New entitlement program for perpetual government land acquisition
New legislation would establish permanent funding for government acquisition of private property as an entitlement program guaranteeing $900 million per year (to start).
The bill converts the 1960s Great Society Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which is used for most such government land acquisition, into off budget spending bypassing Congressional appropriations and controls in the future. Authorization for the program was made permanent by Congress earlier this year, but annual appropriations were still required.
LWCF has funded eminent domain takings of millions of acres of land from tens of thousands of private owners of homes, farms, businesses and land, mostly since the 1970s.
Past Congressional appropriation have rarely approached the $900 million limit in any one year. Restricting funding has been one of the few means private property owners have had to try to stop agencies like the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from taking their property for new and expanded National Park and Wilderness Refuges.
https://cei.org/content/testimony-myr...
The bill converts the 1960s Great Society Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which is used for most such government land acquisition, into off budget spending bypassing Congressional appropriations and controls in the future. Authorization for the program was made permanent by Congress earlier this year, but annual appropriations were still required.
LWCF has funded eminent domain takings of millions of acres of land from tens of thousands of private owners of homes, farms, businesses and land, mostly since the 1970s.
Past Congressional appropriation have rarely approached the $900 million limit in any one year. Restricting funding has been one of the few means private property owners have had to try to stop agencies like the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from taking their property for new and expanded National Park and Wilderness Refuges.
https://cei.org/content/testimony-myr...
I'm told the vote was:
Brown, Cartwright, Case, Clay, Costa, Cox, Cunningham, Dingell, Gallego, Grijalva, Haaland, Horsford, Levin, Lowenthal, Napolitano, Nequse, Sablan, San Nicholas, Soto, Tonko, Van Drew, voted for (21)
Bishop, Cheney, Cook Fulcher, Gohmert, Gonzalez-Colon, Gosar, Graves, Hern, Hice, Lamborn, Westerman, Wittman, voted against (13)
DeGette, Huffman, McEachin, Velazquez --D's Curtis, Johnson, McClintock, Radewagen, Webster, Young --R's did not vote