Three years of LWCF is bittersweet for the NW Sportfishing Industry
After lengthy negotiations, Congress released their omnibus spending bill that will keep the government running and reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund until 2018. Unfortunately the bill only funds LWCF for one year at $450 million, with the other two years to be decided later. LWCF has a successful, 50 year legacy of protecting public lands for sportsmen and women on $900 million a year.
Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association Executive Director, Liz Hamilton, calls the bill bittersweet, “While we are happy to see the program extended and $450 million to be spent on public lands, LWCF deserves permanent reauthorization and full funding. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has provided anglers in the Northwest with hundreds of miles of river access over the past five decades and Congress should allow LWCF to be our reliable source of funding to provide access in decades to come.”
Since 1964 the Land and Water Conservation Fund has invested nearly $1 billion into public lands in Oregon and Washington at no cost to taxpayers. LWCF takes a small fraction of money raised from federal oil and gas offshore drilling leases and puts that money back into public hunting and fishing areas and communities across the nation. Unfortunately, due to a few well-positioned opponents, led by Representative Bob Bishop (R-Utah), in Congress, LWCF was allowed to temporarily expire at the end of September.
NSIA is troubled since the sportfishing industry in the Northwest is so heavily reliant on public lands. Studies show that fishing on public lands contributes to 65% of the fishing-related spending in Washington and Oregon.
“Recreational angling in our part of the country drives billions of dollars in consumer spending each year, and endangering our best tool for providing anglers with access to quality fishing holes threatens the foundation of what our businesses are built on”, says Hamilton.
The Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association is an organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of healthy fisheries and the businesses reliant upon them. NSIA has more than 300 member businesses in the Northwest that all benefit from angler access to public lands.