and maintain the lands
and the infrastructure which are part of the visitor experience
to the public lands. The condition of our roads, trails,
visitor centers, rest rooms and campgrounds impact the
enjoyment of our tremendous lands and natural and cultural
resources.
As the Committee recently heard at a hearing on
infrastructure, Interior's assets need attention. Our deferred
maintenance backlog was over $16 billion at the end of 2018.
Addressing the infrastructure maintenance backlog is an
Administration priority. The Administration's public lands
infrastructure fund proposal is a concentrated five-year effort
to make a transformative difference in our deferred maintenance
backlog and the condition of our facilities. The Administration
is focused on getting ahead of our deferred maintenance backlog
and increasing public access for recreation and enjoyment on
the lands we currently manage. We clearly have a fiduciary
responsibility to care for the extraordinary lands and
structures Congress has entrusted to us.
I'm pleased to join you in this panel discussion today and,
of course, I'm ready to take any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Combs follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Assistant Secretary.
Mr. French, welcome.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS FRENCH, ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF, NATIONAL FOREST
SYSTEM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE--FOREST SERVICE
Mr. French. Good morning, Madam Chairman and members of the
Committee, thank you for inviting me to be here today.
My name is Chris French, and I serve as the Deputy Chief of
the National Forest System with the U.S. Forest Service. I'm
pleased to be here today to discuss the implementation of the
Land and Water Conservation Fund by the Forest Service.
Created in 1964 and permanently authorized by the John D.
Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act
(Dingell Act), the LWCF provides money to federal, state and
local governments to purchase or permanently protect land,
water and wetlands for the benefit of all Americans. For the
Forest Service, it helps us maintain critical access to public
lands, recreation areas, hunting areas and conserve critical
watersheds.
The land acquisition program at the Forest Service utilizes
LWCF appropriations within the boundaries of national forests
and grasslands to acquire conservation lands and inholdings and
provide recreational access. The Forest Service land
acquisition program activities include land exchanges, land
donations and land purchases using LWCF and other funds
authorized by Congress.
For land purchases, the Forest Service works with a variety
of non-governmental organizations and other willing sellers
from the public. The demand far outstrips our ability to fund
all the proposals; therefore, each of the agency's nine regions
identify projects through a competitive process then submit the
top projects for final approval to the Washington office.
Nationally, acquisition projects using LWCF are prioritized
based on the factors of the Dingell Act, the significance of
the acquisition, the urgency of the acquisition, management
efficiencies, management cost savings, geographic distribution,
threats to the integrity of the land, the recreational value of
the land.
Primarily, LWCF funding is used to meet public access needs
such as large, intact areas for recreation, hunting, fishing,
by working with willing landowners to secure rights of ways,
easements or fee simple lands that provide or improve public
access to existing public lands. The Forest Service prioritizes
land acquisitions that have broad support of stakeholders,
local officials and others who want to remove barriers to
public access and attract more visitors to recreate in a safe,
accessible environment.
For example, in Montana, working with the Rocky Mountain
Elk Foundation, LWCF funding was key to the success of the
Green Mountain Project. This widely-supported project consists
of 620 acres of critical public access lands and prime wildlife
habitat, including elk habitat, along Montana's Rocky Mountain
Front within the boundary of the Helena-Lewis and Clark
National Forest. The project transfers this property, its
public ownership, and creates access to more than 2,000 acres
of adjacent public land, including the Continental Divide
National Scenic Trail and the Lewis and Clark National Historic
Trail.
Another example includes the acquisition of the Carson
Townsite lands of both the Rio Grande National Forest and the
Gunnison National Forest in Colorado. This is the headwaters of
the Rio Grande and Gunnison River watersheds that supply water
to nearly six million people. Here LWCF funds were used to
conserve these headwaters and provide public access on roads
and trails and to protect viewsheds along the Continental
Divide.
The Forest Service also uses LWCF funds for critical
inholdings to fund the purchase of lands from willing sellers
that are within the boundaries of national forests and
grasslands. Reducing inholdings can increase the efficiency of
federal land management and reduce potential conflicts. We've
implemented LWCF as an important tool to enhance the services
that we provide on public lands and to improve the efficiency
of managing those lands.
For example, consolidating inholdings allows the agency to
reduce boundary survey and tree marking activities which, in
turn, greatly reduces the time and cost of implementing
critical wildland fuel reduction and forest restoration
projects. However, with each acquisition we must look at the
long-term ability of the agency to care for and sustain the
maintenance for those lands that we're now managing. As you are
aware, the Forest Service has more than $5 billion in deferred
maintenance costs across the National Forest System. As we
acquire lands, we must continue to look for ways to fund and
repair our infrastructure and ensure that acquisitions, using
LWCF, do not add to that burden to the greatest extent
possible.
Addressing our deferred maintenance is a critical issue
affecting the Agency's ability to achieve its mission which is
why the Administration is proposing to establish the Public
Lands Infrastructure Fund. This proposal would provide
mandatory spending for the Forest Service and the Department of
the Interior land management agencies and address deferred
maintenance, including infrastructure needs and associated with
access and management across the National Forest System.
Thank you, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. French follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. French.
Ms. Imgrund, welcome to the Committee.
STATEMENT OF LAUREN S. IMGRUND, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
OF STATE OUTDOOR RECREATION LIAISON OFFICERS
Ms. Imgrund. Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Manchin and
members of the Committee, thank you for providing the National
Association of State Outdoor Recreation Liaison Officers,
NASORLO, with this opportunity to provide testimony on the
implementation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
We are the primary advocate for the State and Local
Assistance Program of LWCF. Our members are appointed by their
governors to manage the program on behalf of each state and
territory. We guide the expenditure of LWCF investments through
outdoor recreation grants and ensure that these assets remain
intact and are forever available to the public.
I currently serve as the President of NASORLO and am the
State Liaison Officer for Pennsylvania as part of my position
as Deputy Secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of
Conservation and Natural Resources.
In 1958, Congress established the Outdoor Recreation
Resources Review Commission. The purpose of this Commission was
to assess the country's outdoor recreation needs. It released a
report that called for the establishment of a national
recreation program. A major recommendation was federal funding
to provide grants to states to assist them in ``recreation
planning, acquiring lands and developing facilities for outdoor
recreation.''
This set the stage for the development and passage in 1964
of the Land and Water Conservation Fund establishing funding to
assist states and territories with their outdoor recreation
needs and to acquire new federal recreation lands. This new
funding recognized the critical role of states and local
communities in meeting the nation's outdoor recreation demands.
As enacted, the law required 60 percent of the funds for state
purposes. In the 1970s that guaranteed percentage was removed.
The State and Local Assistance Program has supported access
to outdoor recreation in communities in every county across the
country providing close to home outdoor recreation in every
state and every Congressional District.
Thank you to the Committee for your longstanding commitment
to the LWCF State and Local Assistance Program. The successful
enactment of the Dingell Act and LWCF permanent
reauthorization, including a guaranteed allocation of 40
percent of funds for states was a bi-partisan success. NASORLO
is pleased to see this program stability which will enable
states to more effectively meet the demand for outdoor
recreation close to home. Funding is now at a level where we
can run a significant nationwide program that will allow the
phased development of parks and funding for larger projects.
To be eligible for LWCF funds, every state develops a
Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan every five years. This
ensures that the state grant programs are responsive to the
public needs, changing recreation trends and population. Grants
are selected through an open application process requiring a
one-to-one match.
Over 46,000 state and local projects totaling $8 billion
have been completed. Projects span from State Park
improvements, to sport fields and playgrounds in small
communities.
Since 1965, the State and Local Assistance Program has
received only 25 percent of appropriated funds. Over the last
10 years, it has been even less, averaging 19 percent of
appropriations. However, thanks to your leadership in the last
three years, the combination of appropriated funds and GOMESA
funds has returned the program closer to its original levels
and a level where states can run effective outdoor recreation
programs.
For the past five years, NASORLO has been working with the
National Park Service on identifying issues and suggesting
program improvements. We're currently working with NPS on a
manual rewrite which we hope will address some of these needs.
The improvements we would like to see are outlined in my
testimony, my written testimony.
In Pennsylvania I have seen firsthand the impact of this
funding. For example, in the city of Lancaster we have invested
$300,000 in LWCF funds in a historic city park. A new all-
inclusive play area encourages safe, outdoor play and
accommodates children of all abilities. Outdoor play is
critical, as you know, for children's development, their
physical health, their mental health and, in fact, the
development of life skills, leadership, cooperation.
When I visit LWCF projects for groundbreakings and ribbon
cuttings, the community enthusiasm is very apparent. Local
government, community leaders and residents always speak with
pride about the investments they are making in their park. They
speak from the heart about how much these assets mean to their
community.
NASORLO supports ongoing, full and permanent funding of
LWCF. Outdoor recreation has long been recognized as critical
to our health, quality of life and economy. We know that
federal investments in communities by state and local
government and the private sector help to create jobs.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund State and Local
Assistance Program is the cornerstone of these resources. In
our growing country, the need for places for kids to play,
communities to gather and all of us to enjoy the great outdoors
is increasingly important. States and territories look forward
to a continued and strengthened partnership with the Federal
Government in making these critical investments.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Imgrund follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. O'Mara, welcome.
STATEMENT OF COLLIN O'MARA, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL
WILDLIFE FEDERATION
Mr. O'Mara. Thank you, Chairman Murkowski and thank you,
Ranking Member Manchin.
I just want to start with a big thank you to the Committee
for the amazing work on the public lands package. I mean, I
think it does set the stage for this conversation and just on
behalf of the National Wildlife Federation, just a huge thank
you.
I was enjoying some great LWCF lands the other day in my
home State of Delaware, and my two-year-old was flipping
horseshoe crabs. And you know, I think, if you look at the
history of this program over the last 54 years, there are well
over 40,000 projects that have been accomplished in every
single county in the entire country. And there is no more
successful outdoor recreation or land conservation program in
the world. It's actually staggering the number of projects that
have been done.
I'd like to talk at the beginning just a little bit about
where we've come as a country over the last 54 years.
So in 1964 there was about 190 million people in this
country--and we're at 330 million now. We've lost more than 80
million acres of open space from development and different
types of activities as that population has grown. And right
now, we've got about 9.5 million acres of public lands that we
can't access because there's no kind of public access points
around them.
And so, at a time when we want to get more kids outdoors in
a time when kids are living on screens and they're not, kind
of, enjoying those outdoor places, the Land and Water
Conservation Fund is really the one program that the Federal
Government and the states have and local governments have to
provide those kinds of opportunities.
And for the National Wildlife Federation, we love being a
partner in these projects because a lot of times it's the glue
that allows big projects to happen.
You know, it supports outdoor recreation. It increases
public access. It gets jobs and local economic development, as
Senator Manchin already talked about--the $887 billion outdoor
economy and the 7.5 million jobs. It's a huge gift for
wildlife--and I'll get back to that in just a second--and it
improves community resilience. But we've seen an evolution of
this program in wonderful ways and making sure that nature is
accessible for folks all across the country, not just folks
that are, kind of, in more rural areas. And yet, at the same
time, the only piece that's really missing is the dedicated
funding.
