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Land and Water Conservation Fund
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The United States' Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a Federal program that was established by Act of Congress in 1965. The Act designated that a portion of receipts from offshore oil and gas leases[1] be deposited annually into a fund docketed for matching grants allocated for state and local conservation with an emphasis of recreation, as well as for the protection of national natural treasures, in the forms of parks and protected forest and wildlife areas. LWCF has a broad-based coalition of support and oversight, including the National Parks and Recreation Association, The Wilderness Society, and the Land Trust Alliance.
Monies from the Land and Water Conservation Fund have been broadly interpreted over the years: they have gone to build and maintain local baseball fields[2] as well as to maintain Yellowstone National Park. LWCF has helped state agencies and local communities acquire nearly seven million acres of land, and easements controlling further acreage; developed project sites include such popular recreational areas as Harper's Ferry in West Virginia, California's Big Sur Coast, and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Montana, "as well as thousands of local playgrounds, soccer fields, and baseball diamonds."[3]
Though LWCF is authorized at a budget cap of $900 million annually, this level that has been met only twice during the program's nearly four decades. The program is divided into two distinct funding pools: state grants and federal acquisition funds. The distribution formula takes into account population density and other factors.
Each year, based on project demands from communities as well as input from the federal land management agencies, the President makes recommendations to Congress regarding funding for specific LWCF projects. In Congress, these projects go through an Appropriations Committee review process: given the intense competition among projects, funding is generally only provided for those projects with universal support. Initially authorized for a twenty-five-year period, the LWCF has been extended for another twenty-five years, its mandate running to January 2015.
- ^ "Other funding sources include the sale of surplus federal real estate and taxes on motorboat fuel." USDA Forrest Service website
- ^ Federal Programs: Land and Water Conservation Fund
- ^ ibid.