Bill Lee: “reserving the right to object, we have an opportunity to update and reform the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and to…”

“reserving the right to object, we have an opportunity to update and reform the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and to do so in a way that would ensure it works more efficiently and helps solve the problems facing our Federal Government and States. To do so, we need to pursue a few goals. First, more money from the LWCF should be sent to the States to implement the worthwhile projects. When the LWCF was conceived, 60 percent of its funding was required to go to the States. That statutory requirement was removed years ago, and now just 12 percent of LWCF money is given to the States, with minimal Federal strings attached. Next, the LWCF should be used to solve, not to exacerbate, the current Federal lands maintenance backlog. The Federal Government has undertaken an impossible task in trying to manage more than 600 million acres of variant terrain dispersed across thousands of miles. Evidence of the Federal Government's failure to manage its holdings is found in the $13 billion through $20 billion maintenance backlog, a number that has grown nearly every single year since President Obama has been in office. Since LWCF was created some 50 years ago, Congress has appropriated nearly $17 billion to the fund, and 62 percent of this money has been spent on land acquisition, resulting in 5 million acres being added to the Federal estate. We should work together to improve the LWCF.…”