And so, since 1978 when the authorization level was pushed
up to $900 million, it's only been fully funded twice, in 1998
and 2001, and actually to do a big acquisition in Montana as we
were trying to build out Yellowstone. So this is a remarkable
opportunity to help the program realize its full potential by
ensuring that the funding is mandatory.
The number of experiences, like, I can't remember what I
watched on TV three or four days ago, but I can tell you the
very first time I went hunting with my parents. I can tell you
the very first time I went camping, you know, on a land that
was practically all by itself.
These are the lands that really do create those kinds of
memories and I think, you know, we'll talk a lot today about
the economic impacts and the billions of economic value that
this creates. One of the things that we're seeing more and more
is that, particularly as the economy becomes more uncertain and
we're seeing impacts from trade in other parts of the world
landscape changing, these are jobs that can help bring back
communities in big ways and we really want to make sure that
we're investing in those special places to drive this tourism,
those tourism dollars.
In my last couple minutes, I just want to talk about five
areas that we see as incredibly important in the successes of
the program.
The first one is around access. And thanks to the
Chairwoman, we could not be more excited that the Making Public
Lands Public was part of the sportsmen's package. It's part of
the bigger Dingell package. We have to do a better job. A lot
of the biggest success in LWCF in the last few years were
making lands that were currently inaccessible, accessible by
having small, targeted acquisitions. And Senator Heinrich has
been working on a couple of these. We have these amazing places
that we just can't access, and LWCF is often the glue that
allows those pieces to be very strategically done.
And you know, we already talked about the Gauley River and
the amazing rafting on that. It's another place that has just
amazing access that wasn't accessible before LWCF.
We're also seeing more and more communities focus on this,
using this as a program to make sure nature is within reach.
And we have a lot of kids in this country that just have no
access to the outdoors in any kind of meaningful way. And you
know, trying to make sure that we're driving investment
strategically into those communities that have recreation
deserts is incredibly important and working with NASORLO and on
the state recreation plans, you're seeing more and more focus
on driving those investments into local communities.
We're also seeing more and more communities focus on
acquisitions related to community resilience. I was a Secretary
of Natural Resources in Delaware during Hurricane Sandy. The
National Wildlife Refuges and the coastal Delaware environment
provided such a benefit to the community during those storms
because of the amount of water those wetlands could hold so the
communities behind them didn't get flooded out. And that wasn't
the original--the original purpose of that refuge was really
for duck hunting, but it had this huge benefit during those
storms.
And at that same time on the wildlife side, you know, we've
seen strategic acquisitions protect migration corridors, affect
habitat, always with willing landowners trying to protect
species proactively so we don't need the Endangered Species Act
or as a way to get species off the list.
And so, when you look at those different areas, the
economic benefits are much greater than just the $887 billion
we throw around, they really are the lifeblood of these
communities.
And so, I'll end with a quick quote from President Johnson
when he signed the law into Act and he said, you know, ``We
know America cannot be made strong by leadership which only
reacts to the needs or the irritations or the frustrations of
the moment. True leadership must provide for the next decade
and the next decade after that, not merely the next day.''
We're defined by what we leave behind and this program has
done a better job protecting those places that make America
``America'' than any other thing in our government's history.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Mara follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. O'Mara. We really appreciate
that.
Mr. Yablonski, welcome.
STATEMENT OF BRIAN YABLONSKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PROPERTY AND
ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH CENTER
Mr. Yablonski. Thank you.
Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Manchin, members of the
Committee, my name is Brian Yablonski and I'm the Executive
Director of the Property and Environment Research Center, a
conservation research institute based in Bozeman, Montana.
PERC has a 40-year history of exploring market-based
solutions to conservation challenges. Prior to moving to
Montana, I was the Chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission where I served for 14 years. Like you,
I am a proud public landowner, and at PERC we look at how we
can be better public lands stewards.
Since its creation to facilitate outdoor recreation, the
LWCF has provided the means to build trails, construct parks,
open access and support other recreation projects. In short,
the program has done excellent work.
With permanent reauthorization and calls for full funding,
Congress is wise to review it, particularly in light of
challenges on public lands today.
Outdoor recreation has never been more popular. It now
accounts for $887 billion in consumer spending. The sector is
growing faster than the overall economy, and recreation visits
to public lands are surging. I'm one of the lucky ones. Living
in the shadows of Yellowstone, I have the privilege of
recreating on some amazing public lands.
But I'm not alone, after three decades of flat visitation,
visits to our national parks have surged, increasing by nearly
50 million people in only five years. Amid this changing
landscape we must ensure the LWCF is equipped to handle the
challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
First, public land managers should have flexibility to use
LWCF funds for their greatest conservation needs, including
land management and maintenance. Growth in outdoor recreation
is to be celebrated, but it's also translating into more wear
and tear on public lands. The hiking trails maintenance backlog
alone totals $740 million. Recently, I spent a day in
Yellowstone with Superintendent Cam Sholly to see firsthand the
deferred and cyclic maintenance needs. The condition of
employee housing is a clear issue of concern. Conservation
should be about taking care of what we own, including taking
care of those we charge with conserving.
The LWCF would benefit from more flexibility to the federal
purposes component to address such needs whether maintenance,
land management or other important conservation purposes.
National Park Superintendents, Forest Supervisors and other
managers are best positioned to address those on-the-ground
needs. The LWCF would be more effective if it had more
flexibility to respond to bottom-up signals about conservation
and recreation priorities. Outdoor recreation should be as much
about quality as it is quantity.
Second, conservation funding models incorporating
recreation users are more stable and significant. The funding
record of the LWCF tracks like an EKG readout. While the
program's funding has been irregular and unpredictable,
conservation funds relying on users, such as hunters and
anglers, have proven more reliable.
As a market-oriented organization, PERC looks to where the
market is headed, and the market signal is clear. There is
great opportunity to link funding to the burgeoning recreation
sector. Tying some portion of LWCF funding to its
beneficiaries, including hikers, kayakers, climbers, skiers and
wildlife watchers, would benefit the program enormously. It
would convert ``stoke'' into real conservation funding.
Take the North American Wildlife model. Sales of hunting
and fishing licenses and excise taxes on gear from the Pittman-
Robertson and Dingell-Johnson programs provide nearly 60
percent of state wildlife conservation funding and recreation
fees paid by visitors on public lands, nearly equal recent
appropriations under the LWCF. It seems sensible that the LWCF
could benefit from the user-pays model of conservation funding.
Finally, LWCF federal land acquisitions and easements
should strategically aim to open access to existing public
lands while respecting private property. A 2018 report by the
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) found that
9.5 million acres of public lands in the West are landlocked.
Some of the most efficient acquisitions are surgical ones,
smaller ones that can open thousands of acres for hunters,
anglers and recreationists.
The LWCF has a storied record of affording Americans
recreation opportunities. It's time we help it meet the
greatest needs of our new recreation landscape.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yablonski follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Mr. Yablonski, thank you. Thank you, all. We
appreciate the opportunity for a good discussion today.
I think there is one certain point of consensus--every
person on this panel is a supporter of LWCF. I think it is
probably fair to say that those of us here, not only on the
Committee, but in the Congress, are supporters.
It has been mentioned that from, literally, a historical
perspective and opportunities for conservation, we have seen
more from this program over its past 50 years than we have with
many, many other things that we see here in Congress. So I
think that that support was demonstrated in the very strong
vote that we had with our lands package earlier this year with
the permanent authorization. Now it really comes down to, okay,
we love it. How do we pay for it?
Ms. Combs and Mr. French, both of you have mentioned the
Public Lands Infrastructure Fund (PLIF) as a way to address the
maintenance backlog issues, but the discussion that we have had
and where there is seemingly a divide on the issue of LWCF is
whether or not we would provide full and mandatory funding for
the program. The very direct question to the two of you is
whether or not the Administration supports full and mandatory
funding for LWCF?
Ms. Combs.
Ms. Combs. Well, let me just say that the President
obviously supports LWCF. He signed it into law, I believe, the
permanent authorization on March----
The Chairman. And yet, it is my understanding that within
the appropriations, we don't have anything in the LWCF account.
Ms. Combs. Yes, I understand that.
And so, let me, sort of, try to parse this a little bit. I
heard something interesting from Mr. Yablonski. He talked about
quality and quantity of the outdoor experience and I talked a
little bit about, sort of, our obligation. I think the LWCF
does an absolutely fantastic job, and I heard and I believe
everything that Collin and Lauren said. I think it's important.
It's that we are in a slightly different position, Madam
Chairman, is that we are the land stewards of the stuff that we
already own. And so, what I would say is that my obligation
here at the Department of the Interior is to be sure that the
Yellowstone experience, or wherever, is safe and is correct and
we take care of the lands that we already have.
I think this is an extraordinarily important time in you
all's collective deliberation to decide what do you want to do.
I would make one comment about the PLIF. When we have a $16
billion backlog, that focuses my attention a great deal on
that. And so, the PLIF, I would view that is in some sense kind
of a--I heard this word used yesterday--kind of a
transformative event. In five years, we would have about $6.5
billion to really make an extraordinary change so----
The Chairman. But let me ask, because my question is very,
very specific. You are talking about the Public Lands
Infrastructure Fund, and I think that there is good merit for
that. We have a bill out there to address just that.
But the Ranking Member here has a bill. I am sure he will
ask the same question----
Senator Manchin. Go ahead.
The Chairman. ----as to whether or not the Administration
would support full and mandatory funding, separate and aside
from what we may do with the Public Lands Infrastructure Fund.
Ms. Combs. Well, obviously we are dealing with the
President's budget and the guidance from OMB. And so, the
budget that we have presented for 2020 represents those
priorities.
As I said, the Administration very much supports the LWCF
but also has a very high priority on the deferred maintenance.
So that is the challenge that we, at Interior, are facing.
The Chairman. Let me quickly ask. Mr. Yablonski, you have
raised addressing the LWCF statute to explicitly include
maintenance as a federal purpose.
To those of you, quickly, do you think that we need to
amend the statute itself to specifically include maintenance as
a federal purpose for use of LWCF?
And my time is just about out so very quickly going down
the row. Yes/no?
Ms. Combs. I think it's up to Congress to decide.
The Chairman. Mr. French?
Mr. French. Yeah, the Administration is not taking a
position on this.
Ms. Imgrund. I would say from NASORLO's perspective, no.
Mr. O'Mara. It's a no. Do it with Restore Our Parks Act
instead of adding it to this, to LWCF.
Mr. Yablonski. I would say these decisions involve
tradeoffs, and so the more flexibility, the better. So, I'd
say, yes.
The Chairman. Okay, alright.
Senator Manchin.
Senator Manchin. I am more confused now than I was when we
started.
