Grijalva, Bishop craft surprise deal to save land acquisition fund

Just yesterday I wrote about the House Natural Resources Committee passing a bipartisan bill to spend $6.5 billion for federal lands infrastructure. Unbeknownst to me on the same day they passed a bill to permanently fund the Land & Water Conservation Fund, used primarily for land acquisition.

A House committee unanimously approved a surprise, bipartisan plan to save a popular land conservation fund Thursday, just weeks before it was set to expire. Reauthorization of the $900 million Land and Water Conservation Fund had stalled as the Republican chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and the panel’s senior Democrat locked horns over it. But Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, came together this summer to begin hammering out the agreement that was approved by the committee Thursday. “I was tired of it,” Bishop said after the vote. “I wanted to get it done.” The bill still needs to work its way through the House and Senate before Sept. 30, when the current fund is set to expire, but lawmakers said they are optimistic that they can make a deal. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, created 54 years ago, lets state, local and federal governments use federal mineral revenues to acquire and improve lands for public uses. Bishop had been pushing a replacement that would have limited federal land acquisition to a small portion of the fund, with most of the money dedicated to everything from park maintenance to offshore energy exploration to protection of historic battlefields. That plan also would have limited the amount of land the government could buy in Western states. But the compromise unveiled Thursday did away with most of those restrictions. Instead, it requires that states and the federal government each get 40 percent of the fund and the remaining 20 percent be unallocated, to be used for whatever is needed in a given year. The measure also restores the fund permanently, removing expiration dates that were in previous bills...MORE

The article also says Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tx), saying “When we hit the $1 billion and $10 billion in deferred maintenance, it seemed clear that we should not be buying land until we get this backlog down”, offered an amendment to prevent further land acquisition until the deferred maintenance had been handled. The Republican controlled committee defeated his amendment.

 Rep. Paul Gosar, (R-Az) offered an amendment that called the federal government to sell an acre of land for every acre it bought, basically preventing the federal estate from expanding. The Republican conrolled committee voted it down.

Apparently the Republicans aren't opposed to the disappearance of private property, just as long as the state governments get their fair share.

I can't write any more about this today as it is making me ill.