Obama’s 2013 budget calls for a 3 percent increase in the operating budgets at the Department of Interior's land management agencies and a whopping 30 percent increase in funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Obama’s 2013 budget calls for a $5.1 billion investment in America’s Great Outdoors programs, an increase of $146 million or 3 percent above the 2012 enacted level.
Modest increase in operational budgets
Of that, $4.6 billion would pay for core operations in the land management bureaus — National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. This is $26 million, or less than 1 percent above 2012. This includes operations and maintenance of 397 units in the National Park Service, 556 national wildlife refuges managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service, and BLM’s 37 national conservation areas, national monuments, and similarly designated areas. The areas managed by these bureaus hosted 386 million visitors. In 2010, travelers to these lands contributed an estimated $47.9 billion in economic activity and 388,000 jobs.
Big boost for Land and Water Conservation Fund
The Administration request for Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) programs, including Interior and Forest Service components, is $450 million, $105 million or 30 percent above 2012. That includes $332 million requested under Interior’s $5.1 billion request for AGO – an increase of $115 million or 53 percent above 2012. This funding includes $212 million for DOI Federal land acquisition, $65 million above 2012.
The LWCF is funded each year from oil and gas development revenue and is dedicated to conservation grant programs and land acquisition. LWCF grants to States are increased by $15 million or 34 percent to $60 million.
Total funding for Federal land acquisition within Interior and the Forest Service is $270 million. Of this amount, $161 million (60 percent) is focused on meeting bureau-specific needs within both agencies, including $128 million for BLM, FWS, and NPS mission-specific core land acquisition priority projects. The Administration proposes targeting the remaining $109 million (40 percent) for a Forest Service-Interior Collaborative Landscape component that aligns both agencies’ land acquisition efforts to support community-driven conservation goals in key landscapes: the Crown of the Continent in the intermountain West and Longleaf Pine in the Southeast.
Interior requested $84 million for its three bureaus and the Forest Service requested the remaining $25 million. The proposed Federal investments in these landscapes build on locally led conservation efforts, and will leverage significant private commitments to land and water conservation in these landscapes. Smart investment in strategic conservation in these areas will prevent further ecosystem decline, which is expected to reduce or preclude the need for future investments in restoration.
The 2013 budget request for land acquisition also includes $2.5 million for BLM to improve access to public lands often frustrated by complicated land ownership patterns, by purchasing fishing and hunting access easements.
The AGO initiative funds important partnership efforts including $60 million for NPS State Assistance grants of which $20 million is a competitive program that will focus on larger scale urban landscape and collaborative conservation projects which have broad support among outdoor recreation companies.
Hiring to shift from youth to veterans
Interior will also participate with other land management agencies in a program that will put thousands of veterans to work on projects that will conserve and restore natural and cultural resources, strengthen visitor services, and maintain and improve infrastructure on Federal, State, Tribal and local public lands. The $1 billion program is proposed over 5 years through the Department of Veterans Affairs, which will coordinate the effort. By contrast, the Interior is seeking $35 million for youth programs, about $2 million or 6 percent below its 2012 request. The money is used to hire individuals between the ages of 18 to 25 in temporary jobs. In 2011, Interior’s bureaus and offices employed a total of 20,064 youth and young adults, increasing youth employment by 24 percent over the Department’s 2009 baseline.
