U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., is expecting Senate passage next week of a sweeping bill to provide permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund while also providing billions of dollars to address a backlog in maintenance on public lands.
But an effort by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., to tack a Colorado lands conservation measure onto the bill apparently won’t succeed. Gardner, who introduced the measure along with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said in an interview this week that no amendments to the bill will occur. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly is not allowing amendments to the measure.
Bennet, also a longtime supporter of full funding for LWCF, this week had called for inclusion of the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act, which would protect some 400,000 acres, in the Great American Outdoors Act now under Senate consideration.
Gardner, in an interview with The Daily Sentinel, noted that six previous Interior secretaries, writing to congressional leaders in support of the Great American Outdoors Act, called for its passage without amendments. The signers included Ryan Zinke, Sally Jewell, Ken Salazar, Dirk Kempthorne, Gale Norton and Bruce Babbitt. Gardner said more than 850 groups also oppose amending the bill.
Asked if the concern of amendment opponents is that amendments could jeopardize passage of the Great American Outdoors Act, Gardner said, “That’s exactly what they were concerned about.”
The Land and Water Conservation Fund dates back to the 1960s and makes use of offshore oil and gas development revenues, funding everything from federal public land acquisitions to ballparks and swimming pools at the local level. Last year Congress permanently reauthorized the program, but didn’t address the fact that it typically isn’t funded at its authorized level. The Great American Outdoors Act would permanently fund LWCF at its congressionally authorized $900 million annual level.
The measure also would provide $1.9 billion a year for five years primarily to address deferred maintenance at National Park Service sites, while also funding maintenance projects for other agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service.
The Senate this week approved two procedural votes on the measure as of Thursday.
“It looks like we’ll have final passage of this legislation on Tuesday,” Gardner said.
“… We’ve had two very strong votes. I think we’re going to get this done. You know, people have been trying to get this done since 1965 and this is just a great bipartisan effort to make it happen.”
Earlier this year, Gardner and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., met with President Trump and McConnell to discuss the LWCF and maintenance-funding measures. Trump then indicated on Twitter that he would sign a combined bill and urged Congress to approve it.
Some Democrats view that development as an effort to provide legislative victories to two Republican senators facing re-election challenges this fall.
Manchin has said he doesn’t care what politics may be behind the bill, and just wants to get it passed.
Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, who is running against Andrew Romanoff in the Democratic primary in the race for Gardner’s seat, has said on Twitter that Gardner previously has voted to cut LWCF funding by 90% and has refused to support the CORE Act in Colorado.
Gardner said he has done work related to LWCF for a long time, and one of his first votes in the Senate was to protect the program.
“So I’m excited we’re able to get this done,” he said.
Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen said in a statement Thursday that Gardner is trying to “greenwash his abysmal environmental record just in time for the election. Gardner has worked in lockstep with President Trump against new Colorado wilderness, to roll back protections for clean air and water, and to undermine efforts to combat climate change. While local leaders in Colorado have worked for more than a decade to pass the CORE Act, Gardner continues to be a puppet for his party leaders and refuses to deliver.”
The White House previously has said it opposes the current CORE bill draft and advisors would recommend Trump veto it if it reaches his desk. That opposition could make Trump rethink his stated support for the Great American Outdoors Act if the CORE measure is added to it.
The CORE Act combines several previous legislative initiatives. Under it, about 200,000 acres in the Thompson Divide area southwest of Glenwood Springs would be withdrawn from future oil and gas leasing. CORE would designate about 73,000 acres of land as wilderness, including acreage in the San Juan Mountains. It would designate the Camp Hale area, where ski troops trained outside Leadville during World War II, as the first-ever National Historic Landscape, and would formally establish the boundary for the long-existing Curecanti National Recreation Area west of Gunnison.
The measure has passed the Democrat-controlled House, and Bennet has been pushing for action on it in the Senate.
U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, whose district is home to much of the land the CORE bill would affect, doesn’t support the bill as it’s now written. Gardner isn’t currently opposing or supporting it.
“I’m not holding it up. I’m not objecting to it,” Gardner said. “We’ve given some suggestions that we think can make it better, but it’s Senator Bennet’s bill in terms of that.”
Bennet said in a statement from his office Thursday, “Our office has led efforts to fully fund LWCF for ten years, while also working with Coloradans for the past decade to protect public lands for future generations and preserve outdoor recreation, a vital part of our state’s economy. The CORE Act has already passed the House with bipartisan support and, if it receives bipartisan support in the Senate, as it should, we could pass the most consequential Colorado public lands legislation in decades.”
Meanwhile, Gardner’s bill also faces some pushback. For example, a recent letter to some Senate leaders signed mostly by numerous livestock interests, including the Colorado Wool Growers Association and Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, voiced concern because the measure would result in more land ending up in public hands.
“Federal agencies currently have more assets than they can afford to maintain,” the letter says.
Gardner said 99% of LWCF funds used for acquiring lands are employed to buy private inholdings within public lands, as in a recent acquisition in Rocky Mountain National Park. LWCF funds also can help provide public access to inaccessible public lands, he said.
Onshore energy revenues would help fund the bill’s maintenance backlog component, and the Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas companies that would generate some of those revenues, supports the bill. It also has backing within the outdoor recreation industry, and the National Wildlife Federation this week applauded the Senate action on it.
Gardner sees the bill as one antidote to the economic setback from the ongoing pandemic.
“This bill is estimated to create … 110,000 jobs and so it is a huge, I think, opportunity economically to help recover from the COVID-19 economic crisis,” he said.
Those jobs are infrastructure-related ones that could be created by investing in fixing national park sites, according a report by the Cadmus Group, a consulting agency.