[Laughter.]
First of all, Mr. O'Mara--thank you all, I want to thank
all the panel. It has been great and I appreciate all of your
insight.
One of the most common reasons cited for giving up hunting
is the inability of access to public lands, as you know, and
the hunting opportunities and the whole connection that we have
as our culture.
It is an important issue for the states out West with
checkerboard landownership patterns. I am learning more and
more about the Western issues and Western lands and BLM and all
the other things. But states like West Virginia and other
Eastern states, we have limited public lands with most lands in
private ownership. Can you help us understand some of LWCF's
successes in expanding wildlife habitat in rural states, in
Eastern states, along with our Western states too? Very
quickly.
Mr. O'Mara. Yeah, so, and Brian mentioned this as well. I
mean there's been studies that have been done by TRCP and
others looking at the number of public lands that are just
inaccessible, a lot of them are BLM lands, in particular.
Senator Manchin. Some of the things you have been able to
open up with LWCF?
Mr. O'Mara. So, I mean, the Gauley, the Gauley River
example is a perfect one----
Senator Manchin. Yes.
Mr. O'Mara. ----in West Virginia.
And we've seen, you know, that Senator Heinrich was able to
open up the Sabinoso Wilderness Area with a bunch of different
funding sources behind that which is the largest wilderness
area in the country that didn't have access attached to it.
We've seen opportunities in the Greater Yellowstone kind of
environments, a place that does allow some consumptive
activities. I can provide you with a full list. There's dozens
and dozens of these but there's examples in Arizona. There's
examples in Colorado.
Senator Manchin. These are properties we already had. We
were not able to access them and now we are with the LWCF funds
that have been able to be directed toward that.
Mr. O'Mara. And a lot of times it's that surgical,
strategic investment where, it don't have to be a handful of
acres, right? You don't need to have everything, you just have
to have that specific piece to allow access because between
roads and other private landowners, kind of, shutting off
access, you don't have it unless you have that single parcel.
Senator Manchin. Okay.
And this next question would be, I guess, to Mr. French and
Ms. Combs, and whoever.
One week ago, our Committee, I think as Madam Chairman just
explained, held a hearing on deferred maintenance and public
lands. We discussed funding to fix the $19 billion backlog and
solutions like the Restore Our Parks Act of which I am also a
co-sponsor. At the same time, I am the sponsor of a bill to
provide mandatory funding for the Land and Water Conservation
Fund, along with 43 co-sponsors.
I know some of my colleagues believe we must choose between
funding the LWCF and the deferred maintenance backlog. But I am
not in that camp at all.
So I think my question would be, can you briefly describe
how much, if any, LWCF acquisitions have added to the
maintenance backlog? Anybody?
Ms. Combs. Well, in a practical matter, any piece of land
that you buy has built in some maintenance backlog. I don't
have that number carved out for this.
I do know that the access points that you all talked about
is hugely important. We think that is an extraordinarily
positive benefit for the Fund. And I think that the outdoor
recreation is a hugely important thing to the young kids of
this country who don't get outside enough. We think it's very,
very important. But I don't have a specific number for you,
Senator, I'm sorry.
Senator Manchin. Yes.
Mr. French?
Mr. French. Senator, you know, our deferred maintenance on
infrastructure is a tremendous issue for us. And so, when we
look at acquisitions through LWCF, that's actually a key thing
that we focus on is how do we not inherit additional deferred
maintenance or infrastructure.
So we focus our program on making sure when we do those
purchases that either we're using partners or the work is done
before we----
Senator Manchin. Then there are partnerships in almost all
of these programs?
Mr. French. That's correct.
Senator Manchin. And they are very successful in the
partnerships.
Mr. French. So we try to limit taking on any new deferred
maintenance.
Senator Manchin. Yes.
Mr. O'Mara, real quick.
Mr. O'Mara. And just one note I would add is that there's a
lot of places where acquisitions, the kind that are
strategically done, actually reduce the maintenance cost, long-
term, right?
So you're seeing places where you have fencing or different
types of habitat management or conflict with local landowners
where they really would like to sell, but this is where
predictability comes in, right? Because it's hard for these
guys to be able to plan for acquisitions if they have no idea
what the funding level is going to be which is why we do need
the dedicated, permanent funding at the 900 level so they can
make those decisions, but----
Senator Manchin. Well, there is going to be an awful lot of
argument back and forth on putting money dedicated or we are
going to be, basically, permanently funding, if we vote to
permanently fund LWCF and it is going to add more to the
backlog. And I don't believe that. I want to make sure if we
can get some accurate figures to show that it is just not
accurate----
Mr. O'Mara. Right.
Senator Manchin. ----to be able to say automatically that
happens to increase this.
Mr. O'Mara. Right.
Senator Manchin. Ms. Combs, this is going to be a yes or no
question, very quickly.
There is a process of putting budgets together and I know
when I was Governor, I had every agency basically give me their
request. They gave me the request and we would look at it,
strategically, and see what we could do and what we couldn't do
and how much of whatever we eliminated something.
Can you tell me what your request was for LWCF?
Ms. Combs. Our request is because----
Senator Manchin. In the budget, when you put the budget in,
your request to the Executive Branch?
Ms. Combs. I beg your pardon?
Senator Manchin. I would assume you put your request in to
the Executive Branch, basically, and they review that.
Ms. Combs. Yes, the budget that was put in does not have
any funding for the LWCF.
Senator Manchin. So you didn't request anything?
Ms. Combs. No, sir.
Senator Manchin. You left it zero?
Ms. Combs. Yes, sir.
Senator Manchin. That's not good.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Lee.
Senator Lee. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this
hearing. Thanks to each of you for coming to talk to us about
these important issues today.
Mr. O'Mara, I would like to start with you, if that is
okay?
Mr. O'Mara. Yes, sir.
Senator Lee. One week ago today, on June 18th, 2019, your
foundation posted an article, an article that made the argument
that LWCF funding should be full and it should be mandatory and
it should be made permanent. One of the core assumptions, I
think, that is underlying that assertion within your article is
the position that the LWCF is funded, ``At no cost to the
taxpayers.'' This just is not true.
While I acknowledge that oil and gas revenues may fund a
portion of the LWCF, I also have to stress that these revenues
are paid for by hardworking Americans, hardworking Americans
who depend on oil and gas every single day and who pay for it.
They rely on that as an energy source, and it is not as though
it is free.
In addition to this, every single dollar that is siphoned
away from the Treasury for the LWCF is one dollar less for
other programs--programs that are supported by Democrats and
Republicans alike in both houses of Congress.
In addition to this, when those dollars are used for
purchasing additional federal land, that, in turn, results in
the existence of less other land, other non-federal land,
whether it is private land owned by an individual or by a
corporation or, in some cases, like the State Institutional
Trust Lands Administration in Utah, state-owned land that is
designed to bring in revenue so as to support a public
education system.
Every time that happens, that puts additional strain on
local communities because it reduces their tax base. You are
taking out land that they can no longer tax. It can no longer
be put to productive use in most circumstances so they can't
tax it. And so, that puts an additional strain on other
programs, such as a program known as PILT which stands for
Payment in Lieu of Taxes. All these are consequences, and they
are certainly things that can be described as costs to the
taxpayers.
So I wanted to ask you a couple questions about this.
First, are you familiar with PILT?
Mr. O'Mara. Yes.
Senator Lee. So you are familiar with the fact that the
PILT program purports to reimburse local taxing authorities,
generally counties, in public land states. And I am somewhat
envious of some of my colleagues who acknowledge that they
don't have much, if any, federal land in their state.
It is great to have national parks. There are some federal
lands that we depend on for recreation and other purposes, and
they are wonderful.
In some counties in Utah we have in excess of 90 percent,
in some counties in excess of 95 percent of the land that is
owned by the Federal Government, meaning it is not subject to
taxation, most of the time it can't be developed without a
``Mother May I'' from the Federal Government. As a result, the
tax revenue doesn't come in and it puts a strain on our ability
to fund everything from schools to fire suppression to search
and rescue, all of which are made more difficult by that.
I assume you would not tell those communities that LWCF
does not cost a dime when they are getting paid pennies on the
dollar for PILT for what they could be paid if they were able
to tax that land, even at their lowest green bill rate.
Mr. O'Mara. So, the premise of the program, originally, was
fairly simple, right? If we're going to take value out of the
land, of a public resource, you know, mainly off the coast of
Louisiana, we're going to put the value back into land and that
the royalties would be paid regardless, and therefore, a
portion of that should go back to have the nexus with
conservation because that's where the impact is.
Now a lot of the lands that have been conserved do allow
working for us, ranching, allow different types of agriculture
activities. And then a lot of communities do benefit from the
economic activity in the form of hotel nights and restaurant
meals--and different retailers.
But we would love to work with you to make sure that we
find ways to bolster these local economies in strong ways. We
just think that having conserved assets that drive tourism and
drive additional recreation activity is a great way to support
economic development in communities across the country.
Senator Lee. So do you acknowledge that the use of federal
revenues for additional land acquisition under LWCF does, in
fact, deplete the dollars available for other programs,
programs that might be impacting the nation at large while most
of the LWCF dollars may be spent and focused in the West?
Mr. O'Mara. Yes, and I also believe though, that if a
public resource is being depleted for a private gain, for the
most part, that some of that money should go back toward
conservation to make sure that we're mitigating the impact we
had on the landscape.
Senator Lee. Fair enough.
I see my time is expired, Madam Chair, but I just want to
respond to that by pointing out that I don't disagree in the
abstract with that statement. But at a time when we have an
enormous backlog, an enormous federal estate amounting to about
30 percent of the land mass in the United States, and that is
hurting a lot of the rural communities disproportionately in
certain states, like mine where people don't have a tax base.
They don't even have a job base anymore because of restrictions
attached to that land and because of the fact that they can't
tax it and it can't be used for most things.
Add to that the fact that they also have a huge, staggering
backlog for maintenance of those lands. It begs the question in
my mind whether this really is the best use of these dollars to
buy more land rather than taking care of the land we already
own.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Lee.
Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. Thank you. I would like to thank you for
your strong support of LWCF. As we focus on the implementation
of LWCF, let's not lose sight of the importance of land
acquisition to this program.
I suppose since most of the land acquisition under this
program is through both federal--among federal, state and
private dollars to pay for the acquisition, I say that if a
state does not want to have its lands go for public purposes
because it wants to maintain a source of revenues for the
state, then the state doesn't have to access the LWCF funds.
So I do want to point out the importance of LWCF funds in
Hawaii. The benefits this fund have provided to Hawaii have
been tremendous. Just last fall, the acquisition of the 2,882-
acre Helemano Wilderness Recreation Area was completed thanks
to a mixture of federal, state and private dollars, including
$5 million in funding from the Forest Legacy Program. Among the
many benefits that conserving this land will provide include
protecting habitat for endangered species such as the Hawaiian
hoary bat, providing Oahu residents with new outdoor recreation
opportunities and protecting central Oahu's aquifer.
