This summer, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Coalition celebrated our biggest success to date with passage of the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA). After over a decade fighting for full, permanent funding and overcoming 55 years of diversion of LWCF dollars, we were thrilled to finally secure the dedicated funding LWCF needs to protect our lands and waters.
However, within just a few months of GAOA’s passage on August 4th, 2020, we were disheartened by a host of bad implementation decisions and actions by the former Administration. In the initial phase of implementing GAOA’s provisions on full funding of LWCF for Fiscal Year 2021, the Trump Administration failed to comply with the law’s requirements, submitting LWCF allocations and project lists to Congress that were late, inadequate, and out of step with provisions of both GAOA and the Dingell Act, which in 2019 permanently reauthorized LWCF with clear requirements for balance and flexibility of spending between different conservation tools. This first, intentional misstep had to be remedied quickly since Congress was working to wrap up their FY21 appropriations bill by the end of the year.
Then on November 13, 2020, former Secretary Bernhardt released Secretarial Order #3388 which placed a litany of new restrictions on Interior agencies and their use of LWCF funds, including:
giving state and local jurisdictions veto over federal public land projects, limiting the private property rights of landowners;
arbitrary percentage/limitation of federal land acquisition funding in urban areas, regardless of need/willing sellers in those or other areas;
near-total prohibition on further conservation and expansion of outdoor recreation and sportsmen’s access within National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, Wild and Scenic Rivers, and National Scenic and Historic Trails administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM);
and limitation of National Park Service (NPS) and Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) projects to those within existing boundaries as of November 9, 2020, meaning newly-designated park units cannot be protected.
This was clearly an attempt to end-run Congress and rewrite the law on LWCF, after similar provisions were repeatedly rejected by wide bipartisan margins in vote after vote throughout the process of crafting the Dingell Act and GAOA. After the detrimental Secretarial Order was released, we worked with our bipartisan congressional champions to send a letter to the House Appropriations Committee requesting they ignore these changes to LWCF, and continue on a steady course to implement the first year of LWCF full dedicated funding according to Congress’s clear intent.
With much cooperative effort, in December the Senate and House appropriations committees acted in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion to disregard the Administration’s late and faulty recommendations. We were extremely appreciative to see the final FY21 bill include, as we had requested, the full list of priority projects for each federal agency and the Forest Legacy Program, sent to Congress per the requirements of the FY20 Interior Appropriations bill in May 2020, as well as a balanced allocation of LWCF funds between federal agency projects and state grants as required by the Dingell Act. The appropriations bill ignored the Secretarial Order’s gutting of BLM projects and arbitrary land acquisition rules based on the project’s location.
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration was not done trying to inflict damage on LWCF and its sub-programs before leaving office. On their last day, January 20, 2021, DOI published a re-written LWCF Stateside Manual. The re-write ignored longtime negotiations with stakeholders to make previously undiscussed substantive changes that shifted the program priorities away from its 55-year focus on close-to-home recreation access for all, along with a host of other bad edits.
On the same day as the manual re-write, Secretary Bernhardt announced that he would unilaterally eliminate the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) program by diverting its funding to other uses. This diversion was especially insulting since the FY21 appropriations bill, just passed by Congress in December, included a 400% increase for the ORLP program – from $25 million in FY20 to $125 million for FY21 – reflecting Congress’s desire to prioritize city parks and environmental justice in a time of pandemic, when outdoor activity and access to nature is seen as vital to individual and community health. This substantial increase was celebrated by the LWCF Coalition and partners across the country and seen as a great opportunity to invest in parks and park infrastructure in underserved communities.
To combat these new bad actions and to overturn SO #3388, we hit the ground running, working with the new Administration and our champions on Capitol Hill. In early February, the LWCF Coalition worked with Representatives Golden (D-ME) and Fitzpatrick (R-PA) to send a bipartisan congressional letter to Acting Secretary of the Interior Scott de la Vega. In just 48 hours, with the help of countless Coalition partners across the country, the letter garnered 90 signatures and was sent to the Acting Secretary requesting that he repeal SO #3388, reinstate the previous Stateside manual, and restore funding to the ORLP program.
Thanks to the outreach from numerous LWCF Coalition partners and the hard work of our longstanding congressional supporters, DOI published Secretarial Order #3396 on February 11th, less than a month after the new Administration took office. This new order satisfied all our requests by overturning the harmful actions taken by former Secretary Bernhardt in his November Secretarial Order, reinstating the stateside manual, and restoring the ORLP program to ensure that its funding goes to communities that need it most.
There is still much more work to do to implement LWCF full funding this year. We have already started working with the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, as well as with DOI and the Department of Agriculture to ensure there are robust project lists for LWCF for FY22 and strong support for LWCF in Congress. There is unprecedented interest in accessing these funds, so we are eager to help build the pipeline of projects and broaden the pool of those applying for grants. Bringing more diverse partners into the process is vital so that communities are empowered to meet their unique conservation and recreation requirements in the ways that work best for them, looking to both urgent needs and smart long-term planning for health and resilience. It is critical that Members of Congress stay engaged in this through the annual appropriations process, to maintain the overall health of LWCF as a program that accurately reflects the country’s priorities, district by district and state by state, with an overall balance to make sure everyone gets their share. We look forward to upcoming House and Senate Dear Colleague letters on FY22 LWCF allocations and hope to have your help!