We wanted to make you aware of two bills working its way through the federal process that directly relate to our mission - The first is intended to increase access to outdoor recreation. The second would require the Secretary of Commerce to conduct an assessment and analysis of outdoor recreation to the nation's economy. 

The federal Land and Water Conservation Fund was reauthorized in legislation passed Friday and signed into law by President Barack Obama. The funding will extend through September 2018, including a one-year increase of nearly 50%.  Seattle PI

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, the Republican chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, earned the moniker of obstructionist-in-chief when he single-handedly killed reauthorization on Oct. 1 of the bipartisan, half-century old Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). In the nanosecond it took to block a bill with 195 bipartisan co-sponsors, America’s signature conservation and outdoor-recreation program fell away.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop wants to do more damage to the expired Land and Water Conservation Fund. His bill needs to be stopped, and the bipartisan LWCF revived. 

Actually what Congress did, setting a new standard for dysfunction, is allow the wildly successfully, 50-year-old Land and Water Conservation Fund to expire. They killed it quietly, without a vote.  It leaves hundreds of millions of dollars of park and trail acquisitions in limbo around the U.S.