The House approved a bipartisan public lands package Tuesday evening that permanently reauthorizes the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund, which Congress let expire in September.
Supporters say the bill, which passed 363-62, is the largest public lands bill considered by Congress in a decade, packaging 100 separate bills into one. The Senate passed it earlier this month on a 92-8 vote. The legislation now moves to the desk of President Trump, who is expected to sign it into law.
The measure won the support of a broad swath of interest groups, including the oil and gas industry, conservationists, and public lands advocates.
The measure provides environmental protection for 1.3 million acres as wilderness areas, a designation which prohibits development, roads, and motor vehicles. It withdraws 370,000 acres of federal land from mineral development In Montana, around Yellowstone National Park, and Washington. It also creates four new national monuments and expands five existing ones.
The legislation also permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF, which pays for public lands projects using offshore drilling revenue, not taxpayer money. It provides money to federal, state, and local governments for buying land and waters to improve national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and other public areas.
“I commend Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Bishop for their partnership and leadership to move this important package across the finish line in the House,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Both chambers are now on record in strong support of this package of lands, water management, sportsmen, and conservation measures.”
Murkowski and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., formerly the panel’s top Democrat, negotiated the bill last session of Congress with Reps. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, then the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, and Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the current chairman who was ranking member.
Even though the bill was praised by conservation groups, they preferred for the LWCF’s spending to be made mandatory and not subject to the appropriations process. Actual funding for the program has fluctuated since its creation in 1964. Bishop and other conservatives, however, did not favor that approach.
