***UPDATE***
May 16, 2019

On May 16, one day after the Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund called on Senator Steve Daines to support the full $900 million in dedicated funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, Daines asked his colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee for only $600 million—only two-thirds of “full funding.”

A few weeks earlier, however, Daines declared in an April 9 news release that he “will not stop fighting until we get full funding of LWCF.”

“Just a few weeks ago Sen. Daines told Montanans he supports full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” MCV’s Whitney Tawney told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. “We’re just asking the senator to put our money where his mouth is.”

Montana Conservation Voters Invoice Senator Steve Daines for Full LWCF Funding

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 15, 2019

HELENA — Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund is launching a new ad campaign calling on U.S. Senator Steve Daines to fully fund the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).

First established by Congress in 1965, LWCF has been funded by offshore oil and gas royalties rather than taxpayer dollars, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to protect public lands and increase access to outdoor recreation. LWCF has invested nearly $600 million in the Big Sky State. The fund supports Montana’s outdoor recreation economy, which sustains 71,000 Montana jobs and generates more than $7 billion in economic activity in Montana every year.

Daines supported reauthorizing the fund in 2018, claiming he “has long been an advocate for strengthening and preserving LWCF. ” Reauthorizing LWCF, however, is only part of the equation. LWCF still lacks deditacted and full funding of $900 million to continue to conserve public lands and water, improve outdoor recreation opportunities and expand access to them.

Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund’s ad campaign kicks off with an online petition and a billboard in Belgrade urging Montanans to contact Senator Daines and ask that he fulfills his promises to secure full funding for our public lands. Senator Daines belongs to the majority party in the U.S. Senate.

“A few months ago Senator Daines told us Congress has the bipartisan support in Congress to save this critical fund, and he said it’s time to ‘get it done,’” said Whitney Tawney, Program Director for Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund. “Our funding is past due, and we’re counting on
Senator Daines to use his status in the Senate to come through with the full funding that Montana and our public lands deserve.”

Earlier this year, Senator Daines voted twice to support the nomination of David Bernhardt as Secretary of the Interior, despite Bernhardt’s attempt to slash funding for LWCF in the President’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget.

CONTACT
Whitney Tawney
Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund
Email: whitney@mtvoters.org
Phone: (406) 254-1593

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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.