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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Expiration Date for Millions in Conservation Cash for ID

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Wednesday, April 22, 2015   

LEADORE, Idaho - The expiration date is approaching quickly for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which has brought millions of dollars to Idaho in the past 50 years.

The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is taking up the topic today.

Michael Whitfield, executive director of the Heart of the Rockies Initiative, said ranchers and land managers have been collaborating to secure conservation money from the fund for the High Divide region - 18 million acres along the Idaho-Montana Border - that serves as a major migration corridor.

"In the High Divide," he said, "we saw that as an opportunity for landowners to do projects and do it in a way that would have impact for a landscape scale."

Whitfield said the range is the connection route for big game, migrating wildlife, fish and sage grouse - but it's a patchwork of federal, state and private lands. LWCF money is being pursued to establish easements to keep the corridors open, as well as preserving recreation access and historical trails and sites.

State Rep. Merrill Beyeler, R-Leadore, said he learned about the LWCF about three years ago and thinks support from locals - including ranchers, farmers, and tribes - is strong for stitching together the patchwork of High Divide lands to make them whole.

"There are opportunities that exist now that may well disappear in the future, simply as our population grows," he said. "And if we're not careful, we could lose some of these things that we really value."

The LWCF is not taxpayer money, Beyeler said; it's money from oil and gas royalties paid on offshore drilling. Legislation has been introduced to renew the LWCF and fully fund it; it's set to expire Sept. 30.

High Divide details are online at heart-of-rockies.org. The livestream of the hearing is at energy.senate.gov. The legislation to renew LWCF. S 890, is at govtrack.us.


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