Kellie Lunney, E&E News reporter Published: Thursday, March 5, 2020

Senate lawmakers. Photo credit: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)/Facebook
A bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers addressing national parks and Land and Water Conservation Fund legislation yesterday. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)/Facebook

Congress is poised to pass the most significant conservation legislation in at least 50 years because dozens of lawmakers worked across the aisle for years to make it happen.

But election-year politics and a presidential tweet also could take ample credit if the bill is enacted.

The sausage-making has been worth it to get to this “extraordinary” moment, several Democrats and Republicans who strongly support the Land and Water Conservation Fund said yesterday during a Senate press conference.

“I really don’t care,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on whether President Trump’s embrace this week of mandatory funding for LWCF had more to do with electoral politics than a sudden change of heart about a program his administration has repeatedly tried to gut.

“The politics, whatever they want to play with it, this needs to be done for my children and grandchildren,” Manchin said.

The ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee joined 11 other Senate Republicans and Democrats during a press conference yesterday to talk about conservation legislation Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to schedule soon for floor action, according to senators (Greenwire, March 4).

The stand-alone bill, which Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana said could get a floor vote in the next week or so, would combine two separate, broadly bipartisan bills.

S. 1081 would provide permanent funding for LWCF, and S. 500 would take unallocated oil and gas revenues to create a five-year $6.5 billion trust fund to chip away at the deferred maintenance in national parks.

Manchin introduced S. 1081 last spring — legislation that many Democrats and Republicans have been pushing for decades — that would fully and permanently fund the country’s most important conservation program at a level of $900 million annually.

The bill would allow the government to deposit the offshore oil and gas revenues that fund LWCF without going through the appropriations process.

“Every state benefits, every territory benefits,” Manchin said. “Politics be damned, let’s just get it done.”

New Mexico Democratic Sen. Tom Udall agreed: “We’ve got to strike while the iron is hot to get this done.”

Gardner and Daines, who are co-sponsors of both bills, led yesterday’s press conference. They met with Trump last week at the White House after McConnell said he’d move the legislation if the president pledged to sign it.

The two Western senators, who face tough reelection campaigns, succeeded in convincing Trump during their meeting of the merits behind marrying the bills and enacting historic legislation.

“Cory and I shared pictures from Colorado and Montana, and [Trump] was taken aback by the beauty of our states,” Daines told reporters, “and what the Land and Water Conservation Fund as well as our national parks do. It was a great moment, [Trump] committed to doing it.”

On Tuesday, the president tweeted a full-throated endorsement of LWCF, national parks, and Daines and Gardner (E&E Daily, March 4).

‘Somebody worked a miracle’

Many supporters of both bills, not to mention administration officials, were caught off guard by the announcement. The administration has supported “Restore Our Parks” and reducing the deferred maintenance debt in its recent budget proposals but has sought to significantly slash LWCF.

“Somehow somebody worked a miracle because now all of a sudden a White House that hasn’t been for Land and Water Conservation Fund is now seeing the light that this is a great economic investment for the future,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

But Gardner yesterday wanted to emphasize the hard work of Republican and Democratic senators over many years on conservation issues for getting here, not convenient timing for possible political gain.

He cited the passage of the public lands package last year, which permanently reauthorized LWCF, and other measures lawmakers have enacted recently to provide more money to federal agencies for firefighting and prevention.

“While some people may want to dwell on politics, I’m going to dwell on the good these great outdoors do for the American people,” the Republican said.

The bottom line for Republicans and Democrats who want to see S. 1081 and S. 500 enacted is that, as Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said, “without the president’s support this could not happen.” Alexander, who is retiring this year, is a big booster for LWCF and national parks.

“This is an opportunity, once in a lifetime, and we’re not going to let it slip by,” Manchin said.

‘High priority’

The Senate right now is considering an energy innovation package, and the expectation is that after that is wrapped up, the chamber will move to the LWCF-parks legislation.

“We’re perfecting the language and hope to get it introduced as soon as possible and to move it as soon as possible,” Gardner said during the press event. “Sen. McConnell knows this is a high priority for the president, [he] knows it’s a priority for the people here, which is why I expect it to move quickly.”

Gardner said that “nothing outside of those two bills” would be added to the legislation.

Daines earlier in the day said McConnell was working on figuring out the “pay-fors” for the legislation, or the potential costs to the government, estimated by the Congressional Budget Office. “We’re letting him sort that issue,” he said.

On the House side, Natural Resources Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and the Democratic leadership have talked for months about pairing the LWCF and “Restore Our Parks” bills in that chamber.

“We’ll see what status they are in when they [the Senate] pass them,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters off the House floor yesterday. “But what we really want to do over here is probably combine them, as well, and we have support for both.”

Reporter Geof Koss contributed. Original article can be found at https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2020/03/05/stories/1062519971.