Interior Secretary Sally Jewell hits Capitol Hill to drum up support for conservation program

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is making the rounds on Capitol Hill in hopes of swaying lawmakers to fully fund and permanently reauthorize a 50-year-old conservation program that expires next year. Jewell held a series of meetings with lawmakers Wednesday about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses offshore drilling revenue to offer states and local governments matching grants for conservation projects and easements for hunting and fishing, wetlands and parks. The fund is set to expire in 2015, and its supporters are trying to convince congressional Republicans to permanently extend it and to fully fund it at $900 million for just the second time in its history. "Why should it be at 900 [million dollars]? Because the revenues from oil and gas production have been coming in that should have been funding this and it's being used by Congress to fund other things," Jewell told reporters on the sideline of a Washington event hosted by a handful of conservation groups. "The intent was we're taking something out of the earth, we ought to give something back to the earth. And we're not doing that."...more

Jewell says the fund is "being used by Congress to fund other things".  The same is happening to the Social Security fund, so why aren't you and Obama out lobbying to "fix" that problem?  It affects millions of more people than the LWCF.  Even enviros pay into the Social Security fund, so let's fix that first.