CHARLESTON, W. Va. - Congress' failure to reauthorize a popular land and water fund is drawing widespread scorn from West Virginians. Since 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has taken money from offshore oil and gas royalties. It gives grants to protect and improve everything from Civil War battlefields and federal wilderness areas to state parks and city pools.

Fayette County Commissioner Matt Wender is frustrated Congress is failing to fund a program crucial to ongoing efforts to protect local tourism.

"If you were going down the Gauley River, as many, many people do in the fall, there is clear-cutting along the banks going up the sides of the gorge, and there are housing developments that go down to the river," says Wender. "The value of that asset needs to be protected and is at risk."

Part of the delay is a push by some in Congress to shift much of the money to other uses, they say need it more. Wender and others say that could gut the program.

Utah Republican Rob Bishop chairs a house subcommittee crucial to the LWCF. Bishop said he opposes the federal government buying up more land for parks and forests. He's backing a bill he describes as expanding the LWCF's scope. It could shift land-buying money to local governments and training for oil and gas workers.

Alan Rowsome, senior director of government relations for lands with The Wilderness Society, says they favor a bipartisan alternative that would permanently fund the LWCF to do what's long been popular in both parties. He says don't fix it if it ain't broke.

"In an incredibly polarized world where Congress isn't doing much, you see this bipartisan cooperation," says Rowsome. "And it shows you that this is a special issue, and one that shouldn't be caught up in the politics."

According to Wender, tourism is worth $60 million to Fayette County each year. He says the fund has helped them make an important and difficult economic transition.

"It became a significant part of our county and softened the blow of the loss of coal jobs," says Wender. "It's a part of our future that we've got to protect and develop further."

The last authorization for the fund expired at the end of September.


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Conservation groups, tribes and community organizers are praising President Joe Biden's decision Thursday to expand two national monuments in California.

Together, the monuments will gain about 120,000 acres. The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is 90 minutes northwest of Sacramento and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument lies just east of Los Angeles.

Brenda Gallegos, public lands manager for the nonprofit Hispanic Access Foundation, said millions of urban families live close to the San Gabriel Mountains.

"A lot of our Latino communities don't have access to nature, prominently, like 67% of Latino communities don't have access to green spaces or blue spaces," Gallegos pointed out. "Having these expansions designated today brings us closer to closing that nature gap."

The president used his powers under the Antiquities Act to expand the monuments in order to increase public access and protect the watershed and wildlife habitat. The move also makes progress toward Biden's goal of protecting 30% of the country's public lands by 2030.

Gallegos said Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Lake County will include an area previously known as Walker Ridge, now renamed Moluk Loyuk, which means Condor Ridge in the Patwin tribal language.

"This is important because it establishes a co-stewardship with federally recognized tribes and will return the indigenous names of these lands to them," Gallegos explained. "This continues to build that great relationship with tribes."

Land managers will now create a new management plan for the area, which could include new campsites, hiking and mountain biking trails, and even off-highway vehicle-designated routes.

The Bureau of Land Management recently released its final Public Lands Rule, which is set to put conservation on equal footing with other multiple uses taking place on public lands.

The state of Utah has come out in opposition, pointing to the impact it could have on the almost 23 million acres of BLM land in Utah.

Redge Johnson, director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, said the state supports conservation efforts but called the rule a "solution looking for a problem."

"What we have already put into conservation designations and then what you have for the acts that promote the conservation of the lands, why do you need to level that playing field?" Johnson questioned. "The playing field has more than leveled over the past 40, 50 years with the passage of all these acts."

Johnson contended Utah's lands and wildlife will suffer as a result of the rule and added it'll make mining critical metals used for batteries even more difficult. He and others, like Gov. Spencer Cox, called on the BLM to immediately withdraw the rule and work with stakeholders on more practical solutions.

Conservationists see the rule as a big win for restoring and sustaining public lands for future generations.

Johnson described Utah's public lands a "fire dependent ecosystem," adding fuel loads have accumulated drastically due to over a century's worth of fire suppression. He argued the rule will make executing and continuing vegetation management projects more difficult, including reducing the threats posed by fuel loads.

"One of the biggest contributors we have to carbon dioxide right now are wildfires, at least in the West," Johnson asserted. "Transportation, all the others, yes absolutely. But wildfires are a huge contributing factor to that. One of the best things we could do is reduce the fuel loads on some of these areas to reduce the fire risk and this rule puts that at risk."

The rule also creates the frameworks for "restoration and mitigation leases," which will allow groups to restore public lands or to offset the effects of a particular use. Johnson argued the leases will leave too many loopholes but the BLM said they will not "disturb existing authorizations."


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Conservation groups are rejoicing over the decision Friday by the Biden administration to reject a proposed mining road in Alaska.

The 211-mile Ambler Road would have sliced through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, severing the migration route for a Western Arctic Caribou herd.

Alex Johnson, interior Alaska director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said it was important for the feds to take a stand in Alaska so mining interests do not start eyeing other national parks.

"This is a very expensive, destructive and just highly speculative project that does not in any way support our clean energy goals as a country," Johnson contended. "And ultimately would permanently threaten the health and well-being of local communities and the tribes."

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski slammed the decision, warning it could limit jobs and tax revenues for Alaska by preventing exploration for minerals she said are important to national security, like copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.

Jayme Dittmar, a photographer and filmmaker from Fairbanks, said the road would have been very disruptive to the 66 Native American villages along the proposed route.

"That'd be 168 trucks passing through close vicinity to the villages," Dittmar pointed out. "There would be hundreds of bridges built. It would dismantle a subsistence livelihood that's been in place for thousands and thousands of years."

The road was seen as a negative for tourism to the Brooks Range area. According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, Californians make up 9% of visitors to Alaska.