Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I come to the floor tonight to talk about something I would like to see done in the United States Senate--passage of reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Definitely the Senate and Congress have disappointed us in not passing the Export-Import Bank reauthorization--which is something I am a big proponent of. And now, here we are with the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

For the first time in 51 years since this program was created, it has expired.

My colleagues are here on the floor to join me--I thank the Senator from Montana and the Senator from New Mexico--to talk about why this is such a vital program to all of our States and why we should have it reauthorized immediately.

The bill creating the Land and Water Conservation Fund was championed by Senator Scoop Jackson at the request of then President Kennedy. Why? Because the American population was growing and there was a need for outdoor recreation, open space, and public lands.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund was created to help protect some of our most popular national parks, forests, public lands, and iconic places.

For me, this is an incredibly important program because it has provided opportunities for hunting, fishing, hiking and other recreational uses that so many people use when traveling to the Pacific Northwest for vacation or for their livelihood.

Those of us who are from States with large amounts of public lands recognize the importance of outdoor recreation.

Nationwide outdoor recreation supports more than 6 million jobs. This is an economy in and of itself. In the State of Washington, outdoor recreation contributes more than $11.7 billion annually to Washington's economy. It is clear that protecting our public lands is good for both our environment and our economy.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been credited each year with funds from outer continental shelf oil and gas revenues. The success of that program has helped us authorize and make these investments for the American people, as I said, for more than 50 years.

We are here to remind our colleagues that we are going to put up a fight until we get the conservation fund reauthorized. And to make sure that people in our states and all across the Nation that enjoy public lands have access to them.

The issue is important to us, and in the energy bill we passed out of the Senate Energy Committee, I worked with my colleague, Senator Murkowski, on a bipartisan basis to include a permanent reauthorization of the LWCF.

And I was joined by 31 Senators to introduce the American Energy Innovation Act that also permanently reauthorized and fully funded the LWCF.

So you can see from these two pieces of legislation that there was a lot of support from our colleagues for maintaining this vital program that is used by cities, counties, and jurisdictions in my State and in my colleagues' states and many others across the nation and that it is a vital tool for helping us to thrive in our outdoor economy. We want to see this legislation reauthorized as soon as possible.

I thank my colleagues again from New Mexico and Montana again for being here and for their leadership on this issue.

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