More money for parks? Great. But bill, introduced by Fresno congressman, has a downside
Like movie critics breathless over a summer blockbuster (remember those? sigh), conservationists are hailing the Great American Outdoors Act as the biggest and most significant public-lands spending bill in half a century.
Which may not be an overstatement. The bipartisan bill, which sailed through Congress with the help of Fresno Democrat TJ Cox and awaits President Trump’s signature, fully and permanently funds a primary federal mechanism for park acquisition and development. It also makes a significant dent in the $20 billion maintenance backlog afflicting our national parks and forests.
That may sound like welcome news — and it is — but there’s a catch: To pay for new parks and ensure the ones we have and love to death don’t further deteriorate, our country’s dependence on fossil fuels will continue.
Why? Because energy companies are footing the bill. Profits from oil and natural gas extracted from federally owned lands will cover the $9.5 billion set aside for the maintenance backlog. Just as the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s guaranteed $900 million annual allocation comes from offshore oil and gas revenues.
While this may make sense on a superficial level — companies that get rich extracting resources from our lands and waters ought to help preserve them — a troubling irony is practically being ignored:
It won’t matter how spiffy our parks are if all those greenhouse gases created by oil production make our planet’s climate unlivable. And if oil and gas production ever drops for some reason (like during a pandemic), maintenance funding and the LWCF would both be at the mercy of dwindling profits.
Funny how all those press releases sent to my email inbox gushing over the Great American Outdoors Act failed to make either of those points.
Moral cover for polluters
Ultimately, we’re volunteers in a giant trade-off. To ensure our parks and public lands have sufficient funding, moral cover will be given to the environment’s biggest polluters.
“These programs underscore the need to continue safe development of domestic offshore energy reserves,” American Petroleum Institute Vice President Lem Smith said in a press release celebrating the House vote.
“Policies that end or limit production in federal waters would put these essential conservation funds in doubt.”
Can’t state it any more plainly than that.
The Great American Outdoors Act received overwhelming support in both the House (310 to 117) and Senate (75 to 25), and Trump pledged to sign it into law. Why so much support by politicians from both sides of the aisle? Because it’s an election year, and few things are more popular with voters than parks.
Bill a win for Cox
Cox needs the boost more than most. In early June, the first-term congressman helped introduce the bill to the House of Representatives. He’s also in a fierce re-election battle with David Valadao after losing to the Republican by 17 percentage points in the March primary.
Of course, Cox has been in this situation before. In 2018, he managed to unseat Valadao (by 862 votes) despite losing the primary by 25 percentage points.
One of 12 co-sponsors of the Great American Outdoors Act, Cox can campaign off this legislative victory. He can demonstrate to voters of the 21st District how much he values parks and public lands, a message that is certain to be well-received — while also deflecting attention away from his spotty record of business disclosures.
“I applaud my colleagues for their overwhelming bipartisan support of the bill,” Cox said. “There is an old East Asian proverb: ‘A generation plants the trees in whose shade another generation rests.’ Today, we’re planting trees.”
Always good to plant trees. But let’s not lose sight that the proverbial water for these trees comes from a contaminated well.
