House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) issued the following statement regarding the Sept. 30 expiration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s (LWCF) authorization.

“LWCF can and will be reauthorized. The best path forward is to include it in a broader legislative lands package that addresses the National Park maintenance backlog and other lands related measures.” – Chairman Rob Bishop

Background:

Chairman Bishop believes that Congress must meaningfully invest in the maintenance of existing federally-owned lands as a prerequisite for investing in new land acquisition. Bishop and Ranking Member Raúl Grijalva recently came to a bipartisan agreement on two pieces of legislation – H.R. 6510 and H.R. 502 – that, if paired together, achieve this objective. H.R. 6510, the Restore our Public Lands Act, which provides dedicated investments to address the deferred maintenance backlog of the National Park Service and other agencies, and H.R. 502, which reforms and permanently reauthorizes the LWCF, passed Committee with bipartisan support on Sept. 13, 2018.

H.R. 502, as amended Sept. 13, begins realigning the LWCF to ensure that recreational access for local communities remains the underlying purpose of the fund, as originally intended. The bill includes a permanent reauthorization of the LWCF, subject to appropriations, a 40/40 split between state and federal purposes, and guaranteed funding of no less than $20 million annually to improve sportsmen’s access to federal lands.

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