Daines, Tester praise president's call to fund LWCF

Staff and wire report

Montana’s U.S. senators both praised President Donald Trump’s call to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said he and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., secured Trump’s call for legislation to fully fund the conservation fund, while Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., praised what he called Trump’s reversing course from a budget that proposed cutting the fund by 97 percent.

Daines, Gardner and Tester were scheduled to hold a press conference in Washington at 11:30 a.m. Mountain Time about securing Trump’s support for LWCF funding and to address the maintenance backlog in the national parks.

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund is a critical conservation program that protects public access to public lands and our Montana way of life,” Daines said in a press release Monday. “We united a divided Congress last year when we got permanent authorization of the program signed into law. Now, we must provide full, mandatory funding for this important, bipartisan program. We also need to come together and restore our national parks by addressing the growing maintenance backlog. I’m thankful to have President Trump’s support and look forward to getting these major conservation priorities signed into law for future generations of Montanans.”

“This is a great day for the future of public lands in Colorado and the country — we are proud to announce that we have secured the president’s support to provide full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and address the maintenance backlog at our national parks,” Gardner said in the release. “Last year, we were successful in permanently reauthorizing the LWCF, the crown jewel of conservation programs, and I have been fighting ever since to make funding permanent. The LWCF supports projects in Colorado and all across our country at no cost to the taxpayer, and fighting every year to figure out how much money the program will receive doesn’t provide the long-term planning certainty that our outdoor and conservation community deserves. I thank the president for his support, and I encourage all my colleagues in Congress to support full and permanent funding of the LWCF so future generations will have access to our great outdoors.”

In a release Monday, Tester also praised the announcement.

“After years of trying to gut LWCF, I’m thrilled that President Trump reversed course and now wants to sign my bipartisan permanent full funding bill into law,” Tester said. “I’m hopeful Mitch McConnell will drop his opposition to LWCF and let us protect our public lands and Montana’s $7.1 billion outdoor recreation economy by fully funding this vital conservation tool.”

Trump’s proposed Fiscal Year 2021 budget cuts 97 percent of funds for the LWCF to just $14.7 million, down from $495 million in Fiscal Year 2020 and far below the fully authorized level of $900 million.

Tester originally introduced the Land and Water Conservation Authorization and Funding Act in 2009, to permanently reauthorize and fully fund the conservation initiative and has reintroduced it every Congress since. Since its creation, the LWCF has invested more than $540 million into Montana’s $7.1 billion outdoor recreation economy. Tester successfully fought to secure $495 million in funding for the LWCF in last year’s budget bill after the Trump administration pushed to gut the program, and he was the only member of Montana’s delegation to vote for that funding, his release said.

Established in 1964, the LWCF uses revenues from oil and gas leasing to fund conservation, and recreation priorities across the nation. Congress permanently reauthorized the program last year, but it has yet to be funded at an acceptable level.

Recent LWCF land acquisitions in Montana includes 8,200 acres of prime elk habitat in Tenderfoot Creek, 6,400 acres in the Stillwater State Forest and 422 acres on the Falls Creek Property along the Rocky Mountain Front, in addition to parks, soccer fields and fishing sites across the state.