Also, last April I was fortunate to attend the Blessing
Ceremony marking the sale of the McCandless Ranch to the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to expand the Hakalau Forest National
Wildlife Refuge on the island of Hawaii, made possible by the
Hawaii ``Island Forests at Risk'' collaborative proposal. And
when I spoke with the owner of the McCandless Ranch, he told me
that the majority of the interested buyers of his property were
loggers or developers, entities that would have ruined habitat
that was the last location for the endangered Alala, or crow,
seen in the wild.
Some critics of the Land and Water Conservation Fund point
out how expensive the federal land acquisitions are and argue
that the money would be better spent going to other needs such
as maintenance. That is what we have been hearing this morning.
However, we cannot ignore the cost of inaction like what the
cost would be of losing the McCandless Ranch land to a
developer or a logger.
So Mr. O'Mara, I appreciate that in your testimony you
discuss the important contributions of LWCF funds to protect
wildlife, drinking water and increasing community resilience.
Can you discuss the urgency with acquiring some of these
lands and the costs of inaction if Congress were to stop
funding land acquisitions? Can you just briefly go over some of
those concerns?
Mr. O'Mara. Given the, kind of, rapid increase in land
values in places like Hawaii and around the country, I mean,
every year we delay it just becomes more expensive.
Senator Hirono. Especially land in Hawaii is very
expensive.
Mr. O'Mara. Very expensive.
And I think, you know, you increasingly see federal
agencies that are focused strategically on inholdings and
properties that, you know, kind of, help complete parks,
improve management, connect ecosystems. But I mean, if we had
fully funded the program at the 900-level starting in 1978 for
the full time, a lot of the parcels that we're going back to
acquire today for either access or other things could have been
purchased at a fraction of the cost. I mean, think about places
in Montana and Idaho, you know, today that are much more
expensive than they would have been before. And again, it's not
to own, you know, it's being very strategic about which ones
make the most sense with a collaborative process. But it has
been, kind of, penny-wise and pound-foolish if we're trying to
build a comprehensive recreation system across the country.
Senator Hirono. And it is not as though the land
acquisition process is a short process. As Mr. French noted,
there are something like seven criteria factors that go into
whether or not we are going to seek that kind of land
acquisition, not to mention it requires a willing seller. We
are not forcing anybody to sell the land to the Federal
Government.
I am kind of astounded, Ms. Combs, that the Interior
Department did not request any money for LWCF funds. That was
your testimony, correct?
Ms. Combs. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Hirono. Yes.
We all recognize on this Committee that there is a
tremendous backlog on maintenance, $16 billion or so, but what
I don't understand is why we should pick one or the other.
Wouldn't you support both? Wouldn't you support LWCF funding as
well as this new fund that you are proposing to address the
backlog problem?
Ms. Combs. The Department does support both. Secretary
Bernhardt testified he very much supports the Land and Water
Conservation----
Senator Hirono. Then why would you request zero funding for
LWCF?
Ms. Combs. We are going to be sure that we take care of the
President's budget and his priorities were the backlog and
deferred maintenance and that was our number one priority in
our budget, Senator.
Senator Hirono. So you have made it very clear that LWCF is
not a number one priority even as the President continues to
ask for billions of dollars for a wall. I think it is very
clear what the priorities of this Administration are.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Gardner.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member
Manchin, for holding this hearing and Senator Manchin, thank
you for the work that we have been able to do on the Land and
Water Conservation Fund with this legislation that I hope will
be passed soon by the Senate and the House and on its way to
the President.
Madam Chair, thank you for your work on the lands bill that
passed earlier this year. I think it was one of the most
significant conservation packages we have seen in a decade, and
I was very pleased with the number of people in this room who
collaborated to make that legislation a reality, including, I
think, a very striking display of bicameral, bipartisan
support. It shows what can be done when people come together,
putting aside politics and actually wanting to get good work
done for their states.
Of course, the lands bill had the permanent authorization
of the Land and Water Conservation Fund which is a first step
in making sure that this crown jewel of conservation programs
continues well into the future. And now the legislation that we
have before us is an opportunity to make sure that it has the
funds necessary to continue providing public access, public
opportunities and enjoyment of our great and wonderful public
lands in Colorado and elsewhere.
In Colorado we have about 35 percent of the land that is
held by the Federal Government and we know about 300,000 acres
of those lands are inaccessible. That is, basically, an area
the size of Rocky Mountain National Park that is inaccessible
in Colorado because it is landlocked where you just cannot get
a public road to it. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has
become a critical access point to help address some of those
concerns.
One of the questions I had for the witnesses today, there
is a recent study out showing that of the 2.8 million acres in
Colorado that are held by the State of Colorado, about 64
percent of those 2.8 million acres are inaccessible. If you
look at 16 percent of them, I think, you just can't get to them
because there are no public roads. You have 64 percent that are
inaccessible and then you have some 20 percent that may be open
for part of the season for hunting or other access but not open
year-round. But that is a lot of land. That is even more than
the Federal Government has in terms of inaccessible to it.
Can you use Land and Water Conservation Fund, the state
funds and others to help, perhaps, provide solutions for the
state landlock issues?
Ms. Imgrund?
Ms. Imgrund. Sure, as I mentioned before, every grant in
the program comes from the Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor
Recreation Plan process that each state goes through. And I
know Colorado has a great plan, not familiar exactly with what
it calls for in that plan, but in general, these funds
absolutely can be used for that type of activity.
Again, public recreation access to existing lands,
expansion of state parks, et cetera, are key assets and key
important things in the Land and Water Conservation Fund State
Assistance Program.
Senator Gardner. Yes, and thank you. I think this effort,
the Land and Water Conservation Fund, has given about $278
million to the State of Colorado alone, and it has gone to
improving access for things like outdoor recreation.
This is a $28 billion economy in Colorado in consumer
spending, the outdoor recreation economy. And so, when we think
about important issues like protecting our economy, protecting
our manufacturing base, protecting our energy base, we also
have to look at this incredibly economically important driver
of our recreation base. That is what the Land and Water
Conservation Fund will help us do with a $28 billion driver of
our economy that we can actually do, put policies around, to
make that, continue to allow that industry to thrive, that
economy to grow and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that it
creates.
So we have to get this bill done. This is the crown jewel.
It shows our constituents that have so much support for
protecting our public lands that the Congress can and will,
indeed, find an additional way to work together and to work
forward on this important solution.
I have a number of questions for Susan, I am sorry, Ms.
Combs. I am just asking a question.
How do we make sure that we balance, because I think we
can, this is a smart country, the people of this country are
very talented, we can balance the need for making sure we catch
up with the backlog but also using the Land and Water
Conservation Fund to acquire opportunities as they present
themselves?
Ms. Combs. Well, I look forward, very much, Senator, to
working with you on this because I do think that we can strike
a balance. I think we have to strike a balance, and I think we
have to be creative. And so, I look forward to working with you
in your great state.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Madam Chair, thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Gardner.
Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. I want to thank Senator Gardner for
making the point that I think very effectively refutes some of
the talking points that we heard earlier in the hearing that
somehow LWCF acquisitions are not put to productive economic
use, because I think most Western states can speak that nothing
could be further from the truth.
And when you look at the scale of hunting and fishing and
the outdoor recreation economy and how, in many Western states,
that economic activity now eclipses traditional sectors like
mining and agriculture. This is not something where we are
taking lands out of economic productivity. In many cases, we
are enhancing the economic productivity of those counties. It
is why you see county commissions send letters to me saying
please, please make this LWCF acquisition because this would be
good for our local economy, be it for hunting or fishing or
mountain biking or a number of other things that often drive
these rural economies today.
So it brings me back to Ms. Combs. I am having an
impossible time squaring what you are saying with your budget.
You said some very flowery things about the Land and Water
Conservation program, but I guess I would just ask you, what
should my constituents believe, the flowery words or the zeroes
that went into the budget for Land and Water Conservation Fund
acquisitions? Because I can guarantee you there is a demand
among my constituents in my state for those targeted
acquisitions, particularly for access.
Ms. Combs. Senator, obviously, National Park Service and
others and BLM take a look and, if Congress gives us funding to
do a land acquisition, we follow the same, kind of, process. We
work with the local communities to find out what are the
important elements they need, where are the access points?
We're also working across the bureaus that we have now
operating. The Secretary just announced about two weeks ago
that we're going to be opening up to outdoor recreation about
1.4 million acres of Fish and Wildlife Refuges, et cetera.
Senator Heinrich. I appreciate that and I think that is
good policy, but when you put a zero in for acquisitions and we
know that there are literally millions of acres that are closed
to recreational use, closed to the recreational economy and
closed to the public, it is indefensible, in my opinion, that
we have zero line items for Land and Water Conservation Fund
acquisitions when you hear the amount of support around this
dais for it.
Maintenance and infrastructure is the job of Interior. It
is the job of Agriculture. And we are in the current backlog
situation, not because of LWCF which is working. We are in the
current backlog situation because, with the exception of Fish
and Wildlife which has done a remarkable job in the last couple
of years, the Administration and these agencies have under-
resourced maintenance and infrastructure. We need to fix that,
and we owe that to the American people to fix that. But to
somehow blame the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the
mismanagement and the misinvestment, to me, is absolutely
ridiculous, and I think putting zeroes in the budget line items
is also absolutely ridiculous.
Mr. O'Mara, I want to ask you, can you talk a little bit
about how Land and Water Conservation Fund acquisitions can
actually save money on an operational basis?
For example, you know, one way that I am familiar with is
sometimes the impact on fire management when you have a broken
or checkerboarded land management pattern and then suddenly you
can manage that landscape as a landscape as opposed to a bunch
of little pieces.
Mr. O'Mara?
Mr. O'Mara. And I'll build on Mr. French's testimony. I
mean, I think, you know, especially in the West where you do
have the checkerboard, whether it's fire management, more
wildlife habitat corridor management, basic habitat restoration
projects, it just becomes much more complicated if there's a
lack of clarity over a bit of different management techniques
in different places. You have fencing issues in a lot of places
where you wouldn't need them otherwise if there was more
contiguous ownership.
So we've seen examples where, you know, maintenance costs
and restoration costs go down fairly precipitously and given
the fires that we're seeing, we should have more landscape
scale management so we're managing at a landscape scale as
opposed to a parcel level which, you know, fire doesn't respond
to or respect the parcel boundaries that we've imposed on these
landscapes.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to
yield back the last 18 seconds of my time.
The Chairman. We will give those 18 seconds to Senator
Barrasso, who has quickly airdropped in.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you so much, Madam Chairman. I want
to thank you for holding this meeting. I appreciate the timing
of today's hearing, because just last month the Government
Accountability Office released their report about the Land and
Water Conservation Fund. We are also in the midst of the
appropriations process and in my home State of Wyoming, summer
use of public lands is well underway.
