Senate panel eyes vote on parks funding bills after key deadline

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is likely to vote on a bill to renew a key funding program for parks, but not until after the program’s authority lapses.

A spokesman for Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), the panel’s top Democrat, said lawmakers are hoping for a Tuesday meeting to vote on Cantwell’s bill to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).

{mosads}Tuesday would mark two days after the last law to authorize the LWCF expires. After Sunday, the program can still make payments, but the money collected from offshore oil and natural gas drillers that would usually go into the fund instead goes to general government funding.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the committee’s chairwoman, said only that it is hoping for a Tuesday markup “that involves a variety of lands bills,” but would not specify the bills.

The committee has not sent out a formal notice of its planned meeting, a necessary step in advance of the markup.

The fund takes a portion of the revenue the government gets from offshore drilling, and puts it toward federal, state and local park, recreation and conservation projects.

Conservationists, congressional Democrats and some Republicans have made an all-out push in recent weeks to get the LWCF renewed. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has held up unrelated legislation in order to see the program’s renewal.

Senators are likely to vote on Cantwell’s LWCF renewal legislation, which would authorize the program indefinitely. It would also require that 1.5 percent of the money paid from the fund go to increasing access to public land by hunters, anglers and other recreation purposes.

The House Natural Resources Committee passed a bipartisan bill this month to indefinitely reauthorize LWCF. It would require that at least 40 percent of the money go to state projects and 40 percent to federal, as well as 3 percent to recreation access.

The Senate Energy Committee is also likely to vote on the Restore Our Parks Act from Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), which would create a new parks fund from the revenue from energy production on federal land and offshore.

The fund would use half of the energy revenue that isn’t dedicated toward other sources, and would go toward addressing the nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog on National Park Service land.