Liberty unyielding kenric ward full#

Rebekah Hoshiko, a spokesperson for House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Bruce Westerman, said committee Republicans were concerned about ongoing onshore and offshore leasing program delays’ impact on conservation funding. “All that money isn’t available anymore.” “So, when you don’t have lease sales, you’re taking money away from the Gulf Coast states for coastal resiliency, you’re taking money away from inner city parks and recreation programs, you’re taking money away from national park maintenance, you’re taking money away from conservation efforts under the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” Milito said. There’s also money under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, that comes from offshore revenues, for coastal resiliency and restoration to address climate impacts.” “That’s outdoor recreation and park maintenance, national park funding - that all comes from offshore oil and gas revenues. “Revenues that come from offshore oil and gas development are a primary funding source for the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” NOIA President Erik Milito previously told the DCNF. LWCF funding, though, could alone decline by up to $420 million a year if the offshore leasing delay persists, according to a report from the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) and API published this week. The federal government provides another $150 million of offshore lease revenue to the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), which helps preserve historic resources, every year. In addition to the LWCF, the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act similarly authorized hundreds of millions of dollars of federal offshore oil and gas revenue per year to four states - Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas - for “coastal conservation, restoration, and hurricane protection.” In 2021, the program gave $35.1 million to Alabama, $109.9 million to Louisiana, $36.5 million to Mississippi and $67.4 million to Texas. The National Wildlife Federation credited the LWCF with successfully protecting hundreds of species including the Florida panther, Mississippi sandhill crane, caribou and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep “at no cost to taxpayers.” (RELATED: Oil Industry Report Warns Of Massive Job Losses From Biden’s Anti-Drilling Agenda)

Liberty unyielding kenric ward full#

“Every year, revenues from existing lease production far exceed the amounts needed for the full funding of LWCF.” “That funding comes from royalties on existing oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf,” he added. “For over half a century, forests, open spaces, watersheds and other landscapes in every state have been conserved thanks to the fund.”

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund is America’s best conservation tool,” Brent Keith, the senior policy director at The Nature Conservancy, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The annual funding is primarily raised through offshore oil and gas leasing.

(RELATED: Biden Admin Appears To Quietly Discontinue Offshore Leasing For Nearly Two Years, Budget Shows)īut the funds raised through oil and gas leases, and which would dry up were the leasing program to keep stalling, are fundamental for large conservation programs environmentalists say are essential.įor example, the Great American Outdoors Act, a bipartisan bill that former President Donald Trump signed into law in 2020, appropriated $900 million in permanent funds annually to the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) which Congress previously had to fund periodically. “The Biden administration’s lack of progress on offshore leasing is a clear example of the large gap between rhetoric and reality,” he added. “The president has repeatedly said his administration is using every tool at its disposal to address rising energy costs and, recently, the administration began acknowledging for the first time the need for more American oil and gas production,” Frank Macchiarola, the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs, said during a press briefing this week.