Over the years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has
funded important works all across the country. There is no
question about it. In Wyoming, LWCF has provided funding for
rodeo grounds in Meeteetse, for a shooting range in Lusk, and a
variety of softball and baseball fields. These kinds of
projects don't comprise, regrettably, the majority of funds
that are expanded under the LWCF during the whole 54-year
history.
While I support what the Land and Water Conservation Fund
is trying to accomplish, the projects, I recognize the
significance for the communities around the country. I am still
concerned about how funding is allocated and prioritized and
how Congress will remain engaged in the future.
Congress has made progress in returning the LWCF
appropriations and apportionments to their original intent
during the lands package. I continue to believe that 60 percent
stateside and 40 percent federal allocation should be
reinstated. It is how it was originally set up.
When describing the federal side of the program it would be
much more accurate to call it the Land and Water Acquisition
Fund. You know, over the 54-year history of the program, about
27 percent of all the funds have been allocated for stateside
grant programs while more than $11 billion, 60 percent, of the
money has been used for federal land acquisition.
Now that $11 billion reference seems familiar and it is
worth discussing because, Madam Chairman, just last week you
and Ranking Member Manchin called a hearing here to review the
deferred maintenance backlogs of all the federal and land
management programs. And I will tell you, all of these agencies
are authorized to acquire land using the federal side of the
Land and Water Conservation Fund. The National Park Service,
alone, has an $11 billion backlog.
Generally, federal LWCF funds are limited to acquisition,
and although the Act authorizes other purposes like forest
legacy and facility management, the GAO recently reported that
the historical average for all these other purposes was just 14
percent. You are well aware of the problem with that.
I think that if we are really going to have a conversation
about conservation of land and water, we have to take a hard
look at what action is going to provide for the best future for
these resources. In some cases, the resources may benefit from
other management decisions rather than adding them to the roles
of federal agencies whose deferred maintenance backlogs that
this Committee routinely debates.
So before I turn to the witnesses, just one final concern.
Last Congress the Committee debated a proposal that would have
provided mandatory funding for the Land and Water Conservation
Fund. I said it then and I will say it now, I don't believe
Congress should abdicate its responsibility to take a hard look
at the priorities of this each year as we make important
decisions about natural resource management, the federal estate
and the priorities of our constituents. I think it is a
valuable program. I believe Congress should ensure it continues
to provide value to the constituents and to local communities.
Ms. Combs, over the last ten years, how much money do you
think for the ``other purposes'' of the Fund did the Interior
agencies collectively use for facility management, for
ecosystem restoration, for other authorized uses?
Ms. Combs. Senator, not as much as was used, obviously--and
I can get you those percentages, I've seen them--as it was for
acquisition. And that's been the primary focus has been
acquisition. And that was, a lot of it was inholdings and
within parks which were very, very valuable to go ahead and get
an inholding and if they were not for other purposes.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. French, do you have any idea in terms
of the Forest Service?
Mr. French. Again, I don't have those specific numbers, but
it's very similar to the Department of the Interior and we'll
follow up with you on those.
Senator Barrasso. No, I appreciate it because a couple
weeks ago the Committee held a very valuable hearing on
wildfire and the outlook for 2019. And again, last week, the
Forest Service's deferred maintenance backlog was clearly tied
to funding for wildfire mitigation activities. This week, we
are talking about how a vast majority of funds have been used
to add more assets to the federal sites.
So over the last ten or so years, we look at these other
purposes and funding and how it has been used for activities,
and I want to make sure we are doing things that we need to do
in terms of wildlife prevention and mitigation. Any additional
thoughts on that?
Okay, and if not, go ahead.
Ms. Combs. Senator, I would just say that both Forest
Service and Interior are very, very focused about wildland
fire, you know, wildland-urban interface. It is an
extraordinary problem.
And I'm pleased to announce that we've got a great
partnership with the Forest Service, but the West is burning,
the East is able to burn and those funds for suppression and
prevention and post-fire restoration are incredibly important
to the humans that reside in those areas and to the resources
that got burned up.
Senator Barrasso. Well, yes.
Madam Chairman, I just want to be clear. I support the Land
and Water Conservation Fund. I am committed to ensuring robust,
public access to our natural resources. I am equally committed
to ensuring that our vast forests and our prairies and
waterways remain healthy for future generations. I know that
the Land and Water Conservation Fund is a part of that, but I
believe we need to continue to allow the Fund to adapt to
current and emerging needs and continue to have these
conversations.
Thank you for the hearing today.
The Chairman. Senator King.
Senator King. I find myself agreeing with the Senator from
Wyoming. But it seems to me there are two separate
conversations, two separate issues at stake. One is funding and
then what to do with the funding. Those are the two issues.
The problem, as I see it, is right now we have a proposal
for no funding and, yet, we are talking about the importance of
land conservation. I am reminded of the old poem, ``Mother, may
I go out to swim? Yes, my darling daughter, Hang your clothes
on a hickory limb, but don't go near the water.''
Having this structure of we just reauthorized permanently
the Land and Water Conservation Fund, but if we don't fund it,
it doesn't mean anything.
I guess the question before us is, we ought to fund it to
the authorized level. I disagree with the Senator from Utah,
this is money that comes in and you characterized it, it comes
from the land and it was designed in 1965 to go back to the
land. I mean, that is exactly what this purpose was, and to the
extent that we are siphoning off these funds for other,
entirely different purposes, that is really not appropriate.
Then the question is allocation.
Mr. Yablonski, in your testimony, I do want to clarify one
issue. You mentioned that there might be demands on the Fund
from other purposes like the Restore Our Parks Act. The Restore
Our Parks Act explicitly does not----
Mr. Yablonski. Yeah.
Senator King. ----go into the Land and Water Conservation
Fund. It is right in the language of the bill, the Restore Our
Parks Act is funded by excess revenues that would otherwise go
into the Treasury. So I just want to clarify that it is not a
violation of the Land and Water Conservation Act funding.
Mr. O'Mara, am I correct about the fundamental structure
that this is from the land to the land?
Mr. O'Mara. And the idea was very simple when Secretary
Udall and President Kennedy proposed it which was if we're
going to take a public asset and basically liquidate it and
turn it into value, a lot of which is private, some of the
revenues from that should be put back into the land to make
sure that we're mitigating the impact we've had.
Senator King. But over the years it has been siphoned off,
it has not been allocated at all. I think there are only two
years it has been funded to its maximum in the last 20, is that
true?
Mr. O'Mara. Yeah, so in 1978 it was increased to $900
million. Only two years, 1998 and 2001, has it been allocated
fully. Twenty-two billion dollars that should have gone toward
the Land and Water Conservation Fund have been used for other
purposes, just siphoned off and raided into the other Treasury
park programs.
Senator King. And if we talk about using it for
maintenance, that is not what it was originally intended for,
is that correct?
Mr. O'Mara. Correct. I mean, the idea was that this was
going to create recreational opportunities and access
opportunities across the country. And this is why I think the
legislation you're leading with others is very complementary,
but it's a separate piece of legislation that should be
supported on its own right as opposed to being merged into this
bill.
Senator King. Mr. Yablonski, convince me that this money
should be used for maintenance when that was not its original
purpose.
Mr. Yablonski. Well, actually, so the original purpose of
the statute was to facilitate outdoor recreation. And I would
say it would be really compelling to figure out what our public
land managers believe would facilitate outdoor recreation the
best.
I think in many cases, access, roads, campgrounds, trail
maintenance is better linked to, or better linked to recreation
than potentially acquisition. So that's why I would think that,
you know, again, going back to the original purpose of the Act,
if we really want to facilitate recreation, what might our
public land managers believe would really facilitate public
outdoor recreation and again, campgrounds, trails?
There's a trail in Bozeman, Montana, Sacagawea Peak, that I
take my family to hike to, and there's a road up there to the
Ferry Lake Trailhead. It is more dangerous for me to drive that
road to the Ferry Lake Trailhead than to haul myself 2,000 feet
up to tag the top of that peak. So as a recreationist I would
say, in that particular case, maintenance would be more
important.
Senator King. Madam Chair, is the allocation of these funds
within the jurisdiction of this Committee in authorizing
legislation or is it strictly appropriations?
The Chairman. We included in our legislation last year a
calibration, if you will, of state side to federal side. So
yes, we did that.
Senator King. It requires, as I recall, it was----
The Chairman. Forty and 40 and then there was the specific
set aside as well for additional uses.
Senator King. Then the question is whether the
Appropriations Committee pours the money into the fund----
The Chairman. Correct.
Senator King. ----that will then go into those.
The Chairman. But we dealt with the clarification as to the
state side piece because what had happened, as I mentioned in
my opening, was we were seeing greater acquisition, greater
dollars being sent to the federal side as opposed to the state
side.
Senator King. And our bill, as I recall, changed that,
fixed that.
The Chairman. Correct.
Senator King. So, that is----
The Chairman. Correct, so that is within this Committee's
jurisdiction.
Senator King. Good. Thank you.
Thank you all, and thank you for your testimony today. I
think this is an important subject.
Madam Chair, thank you for calling this hearing.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator McSally.
Senator McSally. Thank you, Madam Chair, for this very
important hearing. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is
really important to Arizona. As an outdoorswoman myself, I very
much appreciate the value of the Fund and how it has impacted
Arizona.
Outdoor recreation in Arizona is a $21 billion industry,
supports more than 200,000 jobs and generates nearly $1.5
billion in state and local taxes. So this is an economic issue
as well as an access issue and a conservation issue.
We have benefited over the last 50 years in Arizona from
$240 million of LWCF funds. Investments have benefited projects
both large and small, from iconic national parks to local
outdoor recreation areas within local communities.
I have been a consistent supporter of the LWCF throughout
my time in Congress, and I am glad that we joined together in
order to permanently reauthorize it as part of the lands
package last year.
Mr. O'Mara, I want to highlight, ask you to talk a little
bit further about a case you highlighted in your testimony in
Arizona. You mentioned a recent conservation success story
about the ET Ranch near Safford, Arizona. Can you elaborate
more how local stakeholders were involved in this process and
how it will benefit the residents and the visitors to the area?
Mr. O'Mara. Yeah, so it's a wonderful project and it's a
project that brought together partners from a range of
different conservation groups, working with the state, working
with yourself, working with the state government as well as the
federal agencies.
And the idea was to improve public access to a 6,600-acre
BLM Wilderness Area that was not accessible for the most part
around Safford and then the nearby 26,000-acre, 27,000-acre,
Santa Teresa Wilderness Area as well. And so, by protecting
these 600 acres, very strategically in the ET Ranch, we were
able to connect, kind of, these areas and providing access for
the first time ever. And I think for the residents of that area
that have had these lands, kind of, viewable, but not
necessarily accessible, kind of look, but don't touch.
Senator McSally. Exactly.
Mr. O'Mara. It's transformative. And the local community is
benefiting already from tourism and more folks going to the
area. So, it's a great win-win-win.
