LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND AT RISK –
NO MORE CUTS!!!!
Message points for Members of Congress and Senators who voted for the April 8 CR (see
attached list):

Congress just voted to cut LWCF when it passed a budget extension until April 8. The
bill included cuts of 16 per cent below the FY 10 enacted level and almost 36 per cent
below the President’s Budget for FY 11.

These cuts will have immediate impacts, with pending land conservation and outdoor
recreation projects – and willing seller landowners – left behind. These landowners will
have to turn to the open real estate market, threatening our lands and waters.

I am very disappointed that you voted to cut LWCF and urge you to resist any further
cuts to this important program as part of any final negotiated budget solution or
extension.

Your vote has threatened (CITE EXAMPLE OF A PROJECT AT RISK) by making it
very difficult for funding to come through in FY 2011. Without LWCF funding in FY
2011, this project could be lost forever.

I urge you to work to resist any further cuts to LWCF in whatever resolution to the
budget is being negotiated. Cuts beyond those in the most recent CR will have a
significant negative impact on clean water, wildlife conservation, hunting and fishing
access, working ranches and forests, and outdoor recreation businesses in real places and
communities all across America.

And it is important to remember that LWCF funds do not derive from taxpayers’ dollars
– they are revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters. They are
intended as a conservation offset to this extractive activity, and they are supposed to be
used to benefit the American public. As a member of the American public, I urge you to
protect the LWCF.

I also urge you to make your support for LWCF known to the leadership of the House
and Senate, and to President Obama.
Here’s why your support of the Land and Water Conservation Fund is important to America:
LWCF is good for the economy
*LWCF investments are essential to diverse facets of the American economy. They enhance
public lands that are critical to tourism and recreation spending across the nation. They maintain
natural resources that are vital to the economic survival of gateway communities. They preclude
incompatible development that otherwise would impose unsupportable burdens of public budgets
for water treatment, fire suppression, and other essential services.
*Acquisition of conservation easements using LWCF protects jobs in timber, ranching and other
traditional land-based economies. To date, LWCF has secured thousands of acres through these
types of easements – on lands where traditional land uses, economies, and jobs would have been
lost without LWCF.
*The Outdoor Industry Foundation reports that recreation contributes $730 billion annually to the U.S.
economy and supports nearly 6.5 million jobs across the U.S. When land is developed rather than
conserved, the benefits to the outdoor recreation economy are lost forever.
LWCF is good for America's communities and our public lands
*LWCF funding protects resource lands, community water supplies, recreational access for sportsmen
and public land users, and wildlife habitat.
*Loss of these LWCF lands would exacerbate ownership fragmentation and diminish important
public values, making public lands more difficult to manage, increasing management costs, and
degrading natural resources.
*Public lands protect critical natural resources such as clean drinking water and wetlands. Loss
of these resources has a direct impact on local communities and their residents.
*LWCF also protects Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields and other irreplaceable
American cultural sites. Without adequate LWCF funding, currently threatened sites will be sold,
developed, and lost forever.
*For these and other reasons, Americans overwhelmoingly support LWCF. A recent bipartisan
poll showed that 86% of voters nationally support committing LWCF’s OCS revenues to the
program, with 77% specifically supporting annual funding at LWCF’s full authorized level of 900
million per year.
LWCF is good for recreational access
* LWCF investments ensure public access to recreation for hunting, fishing and other outdoor
activities. This, in turn, has a positive economic impact on the outdoor industry and tourism
economies.
*There is an urgent need for the improved public access that LWCF provides. Over 75% of all
Americans hike, hunt, fish, paddle, and/or participate in the other outdoor activities our public
lands host. Many key public resources, however, remain inaccessible; for example, nearly 1/3 of
our nation’s 15,000 miles of national scenic trails are not open to the public.
LWCF is good for helping to reduce management costs
*LWCF funds are used mainly to secure inholdings – lands within existing public land
boundaries. Filling these gaps typically does not add to management or staffing costs. In
many cases, it does resolve management conflicts, thus reducing those costs.
*Public lands act as a buffer against forest fires. Development of these lands will dramatically
increase firefighting costs. Between 2002 and 2006, the federal government spent $6.3 billion to
fight fires threatening these private developments bordering public lands.
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