Citing continued damage to the environment, the economy, drinking water supplies and more, The Wilderness Society, along with other national groups across the U.S., is urging the President and Congress to invest in vitally important conservation and natural resource programs. The “Green Investment” report details what is at stake in budget decisions made by lawmakers in Washington.
“At just one percent of the federal budget, the tiny slice devoted to conservation is expected to fund programs that help ensure that Americans have clean air and clean water, access to outdoor recreation, healthy wildlands and wildlife populations and a renewable energy future,” says Cameron Witten, Government Relations Associate at The Wilderness Society. “Investments in these programs are also essential for strengthening local economies and communities, addressing the rising costs of climate change and supporting high-quality American jobs that cannot be exported.”
Americans place a high value on conservation and public lands. By a 2-to-1 margin, Americans would prefer to see public lands protected from over-development rather than drilled for oil and gas, according to a December 2014 Hart Research Associates poll of 1,100 voters. Seven out of 10 Americans, including most Republicans, strongly support Obama’s proposals to protect wilderness, monuments and other natural treasures.
The “Green Investments” report outlines dozens of examples of conservation programs that have been shortchanged in recent years. A few examples follow:
Billions diverted from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. LWCF does not use any taxpayer dollars. It is funded using a small portion of revenues from offshore oil and gas royalty payments to conserve all types of open space, habitat and watersheds – from America’s most iconic national treasures to urban ball fields, community parks and state recreation areas. But LWCF's true promise has never been fully met. Over the 50-year life of the program, more than $19 billion has been diverted from the LWCF trust fund, vanishing into the general revenue stream with no accountability for where the money was actually spent. Again this year, almost $600 million — two thirds of what is deposited in the fund — was diverted away from LWCF, leaving hundreds of important projects on the table and leaving willing-seller landowners in the lurch.
Cuts to the National Park Service. Over the last decade, the total budget for the National Park Service has declined by nearly a half billion dollars, or 22%, in today’s dollars. Over the last five years, $173 million has been cut from the account that funds the operation of national parks. As a result, Park Service programs have been unable to keep up. Superintendents widely report staff losses, closed facilities and the growth of the $11 billion backlog for park maintenance. The upcoming 2016 Centennial of the National Park System will bring millions of visitors to parks, but will the parks have adequate facilities and sufficient staff of rangers?
Programs designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. Funding for fighting wildfires continues to be a challenge for the U.S. Forest Service and Department of the Interior. To fund wildfire suppression over the past decade, these agencies have had to transfer significant amounts from other priorities, including the very programs that are designed reduce the risk of future wildfires, such as reducing the fuel for fires. In fiscal years 2012 and 2013, the agencies had to transfer $1 billion from programs that support outdoor recreation, fish and wildlife habitat, state and private forestry, and roads and trails. The Wilderness Society supports the President’s fiscal year 2016 budget proposal to adopt a sustainable approach – paying to fight wildfires the same way we pay for all other natural disasters, without robbing other critical initiatives.
Legacy Roads and TrailsRemediation. This program was created to address the chronic underfunding for road and trail maintenance on National Forest lands. In its first five years, the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation program (LRT) has proven to be an extremely effective use of U.S. Forest Service dollars and has dramatically improved water quality and access in our national forests. In fiscal year 2014 alone, LRT was slashed by $10 million (22 percent). However, every $1 million dollars cut from LRT results in significant impacts:
- 656 acres of terrestrial habitat and 4 miles of stream habitat will not be restored.
- 16 miles of unneeded roads will not be decommissioned resulting in continued sediment pollution running into streams.
- 45 miles of needed roads will not be maintained resulting in a loss of public access.
- 12 miles of trails will not be improved resulting in a loss in recreational access.
- 15 to 24 jobs in rural America focused on improving water quality would be lost.
(Estimates are based on the Legacy Roads and Trails program’s five-year accomplishments as reported by the U.S. Forest Service and the $270 million appropriated during that period.)
One of many specific examples of under-funding outlined in the “Green Investments” report comes from Grapevine Mesa Joshua Tree Forest in northwest Arizona. Since 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has reduced its staff for the Grapevine Mesa Joshua Tree Forest from four full-time employees to one. The one employee’s volume of office work often means there is no one in the BLM field office focused on conservation. As a direct result of this lack of BLM capacity, a road improvement project, which had been mapped and approved in an Environmental Assessment to avoid fragile Joshua trees, was bulldozed through thousands of the ancient plants. No BLM staff were on site to oversee the road construction even though this was required by the assessment.
Many more examples are detailed in the report: “Green Investments.”
The Wilderness Society applauds President Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget. It would restore essential funding to conservation, clean energy and outdoor recreation programs, including LWCF, and it would address the wildfire funding problem and harmful effects of climate change in the United States.
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The Wilderness Society is the leading wild public lands conservation organization working to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. Founded in 1935, and now with more than 500,000 members and supporters, TWS has led the effort to permanently protect 110 million acres of wilderness and to ensure sound management of our shared national lands. www.wilderness.org.
Contacts:
Cameron Witten, Government Relations Associate: (202) 429-8458, cameron_witten@tws.org
Alan Rowsome, Senior Government Relations Director for Lands: (202) 429-2643, alan_rowsome@tws.org
Caption:
Old growth forest in Oregon's Rock Creek Wilderness Area.