Senator McSally. No, it is a fantastic success story, when
you think about it, how we preserve these amazing areas but
then we can't let anybody have access to them. This is a
perfect example of it making sense based on its original intent
and being a good investment.
I next want to pick up on the discussion that is sort of
ongoing which is, we do have a massive backlog in maintaining
our federal lands and, as we know, the Land and Water
Conservation Fund has focused mostly on acquisition of new
lands.
I realize there are some people advocating that these are
two separate decisions, but in reality if we are choosing to
increase federal lands, there has to be some element in the
decision-making process of whether we can sustain those lands
and whether that is practical and affordable as well.
Ms. Combs, could you share in the decision-making process
whether there is any element of the sustainability and the
maintenance and the cost as these acquisitions are under
consideration?
Ms. Combs. From the federal side, which is, of course, what
we take care of, we look at this and I think Collin's made an
interesting point about, sort of, if you get an inholding then
you may not have to fence it off, et cetera. And there's
certainly some efficiencies there.
I would say, however, from anybody that owns a piece of
property, if it's got a structure on it of some kind, you may
have a maintenance, probably you may have a roof or something.
So you have to take a look at that.
And they're trying to balance, if you're National Park
Service or whomever, you're trying to balance, what is the
value to the surrounding land and is it worth it? And then you
get it, sort of, voted up through a panel and what you are
always trying to do is to not add more deferred maintenance.
It is such an unfortunate requirement to focus on that, but
we do understand that the access is critically important and
the example you gave of the 600 acres opening things up, I
think that is extraordinarily poignant, look but don't touch.
It really is important for us to really examine each parcel
and what is its potential net. Is there a debt negative burden?
And is it, of course, outweighed by the positive benefit? And
so, we ask the National Park Service and BLM and Fish to take a
really hard look at that each time, and we think that's very
important. So it's an ongoing conversation with respect to each
and every parcel.
Senator McSally. Okay, great.
Any other panel member want to comment on that part of the
process? Yes, sir?
Mr. Yablonski. Yeah, Senator, I would just say, so when the
lands package passed, LWCF was permanently reauthorized so
permanent is a pretty long time. It goes forever and ever. And
the allocations were locked in permanently too, is my
understanding, at the 40 percent for federal purposes which has
been defined primarily, if not solely, acquisition, 20 percent
for other purposes which is that flexible pot that maybe you
could use for maintenance or for other programs. But 20 percent
historically, if you look at the last ten years, is probably
the lowest percentage that it's ever been. So that's been
locked in.
So it would just seem to make sense when you're looking at
something that's forever and ever, maybe there are acquisition
needs that are here and now, but as you move forward in the
life of the program, you may shift even more and more to
maintenance. There will be, sort of, a critical mass of
acquisition and then it will need maintenance and you would
think Congress would want to have that flexibility in a
permanent program to be able to shift to the highest
priorities.
Senator McSally. Great, thanks for your perspective. I am
out of time.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator McSally.
Senator Daines.
Senator Daines. Thank you, Chairman Murkowski.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been absolutely
critical to the State of Montana. It is remarkable, 70 percent
of our fishing accesses have been funded through LWCF. In fact,
this time of year, if you are in the Minneapolis Airport,
Denver, Salt Lake, Dallas, Atlanta and checking the flight that
is going to Bozeman--which I make that trek back and forth
virtually every week--there are as many flyrods getting on that
plane as there are passengers. It is an incredible driver for
our economy in Montana.
The beauty of that is fly fishers come out to Montana, and
I was fly fishing in Montana before Brad Pitt discovered it
back in the '90s. But it is catch and release. Our fishing has
never been stronger in terms of fish per mile. It has wonderful
ecosystems, and now we can access them because of the Land and
Water Conservation Fund and these fishing access sites. It is
critical to unlocking access to our public lands. We have very
unique stream access laws in Montana. The public can access
from high-water mark to high-water mark.
LWCF supports our logging activities to ensure that we are
better stewards of our forests, protecting our timber industry
and the jobs there, the Forest Legacy Program, protecting water
quality in very important watersheds for our communities in
Montana. LWCF allows ranching families to keep their businesses
and heritage in the family. It protects habitat for many of our
state's iconic wildlife species, and there is much, much more
in Montana.
Our public lands, our outdoor recreation opportunities in
Montana, they are the envy of the world. They are our way of
life, and much of that has been enabled because of the Land and
Water Conservation Fund.
Earlier this Congress, we took a historic step to
permanently reauthorize LWCF by passing a bipartisan public
lands package. It took a public lands package to bring divided
government together.
While I appreciate today's hearing to focus on the
oversight of this program, I encourage this Committee to back
up the commitment we made earlier this year and that is to
provide full dedicated funding for the program. That is why I
was happy to introduce a bipartisan bill, Senate bill 1081, the
Land and Water Conservation Fund Permanent Funding Act to fully
fund this program. I am glad the House Natural Resource
Committee took action just last week to report their
counterpart legislation out of their committee, and I encourage
this Committee to act quickly.
While enacting permanent reauthorization was important to
ensure the American people that the program is here to stay,
there is substantial need in Montana to provide the certainty
that funding will also exist year after year.
There are plans underway by our state to build more fishing
accesses to some of our more popular rivers that become
overcrowded now in the summertime. There are still over 1.5
million acres, 1.5 million acres, of public land in Montana
that is inaccessible to the public. The Nature Conservancy's
Clearwater Blackfoot project--100,000 acres of forest lands
that are in need of funding for targeted easements, targeted
acquisitions and other forest projects to keep this landscape
working. The Lolo Trails Landmark area--14,000 acres of premier
recreation, outdoor recreation lands, vital hunting access on
these lands themselves and on adjacent national forest
ownership. LWCF is also a critical tool to building and
restoring big game wildlife corridors, looking at migration
patterns of our wildlife which I know is a priority for this
Administration. These uses are all critical to supporting our
some $7 billion outdoor economy that we find in Montana as it
relates to recreation. We need to act now, and I encourage this
Committee to take that action.
So my question is for Mr. O'Mara.
Could you speak to the importance of enacting Senate bill
1081 providing for full mandatory spending of LWCF?
Mr. O'Mara. Yeah, thank you, Senator, and thanks for your
incredible leadership on this. It's the most important step we
can take for conservation in this country right now.
If you look at the number of communities that have public
lands that they cannot access because of a lack of access
points and you think about the transformative nature of
investments that you've helped make in, like, the Tenderfoot or
in the Rocky Mountain Front, you know, allowing that kind of
access creates opportunities for local economies that are,
frankly, in desperate need of more opportunities right now.
And so, I think, there's a lot of priorities before the
Congress, but this is absolutely one of our top to try to get
done this year.
Senator Daines. Mr. Yablonski mentioned the Sacagawea Peak
and the Ferry Lake access too. One of the challenges we face
right now is we love our public lands, and the areas where we
have great access to public lands tend to be growing, places
like my hometown of Bozeman. We just need to continue to invest
here because when you go to trails now, they are crowded. And
we need to continue to invest here.
And last, I will say this, we look at the $7 billion
economy for Montana for outdoor recreation, I think that is
just the tip of an iceberg. And the reason I say that is
because when you look at the reason companies are growing and
the reason people are moving to Montana, it is because of the
access to our public lands, the way of life that we have.
I think there is a whole other economy there that's
happening and can fit in our high-tech category because men and
women want to enjoy where they work. They like to play as well
as work hard, and that is all part of this economy that is
growing right now in many parts of Montana.
Thank you, Chairman Murkowski.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Daines.
Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
And Madam Chair, I want to thank you and Ranking Member
Manchin for holding this hearing on important implementations
affecting the Land and Water Conservation Fund. In my view, the
big implementation issue with this critical program is
inadequate funding.
You and I, Madam Chair, have talked about this since the
days when I was Chair of the Committee and we worked on it, and
the issue is as important now as it was then.
I do want to get into an issue that, to my knowledge, Madam
Chair, has not been discussed in this Committee, but I think it
is going to have to be discussed because it reflects a
development that was reported on in the news just in the last
couple of days. In the last couple of days, it came to light
that millions of acres in the West are now being bought up by
just a few private landowners, and this has introduced a whole
host of new issues. Apparently, according to these news
reports, some of these private landowners essentially are
asking people about their political views before allowing local
folks to cross onto public lands. Now if this is the case and
if it is widespread and, again, this is a brand-new news report
and all of us know that it ought to be taken in that context,
this ought to be concerning to all Americans in this Committee.
Publicly owned lands are everybody's lands and this Committee
has always had the responsibility of doing oversight to making
sure that public lands meant just that, that public lands
ensured equal access.
So I thought, Mr. O'Mara, apropos of this, what do you know
about this development, if anything, and what are your thoughts
about the prospect of the possibility of new, very large,
private landowners in effect developing something which I don't
know of in the law, as a former Chair of the Committee,
basically saying you can have a political test that determines
whether somebody gets access to public lands.
Tell me what, if anything, you know about this development.
How serious it is and maybe it is not serious and what you
think about the concept of having almost a political litmus
test for getting access to public lands?
Mr. O'Mara. Yeah, I mean, so across the--thank you for the
question.
Across the West we are seeing, kind of, these large and
very wealthy individuals buying up more and more tracts. And
it's actually a little more insidious than you even mentioned,
in that you're seeing folks actually try to shut down existing
public access, public roads, things like that, that are public
assets so they're basically either just closing on their own
with like, kind of, gates and the like or trying to go to
county commissions to get them to condemn roads in some cases,
trying to make it all private.
There's 9.5 million acres that are currently inaccessible
that are public lands, federal open lands that the public just
cannot get to right now. That number is actually going to get
bigger if some of these acquisitions occur, some of these, kind
of, large landowners buy more land and then try to shut down
additional access. And frankly, it's changing the very nature
of, kind of, conservation in some communities.
Like in Idaho, for example, lands that have been accessible
for a long time, even though they're privately held, there's
just, kind of, a common understanding that if folks were going
to hunt responsibly or fish responsibly, that that would be
allowed. And you are seeing these--I haven't seen so much on
the political test, but I am seeing folks shut down land that's
been accessible for generations.
And you think about, like in Oregon or like the John Day
River, like the little acquisition that you led, you know, a
few years ago, you know, made that waterway accessible at
scale. If we lose those opportunities then we don't have a tool
to combat that, like full funding of LWCF. We're going to see
more and more access be lost in over that time in the years
ahead.
Senator Wyden. I don't have much more time. I would like to
hold the record open for you to outline any additional views
you may have on this. I know it is striking you as something
that you were not prepared to be asked about this morning.
I would only ask, Madam Chair, if we could discuss this in
the days ahead because I was struck by this news just a couple
of days ago. The article was very detailed. It was, of course,
just a news report. But if even a portion of what was described
there is accurate, particularly with respect to access of
public lands, that is something we have always gotten into. And
under your leadership and the Ranking Minority Member, I would
very much like to see us get into it.
