U.S. Senator Ken Salazar

Member: Finance, Agriculture, Energy, Ethics and Aging Committees

 

2300 15th Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO 80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

 

 

For Immediate Release

April 4, 2007

CONTACT:    Cody Wertz – Comm. Director
303-455-5999


  Sen. Salazar Leads Bipartisan Fight to Preserve LWCF

WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than 40 years ago, Congress created the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to help preserve America’s land, water and wetlands for future generations. 40,000 projects later, every region of the Nation has benefited from LWCF funds, including Colorado - LWCF sites can be found in 94 percent of America’s counties. However, earlier this month, President Bush quietly proposed completely eliminating the LWCF from the FY07 budget, removing all of the nearly $28 million in funding for this successful program.

This week, United States Senator Ken Salazar continued the bipartisan fight to save the LWCF for FY07. In a bipartisan letter with Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), Senator Salazar wrote to President Bush, warning that he found “the elimination of the funding for this program unacceptable.” A copy of the letter can be viewed by clicking here.

“LWCF is one of the great conservation success stories for America,” said Senator Salazar. “For the President to abruptly eliminate LWCF is a slap in the face to every community in America, and I intend to fight to stop it.”

Created by Congress in1964, the LWCF helps states set aside land, waterways and wetlands as open space, along with providing matching grants for state and community open space and recreation projects. Since its inception, LWCF has underwritten the development of more than 40,000 state and local park and recreation projects across the U.S. In Colorado, since 1965, nearly 1,000 grants from the LWCF totaling more than $58 million have funded local government and state park outdoors investments statewide.

In late 2006, Senator Salazar won an important victory for the secure future of LWCF. Thanks to his bipartisan proposal with Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), LWCF will receive 12.5 percent of future offshore drilling revenues, the first fully-dedicated funding stream in the program’s more than 40-year history. This means for LWCF an average of $15 million a year in the first ten years, with a likely increase to more than $200 million in funding starting in 2017.

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