skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

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.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

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.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Land and Water Conservation Fund Lauded, Defended

play audio
Play

Thursday, July 24, 2014   

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of the vote in Congress which created the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).

Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on September 3, 1964, the fund uses royalty money from offshore oil and gas drilling for conservation and recreation projects, in part to help mitigate the environmental damage from resource extraction. The fund is up for reauthorization in 2015, and Senator Susan Collins is watching to see if Congress will opt to scrap it or keep it.

"Too often in the debates in Congress, these arguments are posited as if it were 'the economy versus the environment,'" says Collins. "Well, in a state like Maine, the environment is the economy."

LWCF grants are administered at the federal level by the Department of the Interior, and at the state level by the Bureau of Parks and Lands in the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

Former Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett, now the managing director for public policy at the Nature Conservancy, says the same link between the environment and the economy can be drawn on a national level.

"Outdoor recreation, nature conservation and historic preservation contribute $1.1 trillion annually to the economy," says Scarlett.

Despite the more contentious political climate than when the LWCF was first passed in 1964, Scarlett has called for reauthorization of the act and continued funding at current levels.

"As envisioned by a bipartisan Congress 50 years ago, we need to continue to reinvest those revenues into sustaining our lands, waters and natural resources for the long-term benefit of our communities," she says.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021