For Immediate Release
February 12, 2019

(BILLINGS) – Today, the Senate voted to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), one of America’s best conservation programs, as part of a larger public lands package (S. 47, the Natural Resources Management Act). Senators Jon Tester and Steve Daines helped lead the charge to secure reauthorization. We’re now counting on Senator Daines as a member of the majority who sits on both the reauthorizing and funding committees to secure full dedicated funding for LWCF.

“We’re pleased to see permanent reauthorization for LWCF,” said Rick Potts, Interim Director of the Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund. “But now Montanans are looking to Senator Daines, whose party controls the Senate, to convince his colleagues to secure full funding for the program that’s essential to our outdoor way of life.”

Since Congress let LWCF expire on October 1, 2018, the program lost nearly $200 million in funding for our parks and recreation. Failure to secure full-funding could cost our parks and recreation another $900 million next year. Senator Daines is not only part of the majority party in U.S. Senate but he is also a committee member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, with authority to reauthorize LWCF, and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee with the authority to fund the program.

First established by Congress in 1965, LWCF is funded by offshore oil and gas royalties rather than taxpayer dollars, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to protect open space, historic sites and increase access for outdoor recreation. Through this program, nearly $600 million has been invested in the Big Sky State, which is critical to supporting Montana’s outdoor recreation economy that generates 71,000 jobs and over $7 billion in consumer spending.

In addition to LWCF, the Senate passed Natural Resources Management Act also included Senator Tester’s Yellowstone Gateway Protection Act (S. 60), which would permanently protect 30,000 acres of public land north of Yellowstone from largescale mineral development. MCVEF has supported this legislation since introduction and we are encouraged to see the bill take another important step towards becoming law. Senator Daines is a co-sponsor of this legislation.
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Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund (MCVEF) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose Mission is to educate citizens and organizations in the basic techniques of effective civic engagement to further environmental and conservation goals. MCVEF programs educate the public about critical environmental and public lands issues; promote greater non-partisan citizen involvement in the democratic process; and provide strategic tools to conservation organizations to be more effective.

Contact
Whitney Tawney
Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund
whitney@mtvoters.org, (406) 254-1593