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Calling it out of step with the spirit of the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Coalition sharply criticized the decision in the Fiscal Year 2024 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill to rescind $94 million in pre-GAOA funding needed for critical land and water conservation projects across the United States.
Amy Lindholm, Director of Federal Affairs for Conservation Funding at the Appalachian Mountain Club and a spokesperson for the LWCF Coalition, expressed deep frustration and disappointment with this decision, and said the Coalition vowed to continue to fight for honest budgeting of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. “Just a few short years ago, we were celebrating the bipartisan and overwhelming commitment that Congress – after nearly 50 years – made to permanently fund LWCF. For years, Congress siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars from the LWCF account that were specifically set aside to protect important places in every state. GAOA put a stop to that diversion of critical conservation and recreation funding in 2020. This action today represents an unwarranted and damaging backtrack on a promise made to the American people. At a time when our nation continues to lose a football field’s worth of natural area every hour, we need more investment to protect the places we love that support clean water, wildlife habitat, outdoor recreation—not less. These investments are vital to our health, our economy, and our quality of life.”
Lindholm emphasized, “We look forward to working with LWCF champions in Congress to ensure that this practice stops, and no further LWCF dollars are lost to their intended conservation and recreation mission.”
The LWCF Coalition is the umbrella group of more than 1,000 state and local landowners, small businesses, ranchers, sportsmen, veterans, outdoor recreationists and conservation organizations working to protect America’s public lands and safeguard our shared outdoor heritage for future generations. For more information on LWCF and the places in each state that have been protected using LWCF funds, visit LWCFCoalition.org.