CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Congress could vote this week for final approval of a package of public lands bills that includes permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The popular federal program, which easily passed in the Senate, uses funds from offshore drilling leases to support everything from wilderness areas and historic battlefields to city parks. The fund has invested more than $240 million in West Virginia over the last five decades. Tracy Stone-Manning, vice president for public lands with the National Wildlife Federation, said the fund has had a major impact on Americans' access to the outdoors.

"For over 50 years, this fund has funded things as simple as a swimming pool and a basketball court in an inner city, to protecting wildlife habitat for goats in Glacier National Park,” Stone-Manning said. “It just runs the gamut of projects."

If the current bill is not approved, the program and its protections for parks and open spaces could disappear. In recent years, grants from the fund have gone to New River Gorge National River and Harper's Ferry National Park.

Garett Reppenhagen, a regional director with the Vet Voice Foundation, said many veterans put a high value on public lands, saying outdoor recreation also can be good therapy.

"Military veterans use the outdoors to heal from our military trauma, from our experiences on the battlefield,” Reppenhagen said. “It helps with our post-traumatic stress disorder, and we use the outdoors to bond with our family and friends when we come home from long deployments."

Reppenhagen said continued funding will ensure future generations are able to enjoy the outdoors.

"The funds come from offshore oil and gas revenues, so it's not a burden on the taxpayers,” he said. “This is something that helps American families and Americans use and appreciate our outdoors, and get some time outside - even in our urban areas."

Both Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito have strongly endorsed the bill. They point out that West Virginia's $9 billion outdoor-recreation industry supports more than 90,000 jobs.

More information on the Land and Water Conservation Fund in West Virginia is available here.


get more stories like this via email

Environmentalists are applauding a Bureau of Land Management decision to allow the sale of a small national public land parcel for an affordable housing development.

The sale of public lands is controversial, with Republicans and conservative groups seeing states as preferable stewards. Conversely, Democrats and conservation groups argued states cannot afford to protect public lands and would sell them to private companies.

Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, said there are public lands adjacent to metro areas in some Western states well-suited to development, which could help solve the nation's housing shortage.

"But that's the kind of stuff that happens five, 10, 20 acres at a time," Weiss explained. "Not the wholesale transfer of tens of thousands or even millions of acres to states and private parties."

For the first time ever, the BLM this week approved the sale of 20 acres of national public land near Las Vegas to the Clark County Department of Social Services for an affordable housing development. Weiss pointed out the federal "memorandum of understanding" is specific to the Nevada parcel but he believes there are others near Phoenix or Tucson that would make sense for consideration.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Gov. Joe Lombardo, R-Nev., are the most recent politicians citing the housing shortage as a need to sell off public lands to developers. In a letter to President Joe Biden, Lombardo urged approval for the transfer of 50,000 acres of public land around Las Vegas with few restrictions, which Weiss believes would create urban chaos. He contends mixing in housing is a new approach to how conservatives now talk about public lands.

"Much of the Republican Party finally recognized that calling for wholesale transfer was a political third rail in the West," Weiss observed. "No matter how conservative the state, voters everywhere across the political spectrum do not want to dispose of national public lands on that scale."

Weiss added any sale of public lands for housing should require it be affordable and not end up providing "McMansions" or "trophy homes" for billionaires.


get more stories like this via email

More than $27 million is coming to upgrade forests in the Northwest for recreation.

The investment is the latest round of funding from the Great American Outdoors Act, which was passed in 2020 and established the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund. The legislation is aimed to address the backlog of maintenance needed on public lands.

Tracy Calizon, Northwest Region assistant director for recreation, trails, wilderness and heritage, for the U.S. Forest Service, said 23 projects across national forests in Oregon and Washington were chosen.

"That is for fixing campgrounds, replacing toilets, updating trailheads, signage, kiosks, roads, providing access and accessibility improvements," Calizon outlined. "At the sites that the public knows and loves across national forests of the Pacific Northwest."

There are now 76 Legacy Restoration Fund projects in the Northwest, with 18 of them completed. The U.S. Forest Service said the Great American Outdoors Act has brought $77 million in contracts to Oregon and Washington to complete the projects.

Calizon added there are many elements to maintaining the country's forests.

"It's not necessarily only the trailheads or the public facing infrastructure," Calizon explained. "It's also the infrastructure to support the whole picture and make sure that we have the staff to be able to provide these great opportunities."

The Great American Outdoors Act is working to address the country's $8.6 billion deferred maintenance backlog on public lands.


get more stories like this via email

A court is soon expected to decide a Wyoming case between hunters and landowners which could affect public land access.

When a group from Missouri went hunting near Wyoming's Elk Mountain in 2021, they navigated a checkerboard of land ownership, using a ladder to cross a privately-owned 'corner' from one public parcel to another. The landowners, who live in North Carolina, sued the hunters for trespassing in a case now before the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Sam Kalen, professor of law at the University of Wyoming, said there are two major issues in this case. One involves what is known as the Unlawful Inclosures Act, a federal law preventing private landowners from obstructing access to public land.

"There's a good chance that the 10th Circuit's going to, you know, maybe adopt some sort of 'unreasonable' test," Kalen predicted. "Suggesting that landowners can't do things that result in sort of a nuisance or unreasonable interference with any access to public lands."

The other issue, Kalen noted, is trespassing, which is a matter of state law. A Wyoming federal judge ruled the hunters were not trespassing in a decision last year. More than 8 million acres of public lands in the West are "corner-locked," according to recent data.

The court's decision could affect other states in the Tenth Circuit, especially those with similar landholding patterns, including Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. An appeal of the decision would next go to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Kalen noted it likely would not be heard.

"The court doesn't take up that many public lands cases," Kalen acknowledged. "There's no conflict in the circuits, which means that the court would have to conclude that it's really serious, national significance."

Kalen added the case is unique to typical hunting encounters in Wyoming, as both parties are from out-of-state.


get more stories like this via email