President Obama’s proposed FY 2017 budget includes full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and promises to explore a path to permanent reauthorization.
Anglers, hunters, and everyone who enjoys outdoor recreation got some good news in the President’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2017. The budget, released Tuesday, includes full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). That would mean $900 million set aside specifically to improve public access to the outdoors and protect wildlife habitat.
After a frustrating end to the 2015 congressional session when we saw Congress play political football with the popular LWCF program — letting the program lapse before a temporary renewal bill revived LWCF more than a month later — this is a crucial step in the right direction. President Obama also says he will explore permanent reauthorization of the program, a much-needed step.
For more than 50 years, LWCF has given the American public access to trails, hunting lands, and fishing holes across the country. LWCF takes a small portion of royalties from federal offshore oil and gas leases and puts that money back into communities across America. Considering our recreational sportfishing industry in Oregon and Washington so deeply depends on public access to fishing areas, LWCF renewal has been a matter of great importance to NSIA.
Our member businesses require a steady stream of dedicated anglers to keep coming through their doors if they want to remain part of the Northwest’s multi-billion-dollar sportfishing industry, and the fact is that 65% of fishing-related spending in Oregon and Washington occurs due to public lands. Fishing on public lands generates more than 10,000 jobs in Washington and more than 7,000 in Oregon. When the opportunity to renew a program like LWCF comes along, at absolutely no cost to taxpayers, we hope our leaders have the prudence to protect that program. We are glad to have elected officials representing us in Washington D.C., like Senators Wyden and Merkley, who understand the importance of public lands and have stood up for LWCF reauthorization.
In the President’s budget proposal, anglers and hunters in the Northwest can look forward to projects like Washington’s Steigherwald National Wildlife Refuge on the Columbia River, a habitat mitigation project that provides habitat for migrating waterfowl and salmon smolts, to see improvements. If Congress approves, Oregon sportsmen would see public access improvements to areas like the Sandy River, tributary protection of the Siuslaw, and over $10 million towards the John Day Wild and Scenic River.
The needs in Oregon and across the nation are vast. So let’s keep the momentum going toward permanent authorization of LWCF!