E&E spotlights Tom Udall and his father, Stewart Udall

In his eight years as Interior secretary during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Udall would oversee the establishment of four national parks; six national monuments; more than 50 wildlife refuges; and a number of national seashores, historic sites and recreation areas. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act, pivotal statutes that have preserved millions of acres of the American landscape. Today, however, the fruits of Udall's conservation legacy are in jeopardy. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is set to expire in September. Fiscal conservatives are proposing to divert some of its land-protection dollars to rebuilding park roads and bridges and covering federal payments to rural counties. And Canyonlands, Udall's favorite park, faces a $40 million backlog in deferred maintenance, part of a nationwide parks maintenance backlog that has grown to $11.5 billion. It's a blemish on the system as it approaches its centennial in 2016 and poses a roadblock to the creation of new parks and the acquisition of federal lands. Udall's eldest son, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), today stands at the center of those challenges as the top Democrat on the panel that funds the National Park Service and the other federal lands agencies...more