Why We Need More--And Not Less--Conservation Funding In the Federal Budget

Why We Need More--And Not Less--Conservation Funding In the Federal Budget

Monte Burke

Forbes.com

Our nation’s natural resources and environment are viewed by many in Congress through the prism of extraction and exploitation. Our public lands are divided into places where fossil fuels, timber, minerals, etc. can be taken out, and places where they cannot.

Our nation’s natural resources and environment are also seen by many in Congress as convenient places to make drastic budget cuts in tough economic times.

There is            solid economic evidence that suggests both of these views are completely myopic.

Some background: “Conservation funding” in the federal budget is defined as funding for what’s known asBudget Function 300, covering “Natural Resources and Environment.” That includes operating budget money for agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and for the programs these agencies administer, like the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. That funding is measured through budget authority (the amount of money Congress says the various agencies can spend in a given year) and outlays (the actual amount these agencies spend, which can be higher than the budget provided because of spending on longer-term projects).

In 1977 conservation funding was close to 2.75% of the government’s total budget. Now, it is less than 1%. The current federal budget proposal from the House of Representatives pretty much wholly strips out conservation funding. (The budget is due to be hashed out sometime in mid-December.)

Here’s the problem with that: According to the Outdoor Industry Association (through Bureau of Economic Analysis statistics), the outdoor recreation industry is big business—worth $646 billion, to be exact. That’s a larger part of the U.S. economy than pharmaceuticals ($331 billion), motor vehicles and parts ($340 billion) and gasoline and other fuels ($354 billion).

The Outdoor Industry Association says that outdoor recreation (biking, camping, fishing, hunting, skiing, hiking, etc.) is responsible for 6.1 million American jobs and $39.9 billion in federal tax revenue.

“The outdoor recreation industry grew 5% a year even during the recession,” says Whit Fosburgh, the president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, the group leading the charge for more federal conservation funding. “These are jobs and dollars that won’t get exported to China.”

At least one public official has already realized the recreational value of natural resources. This year Utahgovernor, Gary Herbert, started his state’s Office of Outdoor Recreation, the first such office in the country, designed to help Utah better utilize its voluminous outdoor activities and increase its already impressive rate of recreational tourism. Utah has, on average, $5.8 billion in recreation-related revenue a year. (I wrote about Herbert’s new officehere.)

It’s time the federal government caught on, as well, and started viewing our natural resources not just as places for extraction and easy budget cuts, but for what they really are: Vehicles for outdoor recreation, which has become a core part of our national economic engine.