PROPOSED LEGISLATION

President Clinton's Lands Legacy Initiative

Last year, President Clinton proposed a landmark one-year $1 billion budget initiative to fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund and other programs to protect wildlife habitat, open space, and ocean and coastal resources. He christened this historic environmental proposal his "Lands Legacy Initiative" and pledged to come back this year with a proposal for permanent funding. In the final funding bills he signed into law last year, he won more than $650 million for Lands Legacy, an extraordinary 42% increase over the prior year's funding. Now, for 2000, he has put forth an even more ambitious proposal. His new Lands Legacy Initiative would total $1.4 billion per year and would fund:

Best of all, the President followed through on the pledge he made last year and proposed to set aside $1.4 billion per year in a separate protected fund for future years. The President highlighted the request in his State of the Union address on January 27, saying, "Tonight, I propose creating a permanent conservation fund, to restore wildlife, protect coastlines, save natural treasures, from the California Redwoods to the Florida Everglades. This Lands Legacy endowment would represent by far the most enduring investment in land preservation ever proposed in this House."

Defenders of Wildlife, and many other conservation organizations, have urged Congress to fund the President's Lands Legacy Initiative by establishing a protected Lands Legacy fund in this year's federal funding bills which are currently in their final stages. The President's initiative could still be reconciled with some of the Congressional legislative proposals and included in a final budget bill at the end of the year.

On July 25 the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee reported a compromise version of the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 701) sponsored by Senators Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). The House passed its version by an overwhelming margin on May 11. The two bills are very similar and would provide close to $3 billion in annual funding from outer continental shelf oil and gas receipts for a variety of programs including: coastal conservation; the Land and Water Conservation Fund; state wildlife conservation; urban parks; the Historic Preservation Fund; restoration of federal and tribal lands; conservation easements; and landowner incentive programs for recovery of endangered species. Both bills also provide large sums for coastal impact assistance funding to states with oil and gas drilling off their coasts to mitigate its impacts. Defenders strongly supports moving the process forward and is urging that the best parts of both bills be combined as the legislation enters its final stages. Unfortunately, both the Senate and House versions of CARA still have serious faults that must be corrected.

First, both bills would allow coastal funding to be spent in ways that harm, rather than help, the environment. Some of these harmful projects include funds for the construction of highways, ports, and bulkheads. The Senate version takes a step in the right direction by placing a cap on the amount of coastal impact assistance money that goes toward infrastructure projects, but also allows coastal conservation funds to be used for damaging coastal construction projects.

Second, both versions include some level of incentives for new offshore drilling in Alaska. Offshore drilling can cause spills, toxic waste, and extensive onshore development to process and transport oil and gas that damage fragile ocean and coastal environments.

Third, the Senate bill includes a viable mechanism to ensure that the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund will be spent each year so that needed acquisition of lands in our national parks, wildlife refuges, forests and other public lands can move forward. The House bill contains no such mechanism and contains crippling procedural hurdles that could delay or stop land acquisition projects.

Fourth, the Senate version of CARA includes important strategic planning provisions recommended almost unanimously by wildlife conservation groups and prioritizes funding for species with the greatest need. This needed guidance will assist states so that they can better protect their remaining biodiversity and reverse species declines.

Finally, the House version of the bill includes extremely important funding for conservation easements and incentives for private landowners who wish to help with the recovery of threatened and endangered species. Due to the overwhelming number of threatened and endangered species that reside on non-federal land, funding for a program that offers such incentives to private landowners is essential to species recovery. This provision is non-controversial and supported by both environmental groups and landowners.

Needed improvements in these areas will assure that CARA will meet its potential to be the first landmark conservation legislation of the new century.

The Conservation and Stewardship Act of 2000 (CSA)

The Conservation and Stewardship Act of 2000 (S. 2181) is sponsored by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). CSA provides $2.9 billion in yearly funding from outer continental shelf oil and gas receipts for the Land and Water Conservation Fund; acquisition of non-federal lands of regional or national interest; ocean and coastal conservation, state wildlife conservation; the Historic Preservation Fund; protection of coral reefs and National Parks; conservation easements for farm, forest and ranch land; landowner incentive programs for recovery of endangered species; urban parks and forests; and important assistance programs for resource dependent rural communities.

Senator Bingaman's bill also corrects some of the important concerns identified by Defenders, and other environmental groups, that appear in the CARA bills. In particular, S. 2181 distributes funding more equitably to various programs throughout the country, reduces incentives for new oil and gas development off the coast of Alaska and also goes further in assuring that impact assistance funding, provided at a much lower level than CARA, will be put towards environmentally sound projects. CSA also ensures that the federal portion of the LWCF will be spent so that land acquisition in our National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges and National Forests will not be unnecessarily delayed. CSA also gives Congress an opportunity to change the list of projects to be funded annually.

Finally, CSA allocates funds to wildlife agencies to assist states, more comprehensively, in protecting all native fish and wildlife and their habitats BEFORE they need protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The Permanent Protection for America's Resources 2000 Act (H.R. 798/S. 446) is sponsored by Congressman George Miller (D-CA) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Resources 2000 would have provided $2.3 billion to fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund; urban parks, the Historic Preservation fund; federal lands restoration; marine and coastal conservation and restoration; landowner incentive programs for recovery of endangered species; state wildlife conservation programs; permanent conservation easements for farm, forest, and range lands; and open space conservation. Much like CSA, the state wildlife funding provided in Resources 2000 more comprehensively allows for the protection of all wildlife species.

Both Resources 2000 and CSA laid the foundation on which CARA has been built. The standards set by Resources 2000 and CSA have been key to securing needed improvements in the CARA bills as the legislative process has moved forward.