× Thanks for reading! Log in to continue. Enjoy more articles by logging in or creating a free account. No credit card required. Log in Sign up {{featured_button_text}}

WASHINGTON – Both sides agree with the intent of the Land and Water Conservation Fund – to help acquire and improve federal and local park projects – but they disagree on how it should be implemented.

President Barack Obama included $900 million in his fiscal 2017 budget to revive the program, which expired last fall after 51 years of using royalties from offshore oil and gas leases to fund park projects.

One of the projects listed in the budget is on the Coconino National Forest.

Advocates say the program was a vital source of funding for local governments to develop parks – 93 in Phoenix alone – that they may not have been able to acquire otherwise.

But where supporters see a broadly used tool for local governments, critics see another example of federal overreach in the program, which would dedicate $575 million to federal land acquisition in the president’s budget request.

“The federal government owns an awful lot of land, particularly out West, and they don’t need to be buying up a lot more,” said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Prescott.

Gosar and others say they want to see the money end up in the states’ hands, “because the states are better at conservation than the federal government,” he said.