Copyright 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
August 29, 1999, Sunday, FIVE STAR LIFT
EDITION
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A8
LENGTH: 1246 words
HEADLINE:
THE FUTURE OF U.S. PARKLAND IS UP TO CONGRESS
BYLINE:
Bill Lambrecht; Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
* The traditional source of federal funding for parks -- oil and gas
drilling fees -- seems to have dried up. Both parties, as well as President Bill
Clinton, appear to agree with a majority of Americans, who are concerned with
their quality of life and environmental legacy. What lawmakers will do about it
is another matter.
Before Congress began siphoning away the money, the
government plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into parks for the American
people.
A deal made 35 years ago was straightforward: In return for
being allowed to drill offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf, oil and gas
companies would be taxed for parks and recreation.
In the last half of
the 1970s alone, the oil-fed Land and Water Conservation Fund delivered $ 1.2
billion for state and local parks on top of $ 1.7 billion for national land.
For Missouri parks, the 1970s were bountiful times. Land and Water
grants provided the lifeblood for Castlewood State Park in west St. Louis
County, Hawn State Park near Ste. Genevieve and St. Joe's State Park near
Farmington, among others.
Meanwhile, the Mark Twain National Forest and
the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois expanded. And nearly every
community in the region tapped into the fund for ballfields, tennis courts and
playgrounds.
Then, virtually overnight in 1982, the money to states
dried up, a victim of budget cutting and the sentiment of the new administration
of Ronald Reagan that the government had taken enough land from private hands.
A public outcry restored some of the money. But since 1995, states have
received almost nothing from the Land and Water fund. And most of $ 900 million
in annual drilling receipts -- money that by law is supposed to go to parks --
has been diverted by Congress to unrelated programs.
In the coming
weeks, Congress is expected to decide the fate of the Land and Water fund and
ultimately its commitment to parks in America. Doug Eiken, director of the parks
division in Missouri's Department of Natural Resources, is watching.
"Our parks are starting to deteriorate," he said. "You notice that the r
oads aren't as good and the trails aren't as good and the playgrounds are
shabby. I think we've gotten by. But right now, many of these facilities need
major renovation and overhauling."
Bipartisan backing
Last weekend, President Bill Clinton devoted his weekly radio address to
America's parks. He plugged his proposed Lands Legacy
Initiative, which would set aside $ 1 billion annually for land and
coastal resources.
Clinton used the occasion to argue that the
Republican-controlled Congress is threatening parks with the $ 800 million tax
cut it wants. Politics aside, Republicans have been heavily involved in writing
legislation aimed at restoring the Land and Water fund.
Bipartisan plans
in the Senate and House take similar approaches in fixing the fund permanently
and parceling it out in three ways: for federal and state Land and Water grants;
for urban parks; and for a "Teaming with Wildlife" program to provide habitat.
Yet another compromise is being hashed out for airing when Congress returns from
its August break.
As it stands, the legislation would mean about $ 14
million annually for the state of Missouri in Land and Water grants and money
for wildlife.
Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., is a co-sponsor of the
Senate legislation, which is being engineered by Sens. Frank Murkowski,
R-Alaska, and Mary Landrieu, D-La. Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., has not become a
sponsor and his office had no comment on the proposals.
Pro-property objections
Ashcroft's lack of sponsorship so far may or
may not reflect sentiments of those Missourians deeply distrustful of local or
federal government land-buying for any reason.
Ray Cunio of Sullivan,
Mo., said that his 1,000-member Citizens for Private Property Rights has been
telling Congress of its worries about the Land and Water fund.
"I don't
have anything against taking care of the environment. But what's concerning us
is the intrusion of government and the acquisition of more and more private
property," he said.
Nationally, property-rights leader Charles Cushman
directs a lobbying campaign against the congressional plans from his center of
operations in Battleground, Wash. Cushman, who heads a group called Keep Private
Lands in Private Hands, claims to have a mailing list 250,000 and 30,000 fax
numbers to deploy in fights like this.
"This bill is as dangerous
as the Endangered Species Act," he said.
Cushman argues that the park
plans in Congress are tax hikes in more ways than one. Nationally, the
government will have to replace the $ 900 m illion that would be devoted to
recreation, he argues. And locally, land acquisition for parks erodes community
tax bases.
"Here the Republicans are saying, 'We're going to lower your
taxes' and they're offering bills that raise them," Cushman said.
Pro-park polling
In the Republican Party, conflicts have long
existed over the government's role in conservation. Early this century, the
GOP's Theodore Roosevelt set a standard by carving out national parks.
But some leaders in the modern Republican Party have been suspicious and
downright hostile to conservation efforts that involve new regulations and
spending.
With the 2000 elections drawing nearer, the Republican Party
appears to be paying closer attention to voters' attitudes toward recreation.
A survey this summer by Republican pollster Frank Luntz for the
pro-conservation Wilderness Society found overwhelming support for federal
spending on parks. Luntz concluded that Americans have grown much more concerned
during these booming economic times about the quality of their lives.
"There is an emotional intensity to issues that define the legacy of
what this generation will leave to the next," Luntz wrote. "No issue speaks more
directly to Americans' environmental quality of life than their ability to enjoy
open spaces, parks and wilderness areas."
Congressional leaders no doubt
paid special attention to another passage Luntz wrote. Pro-conservation voters,
he said, "could turn an election in a close year."
Missouri's
needs
In St. Louis, the Gateway Arch has been spruced up and soon its
antiquated air conditioning may be repaired thanks to an experimental program
that lets it keep 80 percent of admission fees. Less-traveled federal parks have
more problems, some of them troubling.
The George Washington Carver
National Monument, near Joplin, has no money to display or even to safely
preserve thousands of personal possessions, letters and artwork of the renowned
Missouri-born, African-American scientist, acting superintendent Lana Henry
said.
Statewide, a replenished Land and Water fund would make Doug
Eiken's job easier when communities knock on the door of the state parks office
seeking money for parks. After Forest Park in St. Louis and Swope Park in Kansas
City splits $ 2.4 million this year, the rest of Missouri must compete for the
remaining $ 1.6 million. Only one in four applications succeeds.
That's
a far cry from the late 1970s, when the Land and Water fund pumped $ 9 million
to Missouri parks annually. Since then, more Missourians have come to demand
more recreation as urban sprawl diminished open spaces.
"Whatever
concept they come together on in Washington, all we ask is that they fund it
adequately and that it be a good program," Eiken said.
LOAD-DATE: August 29, 1999 