The Chairman. Well, I appreciate that, Senator Wyden. I,
too, read the article with great interest and probably similar
concern.
I think that is a subject that is important for this
Committee's discussion, but I think also one of the points that
Mr. O'Mara raised in that you do have significant, significant
lands that are being bought up by very wealthy individuals
that, again, are cutting off what we would assume to be
historic access to hunting and fishing. It is a reality that
the lands that we seek to enjoy are becoming more and more
limited whether it is through what was described in the New
York Times article or the very significant areas of land that
we drive by and say, well, I remember being able to go fish on
that, but now it is owned by X millionaire.
Senator Wyden. Madam Chair, my time is up. I very much
share your view as it relates to hunting and fishing and these
other uses. I am going to be heading home to rural Oregon this
weekend. I am sure I am going to hear about that.
I thank you for your thoughtful response and look forward
to having the chance to talk about it.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Hoeven.
Senator Hoeven. All that talk about hunting and fishing is
making me anxious to go hunting and fishing.
[Laughter.]
Thanks to all of you for being here.
Assistant Secretary Combs, the deferred maintenance backlog
for the National Park Service has grown to over $12 billion. It
is many millions in our state and I am sure in every state.
Does the authority of the LWCF State and Local Assistance
Program, as administered by the National Park Service, extend
to the maintenance of infrastructure, for example, road repair?
In our national parks, we need road repair. What is being done
there? What can be done?
Ms. Combs. Senator, let me make sure I understand your
question. Are you asking about, what is Parks doing right now
if it's road repair or is this related----
Senator Hoeven. Road repair in the parks.
Ms. Combs. Well, we're way behind. We're about $16 billion
in the hole on all across everything. The bulk of it is in the
National Park Service. For example, there is a water line that
is not, that breaks a lot in the Grand Canyon area. We have
roads that don't work. We have buildings that don't work. We
have toilets that don't work. We have a horrible deferred
maintenance backlog. And so, that is why the Administration has
supported the effort to go ahead and have a short, but very
important five-year period to take money out of the energy
that's produced from the lands that are held by Interior, put
them back into these lands and see that we can transform this
and turn this around and have a safe and enjoyable experience
for our customers, who we have hundreds of millions of people.
Senator Hoeven. So you are a strong supporter of the
Restore Our Parks Act of which I am a co-sponsor----
Ms. Combs. Yes, I am.
Senator Hoeven. ----and feel that the infrastructure
funding is an absolute priority for our National Parks?
Ms. Combs. Yes, I do and I would say we, all of us here at
this panel, support recreation. We support outdoor activities.
It's just that our focus is on, primarily on, the assets,
the land assets that we have in order that we can provide the
best value to the wonderful families and people that come and
visit them. And it's got to be safe and it's got to be an
enjoyable experience.
Senator Hoeven. That sure seems like a bill we ought to be
able to move because it is also bipartisan.
Mr. French, as of last year the Forest Service managed
approximately 193 million acres, with 80 million acres, or 40
percent, deemed to be at high risk of wildfire.
Talk to me about how you work with the local ranchers and
others that live either on the, like the grasslands, the
tenants and that live out and near the, you know, these
national, these public lands. Talk to me about how you are
working with them in terms of controlling wildfire because it
affects them too, right? Do you do controlled burns or any of
those kind of things, that can affect ranchers in the area or,
for example, ranchers on the national grasslands?
Mr. French. Yeah, thank you, Senator.
That is a huge issue for us, both for the protection of
their livelihoods and then for the resources that we're asked
to manage.
This is one of those areas in terms of access that becomes
really important--whether it is through easements or through
coordination with local ranchers or through permanent access--
that road infrastructure and getting into those areas where we
have wildfires is critical. We have to create close working
relationships with those folks so that we can actually access
the lands to provide that wildfire suppression.
Senator Hoeven. Good. I think that is really important.
I think it makes you more effective and it certainly makes
for better relations out there, helps them, and what you do has
a very significant impact on them.
What about your deferred maintenance backlog?
Mr. French. It's huge. And you know, probably the biggest
factor that has affected us on our deferred maintenance
actually is the cost of wildfire suppression.
And right now, we have more than 370,000 miles of road and
13,000 bridges. We need that infrastructure just to go in and
access to provide wildfire suppression and prevention
activities on behalf of recreationist, our grazing communities,
our forest products industry. Having a sustainable, well
maintained set of infrastructure is critical for those
responses. Our total backlog is about $5.2 billion and one of
our primary focuses right now is how to get ahead of that.
Senator Hoeven. So that access and that infrastructure, is
very important to you?
Mr. French. Incredibly important.
Senator Hoeven. Okay.
Ms. Imgrund, how does the Land and Water Conservation
Fund's State and Local Assistance Program help states keep up
with local recreational infrastructure needs? I mean, now I am
talking about some partnerships, well, partnerships with the
states and then also any public-private partnerships too.
Again, going back to meeting that critical infrastructure need.
Ms. Imgrund. Sure. Parks are really a form of equity in the
United States so that having a whole bunch of different kinds
of parks is really important to the outdoor recreation needs
across the country.
In states, the grant programs support projects that are
identified by local communities. So those local communities and
the states, itself, can apply for money for acquisition and for
development of parks. The maintenance and stewardship of those
parks is the responsibility of the local and state governments.
So federal funds are not used for the ongoing maintenance and
stewardship of those local parks, but those local and state
parks are supported and improved through the federal Land and
Water Conservation Fund.
Senator Hoeven. You mentioned in your testimony, though,
ways to improve access to public lands and outdoor recreation.
Do you believe there could be improvements to the LWCF State
and Local Assistance Program? And could those improvements be
implemented administratively or does it require action by
Congress?
Ms. Imgrund. There are a number of improvements that could
be made to the program such as assuring that funds are more
readily available to the states. I think that full funding
would assist with that because the National Park Service and
the Department of the Interior would have certainty on the
funding that was going to be going to the states and could more
quickly apportion the funding to the states.
There are also a number of other issues such as the need
for some administrative support for the states to steward the
sites over time which would come out of the regular LWCF
allocation. We'd like to talk about that. We think that could
be done for the appropriations process.
And we're also interested in looking at an extension of an
area that's called Temporary Nonconforming Use. So each LWCF
site is protected permanently when the funding is allocated
from the Federal Government to the state and then to the grant.
Those funds, then the states inspect those areas every five
years to assure that they are still being used for outdoor
recreation. But sometimes, those areas, there might be a small
project that either expands the recreational access to the park
or as a highway project that might take part of the park as a
staging area for a short period of time. In other words, the
park is not permanently converted, but it's converted for a
short period of time. Currently that is allowed for six months,
and we would like to see that changed to three years. We also
think that that could be done through the appropriations
process, because it was previously done through a conference
committee report.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Hoeven. Well, that is good, you have the
Appropriations Chairman here to talk to about it.
[Laughter.]
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Let's go to Senator Cantwell.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for
having this important hearing. I so appreciate all my
colleagues' viewpoints. I feel like a lot of people put cards
on the table this morning as to how we make our way through
this process. And I certainly appreciate all the hard work of
the Chair and the Ranking Member on trying to figure this out
and move forward.
You know, I come from a state that can be somewhat
empathetic to all of the viewpoints that have been discussed
here. I mean, certainly there are counties in Washington State
that are 80, or a very high percentage of public/federal land
and yes, we want PILT money and we are a state that definitely
has a lot of national parks and we want backlog and maintenance
and certainly, certainly, believe in LWCF.
I forgot, my colleague from Maine asked for--yes, yes,
please go ahead.
Senator King. One question for the record.
The Chairman. Certainly, Senator King.
Senator King. If you all could share your thoughts with us
in writing after this hearing.
My concern with the use of LWCF for maintenance is a kind
of moral hazard problem that if LWCF becomes the go-to fund for
maintenance, nobody will ever have a maintenance budget again.
And then what we are really doing is facilitating both
Congress' and the agencies' avoidance of doing deferred
maintenance.
The word deferred means somebody put it off. And so, if you
could give us your thoughts. Maybe a matching requirement if
LWCF puts up some maintenance money, the agencies have to put
up a matching amount? I don't know. I am looking for guidance
here because if we use LWCF, it would take the whole fund for
15 years just to cover deferred maintenance and I am worried
about the moral hazard. So thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
Playing into that, I guess, my point is I know some people
think we definitely used LWCF to help us not increase the
backlog and maintenance. I mean, that is what we did at Mount
Rainier by fixing the Carbon River because it was flooding out.
That is what we have done in expanding land at White Salmon. So
the notion that somehow this is, you know, counter, it is
helping us.
The question is, my personal viewpoint this morning would
be, why do we collect, why do we have this money in the budget
for LWCF and then not spend it--more than 50 percent of the
money is not spent?
And so, when I look at it, I look at this report, Ms.
Combs, that the Department of the Interior did two years ago
now that basically said, 101.6 million people access
recreation, hunting and fishing in the United States of
America. That should be the premise for increasing more access
to public lands. That is a great report. I hope we update it in
2019.
The outdoor economy with over $887 billion of consumer
spending and 7.6 million jobs and an opportunity for rural
communities just to add a little bit of investment to attract
people to come for rural economies is just--I hope that we will
figure this out.
Mr. O'Mara, I wanted to ask you, because one of the reasons
why I am so anxious about figuring this out and getting it
right to continue making the investments in LWCF and to take
care of the backlog and maintenance is I feel like climate is
impacting our public lands. If we don't have all the tools to
best deal with that, then we are going to be challenged,
whether it is at Denali where you might have some erosion or
like we had with the Carbon River. Why is this even more urgent
now to figure this out and not steal from Peter to pay Paul,
but to come up with ways to deal with both of these programs?
Mr. O'Mara. And I appreciate the question. And look, you're
in an unenviable position as a Committee because you're
basically on the back end of having decades of underinvestment
in our public lands. I mean, if these are public lands then in
many ways it's going to be our salvation and on the climate
side between natural carbon sinks as well as trying to have
more resilient lands.
We haven't treated them that way. We haven't treated them
very well. And I think whether it's, you know, improved forest
management because we are able to acquire individual parcels
that allow, like landscape scale, for fire management or if
it's resilience around conservation and wetlands that absorb
millions of gallons of water so communities behind them don't
get flooded out, this is going to be one of the most important
tools we have to make communities safer and more resilient as
you start seeing more impacts. And it's got to be part of the
bigger suite. And frankly, you know, we're in the richest
country in the world, we have to figure out a way to fund land
conservation, habitat restoration and maintenance at a time
when we need all three given the impacts we're seeing on the
landscape.
Senator Cantwell. And to make sure that we are not losing,
I would hope that Interior would update that report and then
show us, if we took care of backlog and maintenance and made
the proper investments in LWCF, what kind of economic return we
might get as a nation because if we are at $887 billion now and
further investment.
