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Bishop: Conservation Fund Needs Overhaul

Judy Fahys/KUER
Sugar House Park is one of hundreds of recipients of the Land and Water Conservation Fund in Utah. Nationally, around $17 billion has gone into 42,000 projects since Congress first established the fund in 1965.

The popular Land and Conservation Water Fund has pumped more than $17 billion into thousands of projects nationwide in a half century. Around $171 million has gone into Utah projects like building neighborhood playgrounds, developing the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and restoring wildlife habitat.

The head of the House Natural Resources Committee, Utah’s Rob Bishop, says it’s time to reform the program that amounted to $300 million last year.

But Congress let the Land and Water Conservation Fund expire last month. And now the Utah Republican is proposing to replace it.

“If we’re going to spend this much money, we can’t think small,” he told reporters in a conference call Thursday. “We have to think of something big that’s going to help people.”

The conservation fund traditionally used offshore energy royalties for recreation facilities and public-land purchases, like buying inholdings in national parks and forests.

Bishop’s plan reins in federal land purchases and devotes some of the money to beefing up offshore energy programs. He also says states should get the 60 percent share that federal agencies have gotten.

“This kind of lopsided funding ratio,” he said, “has limited the funds available to establish recreation projects and facilities that can be responsibly managed and maintained by state and local entities while it’s vastly expanded the federal estate.”

Hearings are planned later this month, but critics say they want the old fund back.

“Congressman Bishop’s proposal would do away with this incredibly popular and important program and instead funds his pet projects,” said Greg Zimmerman, policy director at the Center for Western Priorities. 

He contends lawmakers from both parties and from all parts of the country want the old program reauthorized.

Judy Fahys has reported in Utah for two decades, covering politics, government and business before taking on environmental issues. She loves covering Utah, where petroleum-pipeline spills, the nation’s radioactive legacy and other types of pollution provide endless fodder for stories. Previously, she worked for the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, and reported on the nation’s capital for States News Service and the Scripps League newspaper chain. She is a longtime member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors. She also spent an academic year as a research fellow in the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In her spare time, she enjoys being out in the environment, especially hiking, gardening and watercolor painting.
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