Friends of the Pacific Crest Trail,

We’ve told you a lot about the Land & Water Conservation Fund over the years because it has been an important funding source for our work to protect parcels along the Pacific Crest Trail from development and resource extraction.

Yet despite overwhelming bi-partisan support in Congress, the Land & Water Conservation Fund expired in September. Congress is now negotiating several bills that could restore the Land & Water Conservation fund. But time is short.

Congressional leaders are now negotiating the terms of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, a catchall bill that would fund government agencies for the rest of fiscal year 2016. The current continuing resolution temporarily funding the government expires Dec. 11th. There is an attempt to get the Land & Water Conservation Fund reauthorization into this omnibus bill.

Also, this week, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) introduced HR 4151, a House companion bill to legislation passed twice by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee by a wide bipartisan margin. That Senate legislation was crafted as a compromise between Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) to permanently reauthorize the Land & Water Conservation Fund while making modest reforms to the program.

These are crucial opportunities to get the Land & Water Conservation Fund permanently re-authorized, but we need your help.

For 50 years, the Land & Water Conservation Fund, which includes royalties from offshore energy production, has helped pay for state and federal conservation programs. Think of it as a mitigation program. Oil and gas explorers pay the American people for the rights to extract energy with the realistic expectation of environmental impacts, and then a small portion of what they pay is set aside to preserve properties that might otherwise be developed or exploited.

In the last decade, PCTA, the U.S. Forest Service and the federal Bureau of Land Management have used the Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase parcels along the PCT from willing sellers. Over the last 15 years, approximately $25 million from the fund has been used to acquire and permanently protect more than 17,000 acres along the trail. And the need for more conservation money for the PCT is great. Some 1,500 parcels, roughly 200,000 acres of land around the PCT, need protection to maintain and enhance the iconic experience the trail provides.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund is essential, not only to our long-term success on the PCT, but to realizing the full potential of many of the trails in our National Trails System.

Through the Partnership for the National Trails System, we are urging Congress to reauthorize the Land & Water Conservation Fund. But the more voices we add to this plea, the more likely it will be heard.

Here’s how to help

You can help by contacting your senators and representatives. It will take a little time, but it’s important that these messages are unique and personal. Tell them why you think funding for trails is important to you, your family and your community. And please include some or all of these key messages:

LWCF must be permanently reauthorized and fully funded before the end of the legislative session. It either must be included in the FY 2016 appropriations package; or a compromise between the Simpson bill in the House and the Murkowski-Cantwell bill in the Senate must be reached.

The bipartisan approach of Rep. Simpson and Sens. Murkowski and Cantwell is the right path forward; it addresses land acquisition needs for states and federal agencies in a balanced and reasonable way and provides separate (non LWCF) funding to help address the maintenance backlog on public lands.

path forward; it addresses land acquisition needs for states and federal agencies in a balanced and reasonable way and provides separate (non LWCF) funding to help address the maintenance backlog on public lands. A bill by House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) is the wrong approach— it is not bipartisan, diverts money away from conservation and makes draconian cuts to most parts of the Land & Water Conservation Fund.

is the approach— it is not bipartisan, diverts money away from conservation and makes draconian cuts to most parts of the Land & Water Conservation Fund. Urge your Republican Senators to press the issue with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Urge your Democratic Senators to press the issue with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and the White House. On the House side, urge your Congressional representatives to take the case to Speaker Paul Ryan. He must hear from other Republicans and from folks at home in Wisconsin that the Land & Water Conservation Fund is vital to preserving and enhancing trails in the United States.

Without the Land & Water Conservation Fund it will be impossible for us to protect all of the critical places and close all of the gaps in our system of National Scenic and Historic Trails. Opportunities to buy hundreds of vital parcels across the country may vanish. The great irony is that Congress approved all the National Trails and those same paths they elevated to special, iconic status are now at risk.

We thank you for your time and effort. We believe that your voice will make a difference.