President Biden delivers remarks on protecting America's outdoor spaces
President Biden delivers remarks from Camp Hale in Leadville, Colorado.
President Biden announced the creation of a new national monument Wednesday even as he continues to chip away at fossil fuel production, a major source of federal conservation funding.
The president traveled to Leadville, Colorado, to formally establish the Camp Hale – Continental Divide National Monument as part of his administration's effort to protect, conserve and restore "iconic outdoor spaces and historical sites," according to the White House. The action represents Biden's first use of a 1906 law allowing presidents to create new national monuments.
"The stunning Camp Hale and Tenmile landscape is a recreation mecca where visitors enjoy alpine hiking, snowmobiling, skiing, camping and more. It is an honored obligation for us to protect this treasured piece of our national heritage," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement Wednesday.
However, federal conservation funding, which Congress appropriates to maintain national parks and monuments, largely comes from oil and gas revenues.
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The Biden administration has taken a number of steps to roll back fossil fuel production on federal lands, including issuing a moratorium on new oil and gas lease sales, a move that could reduce future conservation funding.
"The new Camp Hale monument would be eligible for funding from oil and gas once its designation is complete," Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
"Every time they do something to stop oil and natural gas leasing and development on federal lands, they are putting that conservation funding at risk," she added. "When you look at leasing, it's putting those funds at risk well into the future because it takes several years before a lease turns into a producing well."
Sgamma noted that the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act of 2020 (GAOA), which was signed into law by former President Trump, appropriates $2.8 billion of oil and natural gas revenues for conservation and public lands maintenance every year.
The legislation also guarantees $900 million in funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), a program that invests in conservation and recreation opportunities nationwide. LWCF funds, which Congress previously funded periodically, are mainly generated from federal offshore oil and gas leasing.
Offshore oil platforms are pictured off the coast of California in 2021. (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia, File)
The LWCF program protects national parks, national monuments, national recreation areas and national wildlife refuges, according to the Department of the Interior (DOI). The DOI has highlighted the California Coastal National Monument as an example of a site protected thanks to LWCF funding.
The National Wildlife Federation has also credited the fossil fuel-funded program with protecting hundreds of species, including the Florida panther, Mississippi sandhill crane, caribou and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep "at no cost to taxpayers." The environmental group endorsed the bipartisan legislation funding the LWCF.
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"Often called America’s most successful conservation program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund — at no cost to taxpayers — expands and supports parks, forests, wildlife refuges, seashores, rivers, lakes and much more in nearly every zip code in the United States," the group said in 2019.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks during a news conference July 22, 2021, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
But LWCF funding may decline by as much as $420 million per year if the Biden administration opts against holding offshore oil and gas lease sales in an upcoming decision, according to a study from the National Ocean Industries Association and American Petroleum Institute earlier this year. The DOI has opened the door to halting new offshore leases through 2028.
"Those who oppose oil and gas don't want to admit that [fossil fuel producers] are almost the sole source of funding for conservation on public lands," Sgamma added.
In addition to the LWCF, the federal government distributes another $150 million of oil and gas lease revenue to the Historic Preservation Fund, a program that helps conserve historic monuments on federal lands.
President Biden speaks during a virtual meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin in the Oval Office of the White House March 17, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Two of Biden's great-great-grandparents emigrated from Ireland. (Erin Scott-Pool/Getty Images)
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And the federal government provides additional hundreds of millions of dollars of fossil energy revenue to four Gulf Coast states for "coastal conservation, restoration and hurricane protection" under the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act. The states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — received a whopping $249 million in 2021 for the program.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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