This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund needs reform. When the fund was created, six out of 10 dollars went to help states, but over time the priorities shifted to paying for the feds to buy up private land. This makes little sense when the federal government already owns nearly 30 percent of the country and can't responsibly manage the land it already has, having accumulated tens of billions of dollars in deferred maintenance costs.
The status quo is beneficial only to special interest groups — namely environmentalists who see more land under the control of federal bureaucrats as a good thing because that makes it easier to impose restrictions on the land's use, such as banning the development of affordable energy like oil and gas.
Environmentalists have even conscripted front organizations such as the so-called Backcountry Hunters and Anglers to speak out against LWCF reform, to make it seem like opposition comes from the sportsmen community, not just urban environmentalists.
Mainstream hunting groups, however, are pushing the "Making Public Lands Public initiative," which would earmark LWCF money to help make sure sportsmen can access federal lands.
LWCF was created 50 years ago. Times change, and bureaucracy tends to creep like kudzu. It's high time to clean things up.
Will Coggin
Director of Research, Environmental Policy Alliance