Land and Water Conservation Fund
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Taos Valley Overlook, NM |
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) was established by Congress in 1965. The Act designated that a portion of receipts from offshore oil and gas leases be placed into a fund annually for state and local conservation, as well as for the protection of our national treasures (parks, forest and wildlife areas). LWCF has a broad-based coalition of support, including the National Parks and Recreation Association, The Wilderness Society, and the Land Trust Alliance.
For over thirty years, LWCF has done much to create and maintain our system of state, local and national parks -- from local baseball fields to Yellowstone National Park -- and ensure equal access to parklands for all Americans. Since its inception, LWCF has helped state agencies and local communities acquire nearly seven million acres of land; in addition, LWCF has underwritten the development of more than 37,000 state and local park and recreation projects. Federal LWCF project sites include such popular recreational areas as Harper's Ferry in West Virginia, California's Big Sur Coast, and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Montana. Stateside LWCF project sites include New York City's Central Park, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and Custer State Park in South Dakota, as well as thousands of local playgrounds, soccer fields, and baseball diamonds.
LWCF is authorized at $900 million annually, a level that has been met only twice during the program's 40-year history. The program is divided into two distinct funding pots: State grants and Federal acquisition funds. In FY 2005, the federal acquisition pot received $166 million and the state grants program received $92.5 million for a total of $258.5 million. In FY 2006 the federal pot received $114.5 and the state grants received $30 million. FY 2007 was similar to the year before receiving $113 million for federal acquisition and $30 million for state grants.
The "stateside" of LWCF is distributed to all 50 states, DC and the territories by a formula based on population among other factors. State grant funds can be used for park development and for acquisition of lands and easements. State park directors solicit communities to apply for projects and distribute funds to those worthy projects based on a scoring process. Click here for a list of the most recent state-by-state apportionments.
The Federal side provides for national park, forest and wildlife refuge and Bureau of Land Management area fee and easement acquisitions. Each year, based on project demands from communities as well as input from the federal land management agencies (NPS, USFS, FWS, BLM), the President makes recommendations to Congress regarding funding for specific LWCF projects. Once in Congress, these projects go through a rigorous Appropriations Committee review process with much input from Members representing project areas. Given the intense competition among projects, funding is generally only provided for those projects with universal support.
What projects are eligible?
Under stateside, a project must fit into a state's recreation plan, furthering its goals on recreation and open space. Usually each state has a ranking system that determines how grant funds will be spent. With federal acquisition, a project generally should be located within or adjacent to an established or proposed federal unit - park, refuge, forest, or federally-managed area - and be considered a priority by the administering agency.
More information about the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund is available from the National Park Service website.
Updated 09/2007