WASHINGTON -- House Republicans moved forward Wednesday on plans to overhaul a 50-year-old federal program that uses offshore oil and gas revenues to fund conservation projects that they say has become too focused on acquiring new federal acreage.
Congress allowed the Land and Water Conservation Fund's authorization to expire in September for the first time in a half-century, setting up a new fight over the fund's future and paving the way for revisions that would shift its focus to passing out state grants and maintaining federal properties.
Republican Alaska Rep. Don Young spoke in favor of the draft legislation to overhaul the fund at a House hearing Wednesday.
"I am supportive of the bill that's being introduced by the chairman, primarily because, unfortunately, recreation is being squeezed," he said. "In each agency they don't let people recreate on land unless you have a backpack."
Young took issue with those who want the LWCF to remain the same, but don't support offshore drilling -- the revenue source for the program.
"I think that's a bit hypocritical," Young said, and argued the fund should be focused on providing more access to recreational land, not acquiring more federal government property.
Young sparred with an Interior Department official over the federal government's acquisition of holdings.
"During the past five years, over 99 percent of the Department's acquisitions were inholdings, already within the approved acquisition boundaries of existing park or wildlife refuge units," Kristen Sarri, a top official at the Interior Department, said at the hearing Wednesday. Buying up inholdings cuts back on maintenance and simplifies needs by easing access to the public and "reducing boundary conflicts," Sarri said.
Republican House Natural Resources Committee staff questioned the veracity of that -- noting the department had not provided clear details about what they consider an "inholding," and whether they really are necessary acquisitions.
And Rep. John Flemming, R-Pennsylvania, argued during the hearing that with the massive maintenance funding backlog in federal agencies, the efforts are akin to, instead of mowing your lawn, buying your neighbor's lawn and mowing neither.
Between 2011 and 2014, agencies spent $6.6 million from the fund on projects in Alaska, according to research firm Headwaters Economics. The bulk of that went to the U.S. Forest Service for four projects buying up 6,387 acres of land, at a cost of $5.48 million. Just over $1 million funded 8 state and local projects, through the National Park Service. And the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service spent $99,000 on one project acquiring 151 acres of land.
Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, called the hearing Wednesday to gather input on his draft legislation to overhaul the program. Originally, 60 percent of the fund's money went to state grants, but with later amendments, the program flipped with 61 percent going to federal land acquisition -- $17.1 billion worth over the life of the fund.
In fiscal year 2015, the percentage going to local recreation projects dropped to just 16 percent of LWCF funds -- $48 million over the year.
Meanwhile, Bishop argues, the backlog for maintenance and operations on federal lands has grown to $18.8 billion, as of 2014.
The program has given more than $34 million in grants to the state of Alaska for at least 279 local projects since its inception, according to data compiled by Investigate West that runs from 1964 through 2011.
The new bill would dramatically scale back annual funds available for the federal government to buy up lands, to no more than 3.5 percent of the overall funds. At least 45 percent would go to state grants, a minimum of 20 percent would to go promoting offshore energy, including higher-education grants for oil-and-gas-related careers, and at least 15 percent would be dedicated to a payments in-lieu of taxes program that benefits rural areas with federal lands.
The bill would also bar the agencies from using eminent domain or condemnation to acquire land.
The Interior Department argues it doesn't use eminent domain to grab up contested land, but rather as a legal tool to reach a price agreement with willing sellers.
If a landowner disagrees with the agency's appraisal of the land, one route to a higher value can be through the courts -- and eminent domain. "We always start with a willing seller," Sarri said. Eminent domain was used in Pennsylvania to establish a cost for property to create the Flight 93 memorial for the plane that went down there on 9/11, Sarri said.
The Land and Water Conservation fund funnels revenue from offshore oil and gas projects to the Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish & Wildlife Service and the Forest Service. The state grant program is portioned out equally over each state, with a remainder doled out based on need, as determined by the Interior secretary, according to a 2014 nonpartisan congressional research report on the fund.
The program has accrued far more oil and gas revenues -- $36.2 billion -- than Congress has ever appropriated -- $16.8 billion, according to the report. More than $19 billion remains in the fund, unappropriated by Congress.
Over time, more than 60 percent of the funds have gone to federal land acquisition, and a quarter of the funds to the state grant program. A third type of spending for "other purposes" is allowed but generally undefined in the law. This has led to a wide variety of spending, including for Forest Service highway rehabilitation, historic preservation, and wildlife and endangered species grants, according to the Congressional Research Service report.
For the early years of the program, funds were roughly split between land acquisition and state grants, or weighted more heavily toward state grants. But allocations to state grants dropped precipitously in 1982, and continued that way well into the 1990s. In 1990, $212 million was appropriated to land acquisition, and $20 million to state grants. By 1998, the ratio was $896 million to $1 million.
That same year the "other" column of spending -- totaling zero dollars annually from 1965 through 1997 -- began its upward climb, reaching a peak of $230 million in 2004. In 2014, appropriations included $180 million for land acquisition, $48 million for state grants, and $78 million in the "other" pile.
House Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee and several environmental groups are strongly opposed to changing the program.
Andy French, a fellow with the League of Conservation Voters, called the draft bill "radical" and "miles apart from the original intent of the program." French said the bill "would filter money meant for conservation to pay for Big Oil's pet projects and expand drilling off our coasts."
Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pennsylvania, argued Wednesday that the bill would divert the fund from its original plan and instead subsidize oil and gas interests instead of conservation.
But Alaska's congressman noted the source of the fund is offshore drilling and said it has already wandered far from its original path.
"I just know the intent of the original act in '64 was for more recreation availability for people, not exclusive for the agencies themselves. And I personally will tell you I think the Department of Interior does a terrible job managing lands," Young said at the hearing Wednesday.
Yet, "the agency keeps wanting to buy more land. And any nation that doesn't let their people have access to the land for recreation and other purposes is doing a disservice to the nation," Young said.
"We need more recreation and we're not getting it," Young said.