The fate of an important but little-known conservation fund is still uncertain after a vote in the Senate Thursday.The 50-year-oldLand, Water and Conservation Fund is afederal program that uses royalties from oil and gas leases to protect forest, water and wildlife areas. Typically, that means buying up land and then setting it aside for conservation.
The program is set to sunset this fall, so without action from Congress the LWCF could go away. A bipartisan group had proposed reauthorizing it through a rider attached to a spending bill for the Department of Interior. But senators ultimately decided not to go that route.
Craig Gehrke is with the Wilderness Society in Idaho. He says that鈥檚 not necessarily a bad thing.
鈥淚t should be its own special bill,鈥� Gehrke says. 鈥淵ou know, we think that funding the reauthorization should be a formal piece of legislation that鈥檚 debated on its own special merits.鈥�
Gehrke wants the funding for the Land Water and Conservation Fund to be permanent, instead of requiring reauthorization every few years as it does now.
鈥淲e need committed funding for a longer period of time,鈥� Gehrke says. 鈥淐ongress too often just kicks this can down the road.鈥�
No tax dollars are used to fund the program.
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