Public Lands Legislation

Public Lands Legislation

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Josh Mills talks about the political conundrum of public lands. "September 30 was a sad day in the public lands arena. Congress and the House of Representatives allowed the most successful public lands acquisition and betterment of sportsmen's program to expire, called the land and water conservation fund. September 30 was the final day of authorization. It is an overwhelmingly supported piece of legislation that started in the mid 60s. It took a small percentage of offshore well drilling leases and took that funding and put it back to acquisition of land and access for sports women and men as well as anybody in the country because there is not a county in the country that hasn't benefited from land and water conservation fund dollars. There is good news on the horizon. The main sticking point. There are a few members of Congress who were not a fan of this bill. The land and water conservation fund enjoys overwhelming support from both sides of the aisle. The good news is that in mid-September it came out of Chairman Bishop's House natural resources committee, it passed out of that was some great across the aisle work between Republicans and Democrats. It is out of committee in the House. The Senate has now passed it out of committee as well and we expect in the near future there will be a vote to reauthorize it permanently with quite a bit of money earmarked to go directly to sportsmen's access because there are millions of acres across the United States, mostly in the West, that are landlocked because there is no access to it.
Previous ReportEddy's Deer
Next ReportCatch and Release