Sam Farr: “my amendment directly benefits every American and every Member who supports our parks, our public spaces. There is a big…”

“my amendment directly benefits every American and every Member who supports our parks, our public spaces. There is a big pot of money in the Federal budget to pay for new parklands and for other open space acquisition. That money can benefit every American who enjoys the beauty of our national parks, the serenity of the wilderness, the exhilaration of an early morning duck hunt of the surge of pride in exploring the great historical places of this Nation. That pot of money is called the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is supposed to take some of the money raised from the sale of publicly owned fossil energy resources to build a legacy of parks and open space resources for future generations. In 1964, Congress created the Land and Water Conservation Fund to use some of the Federal royalties from offshore oil drilling to buy parklands. Even though the offshore oil drilling only comes from coastal States, the money was to be used in all of the States. It was an ideal environmental business plan, reinvest the profits from the exploration of publicly owned natural resources into the infrastructure of our Nation's parks and other public spaces. Money would come into the fund and Congress and the President would allocate it between State parks programs and Federal public land priorities. The fund currently takes in $900 million a year. It will continue to take in such money until the program's authority expires in the year 2015. But the plan is broken.…”