Land and Water Conservation Fund
Land and Water Conservation Fund
Farmers and Ranchers have a big stake in private as well as public lands.
Ethan Lane with the NCBA says there is a push to reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which expired at the end of September. He expects it will be discussed during the lame duck sessions of Congress.
"Despite plenty of bipartisan support and progress in both congressional chambers, LWCF re-authorization has remained just out of arm's reach.
The Fund uses government revenue from offshore oil and gas leases to buy conservation easements and expand public lands, and access to them."
"Lame duck sessions of Congress are oftentimes the windows that we use to put together public lands packages."
Other pieces of public lands legislation are also still in limbo. One measure to pay for an $11 billion National Park Service maintenance backlog remains unresolved; so is another bill to permanently block mining on 30,000 acres of public lands east of the Paradise Valley near Yellowstone National Park.
Opponents suggest terminating the LWCF, and empowering state and local governments instead.