Look, I know there are properties in the State of
Washington that I would like to see upgraded, that I think
would attract even more people to come. I am sure there are
also properties in Glacier National Park and other places. But
we also have to realize if we don't have the proper investment,
we might lose some of the access because of the impacts of
climate. I really think we ought to get that number as well so
we can see. Can we work with you, Ms. Combs, on that?
Ms. Combs. Absolutely, Senator. Thank you.
Senator Cantwell. Alright.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you.
We have had an opportunity to hear from quite a range of
Senators here today. I think it speaks, again, to the level of
interest in this matter and the challenges that we have in
front of us.
I wanted to ask a question just relatively quickly here
because, Mr. Yablonski, you, in your testimony referred to,
kind of, an alternative to the mandatory funding piece, in
terms of a proposal to use user fees as a potential offset
following the Pittman-Robertson Fund that has been successfully
implemented for decades. It is something that I have thrown out
there in different conversations just to try to test the
temperature, if you will. You have actually released a report,
``How We Pay to Play,'' which examines the implementation.
So let me start with you first and ask for your suggestions
or your thoughts as to how Congress, if we were to implement
this type of a user fee to support recreation funding, how do
you suggest that that is structured? And then as he is
responding to that, Mr. O'Mara, I am going to ask you to weigh
in here, give your views on this as something for us to
consider.
Mr. Yablonski. Right.
Well, Madam Chair, as you know, I mean, this is an enormous
opportunity to bring an additional source of revenue to the
table for all the conservation needs that we've been talking
about here today.
Sportsmen, as our report laid out, through hunting and
fishing licenses bring in about $1.6 billion a year and excise
taxes on deer and equipment related to hunting and fishing
brings in an additional $1.1 billion a year for wildlife
conservation. So you put those two together, you have $2.7
billion going to states for wildlife conservation. Essentially
sportsmen are underwriting the majority of wildlife
conservation in America today.
And you compare that number to the $400+ million with LWCF
and you see that there's this potential if you could look at
the market and where it's growing and we keep hearing here
today about outdoor recreation and this is, sort of, the
shifting sands of preferences and demographics, but an $887
billion economic output. If you were to tap one tenth of one
percent of that, you would fully fund LWCF at the levels that
everybody is seeking forever and ever.
So one, you know, opportunity here is to look to the
outdoor recreationists, people like me. I'm a--I go hunting and
for every ten times I go hunting, nine of those times I'm a
hiker, maybe only one time, you know, I'm a bad hunter, so
maybe one time out of ten, I'm actually a hunter. But I don't
pay anything as a hiker for the impacts I have to trailheads
and to the trails that I'm actually hiking on.
So I think part of this needs to be a bottoms-up thing. I
think with the hunting and angling community in the 1930s and
1950s, they bought into this. There was an ownership interest
in conservation, and they wanted this kind of license and they
wanted the excise tax. And they guarded it jealously.
And I really think it's incumbent on the outdoor recreation
community to, sort of, have this ground swell and figure out
how they can, sort of, what I would call, BYOLR, Bring Your Own
Life Raft, and actually be a part of the solution here where
you have an ownership interest in conservation funding going
forward.
The Chairman. Mr. O'Mara, your thoughts?
Mr. O'Mara. I'm hesitant to disagree with my good friend,
Brian, but the American people have already paid in some way. I
know it doesn't score well and it doesn't, kind of, meet, kind
of the CBO, the way we think about scoring. But the deal that
was cut in 1964 was this idea that we're going to be having to
liquidate additional public resources in the form of offshore
oil and gas to meet the growing population at the time, and
therefore, those revenues should go toward conservation to
basically mitigate the impact.
And so, I get that it doesn't score because it's money that
could otherwise go to Treasury, but in some ways, they already
have paid through the degradation of our public resources.
I mean, and as someone who my organization helped, kind of,
write Pittman-Robertson in 1937, it has been incredibly
successful. We've done a wonderful job bringing back white-
tailed deer and elk and mule deer and pronghorn and a whole
range of sport fish and wild turkeys and a whole range of
waterfowl. We've also done a pretty bad job with everything we
don't hunt and fish.
And one of the challenges we face right now is a lot of the
species that are in trouble, you can create a moral hazard in
the design of these programs because in that case, because the
funding came from sportsmen, they rightfully, including myself,
want the conservation of game species. We didn't see a lot of
work on, kind of, other areas, so we would love to work with
you on trying to figure out ways to fund all these things.
I do think we hold conservation to a higher bar than we do
other parts of funding in the budget. I mean, when you see
places that we've waived pay-go. You see places where, you
know, supplementals or OCO or things like that, we tend not to
hold conservation to the same standard, we tend to hold it to a
higher bar.
But this is a tough conversation but I do think that, you
know, taxing backpacks and things like that, probably isn't the
right way to go if we're going to try to have a permanent,
sustained funding model. We should be able to find a couple
billion dollars in a multi-trillion-dollar budget for
conservation that supports an $887 billion economy.
Senator Manchin. I want to follow up on that.
The Chairman. Senator Manchin.
Senator Manchin. Yes, it is very interesting to me.
Somehow there has to be skin in the game. We all have to
have skin in the game. And I think that Collin, you just
mentioned that you think that the taxpayers already have skin
in the game. They are paying. With that though, the money is
dedicated from offshore, I understand. But we have a $23
trillion debt. Nobody is even talking about that.
This is going to hit us so hard and the next generation is
not going to be able to carry the load. And no one, I mean, not
a Democrat, not a Republican, is talking about the financial
crisis that is going to hit this country and hit it so hard, we
won't be able to breathe. It will make 1927, 1928 look like a
blip on the radar screen. And nobody has raised a flag on that
one.
To me, you are talking about, Brian, I think, basically in
all the things we use, camping gear, this, that, and everything
else, if there was a fee. I don't know. What type of percentage
are you talking about, the same as what we do on ammo, the 10,
11 percent? Are you talking in that 5 to 10 percent range?
Mr. Yablonski. I don't even think it would have to be that
high. I mean, depending on the gear that's being used. There's
so much more gear, potentially, that's being used in the
outdoor recreation world that you could really diffuse that
kind of a----
Senator Manchin. So, a five percent fee, maybe?
Mr. Yablonski. Yeah, something like that would certainly--
--
Senator Manchin. Okay.
But with that, if we had something written into legislation
that says, for the amount of money that we, as the Federal
Government had to appropriate a match for that money that we
were collecting.
Mr. Yablonski. Right.
Senator Manchin. That went directly toward.
Mr. Yablonski. Right.
Senator Manchin. You are talking about directly toward
deferred maintenance.
Mr. Yablonski. That's right, or any of the conservation
needs. I mean----
Senator Manchin. I know, but if we don't start directing
money toward deferred maintenance--we are having a hard time.
Mr. Yablonski. Right.
Senator Manchin. We are talking about permanent funding of
LWCF. Basically, for us to continue the great program and all
the work that has been done, what we do with LWCF, if we
broaden that thing out, I will swear to goodness, we will end
up, if everyone else starts raiding that piggybank, we won't be
getting what we are getting now. We are very much concerned
about that. I am.
This additional pot of money really intrigues me because
then it makes the Federal Government, it makes all of us, step
to the plate and says, okay, the private sector has put in
this. We have to match this. This is mandatory appropriations.
Mr. Yablonski. And Mr. Senator, if I may?
Historically, that match on the sportsmen side that has
been brought to the table, the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-
Johnson.
Senator Manchin. Yes.
Mr. Yablonski. Those funds had been pretty immune to
raiding or shifting money out of there, and I think that's
because the sportsmen really have a vested interest in it. I
mean, they stand over the shoulders and say, where is my money
going?
We had a case in Florida where a legislator actually wanted
to eliminate fishing licenses for a year. The groups that
fought that right out of the chute were the anglers and the
fishermen because they knew that revenue was going straight
back to angling, fishing, biology, recreation or conservation
that benefited them.
Mr. O'Mara. And like I said, some other generation is going
to end up paying for the deficit. You know, look, but it wasn't
conservation that drove any of that, right? I mean, between the
wars and the tax cuts, the stimulus. I mean, like, you look at
the places where the big pieces came from. I would argue that,
you know, we were at about, I don't know, two percent of the
federal budget was going toward conservation during the Carter
and Nixon Administrations. We're like, well less than one
percent right now.
A generation of disinvestment in this area, as we increase
entitlements, as we increase defense spending, as we increase
all these other things, are the reasons why we're paying
hundreds of billions of dollars right now in disaster relief
for wildfires, for flooding. I mean, like we haven't conserved
these natural systems. We've got companies that can't make them
move the landscape because of ESA because we have to save the
species proactively, so we're trying to do it after the fact.
Land and Water is an important piece of that equation, and
I think there's places where--we're incredibly penny-wise and
pound-foolish as a government, right? Well, we're paying for it
regardless. I mean, you guys are going to have to vote on
another $100 billion of supplementals at the end of this
Congress because of the hurricanes and the forest fires--
they're going to come inevitably.
And so, a little bit of investment that allows us to reduce
that cost because you know every $1 we spend in this area,
especially if it's mitigation focused, is going to save us $4
somewhere else in the budget. Anybody that had that kind of
return in the private sector would take that in a heartbeat.
But yet, we always put things off because it's easier and it's
the next person's job.
So I would encourage us to think about what the avoided
cost if we're thinking about the long-term scoring, the long-
term applications on the debt, not just, kind of, the hard line
item because it's just gotten us to a place right now where,
you know, we've got folks suffering from wildfires that,
frankly, should never be in that position if Chris had the
resources he needed to actually manage our forests and to get
them healthier and have them more fire resilient. But we keep,
we wind up in this feedback loop, unfortunately. But we're
paying the consequences because we're doing the preventative
measure on the front end.
Senator Manchin. Good, good, good conversations, good
panel.
The Chairman. Thank you all. This has been important
discussion.
This is just a reminder to us, as a Committee, the role
that we play when it comes to the stewardship of our lands and
access to them. It is not just about buying them, making sure
that they are there as public assets, but what we then do with
them, how we care for them.
I think we recognize that we have failed in that category
in terms of caring for much of our public lands and this is
why, I think, we are having this tension now where people like
me are saying, you have acquired enough or certainly, at least
in my state. Now let's make sure that you are doing right, you
are being honest with how you are caring for these lands
because when we want to talk about access, it is not just
making sure that it is there in that colored spot on the map,
but it is a place that I want to go to because it is not
trashed.
We have some important considerations here, but I think
there is clearly a commitment from folks on this Committee and
throughout the Senate, throughout the Congress, that we want to
try to do right by our public lands.
Your comment, Mr. O'Mara, about, you know, you can't
remember the last movie you went to or what you ate, but you do
remember your hiking trips. There is a connection to the land,
I think, that we all have. And for those who don't have that, I
feel sorry for them because they are missing a very important
part of who we are and what we can connect to.
I think I am extraordinarily blessed to have what I have in
my state, and I am thankful for that. And I want to make sure
that others have an opportunity for continued use and
enjoyment. That is how we take care of things.
With that, we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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