City Parks Alliance advocates for full and dedicated funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund with a dedicated urban component.
Created in 1965 with strong bi-partisan support, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is one of the nation’s most important tools for creating and protecting green space in America’s urban and rural areas.
The LWCF has two key components:
- The “state side” program takes a ground-up approach by providing matching grants directly to states, counties, and local governments for parks and open space projects.
- The “federal side” program conserves land for national parks, national rivers and trails, national forests, and national wildlife refuges.
The LWCF is funded primarily through revenues from offshore oil and gas royalties paid by energy companies drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. The fund was created with a key principle in mind: use a portion of revenues from the depletion of one natural resource owned by all Americans−offshore oil and gas−to support the conservation of another precious resource: our land and water.
A few key facts about the Land and Water Conservation Fund “state side” program:
- More than 98% of the counties in the nation have a park funded by the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
- The $4.1 billion appropriated for the LWCF “state side” grant program has been matched by State and local contributions for a total investment of $8.2 billion—doubling the return on investment.
- The LWCF “state side” grant program has provided more than 42,000 grants to the 50 states, District of Columbia and the Territories of the United States, benefitting more than 10,800 public agencies.
- The LWCF supports projects in your backyard. Over the years, 76% of the total grant funds have gone to locally sponsored projects providing close-to-home recreation opportunities.
A Broken Promise
The Land and Water Conservation Fund is not a dedicated “trust fund.” Instead, the funds are set aside for the LWCF for two years and after that they can be diverted to the general treasury and used for other purposes.
- Only $6.3 billion (or 47%) of the funds set aside for the LWCF has been appropriated for LWCF projects, with the balance diverted to other uses.
- Over the 47-year history of the program, the LWCF has only been fully appropriated twice.
Read our fact sheets to learn more about how the bi-partisan vision for the Land and Water Conservation Fund has been continually short-changed in the program’s 48-year history:
Land and Water Conservation Fund: A Critical Resource for State and Local Governments to Create Vibrant Cities
The Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program (ORLP)
The Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program (ORLP) is a LWCF program that was created in 2014. The ORLP is a nationally competitive grant program that delivers funding to urban areas – jurisdictions of at least 50,000 people – with priority given to projects located in economically disadvantaged areas and lacking in outdoor recreation opportunities. These awards help urban communities address outdoor recreation deficits by supporting projects in cities and densely populated urbanized areas that create new outdoor recreation spaces, reinvigorate existing parks, and form connections between people and the outdoors.
