A parcel bordering Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, a historic ranch on the Yampa River in Colorado and land within the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument in New Mexico all have one thing in common: they were acquired in part with dollars from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
The longstanding federal conservation program is funded by offshore oil and gas royalties. But now the program could see more constraints that environmental and recreation advocates worry will undermine its effectiveness.
Congress created the LWCF in 1965 to protect natural and recreation areas. Since then, the fund has supported 45,000 projects across 8 million acres in every county in the U.S. It’s also enabled matching funds for state and local governments to buy and develop public parks and recreation sites.
“When it comes to protecting land inside our national parks and forests and wildlife refuges, it's the only source of money for that,” said Amy Lindholm, the spokesperson for the LWCF Coalition, a group of nonprofits and landowners that advocate for the program.
The LWCF has generally enjoyed bipartisan support. During his first term, President Trump permanently authorized $900 million for it annually when he signed the Great American Outdoors Act into law in 2020.
However, the Trump Administration is now limiting how the pot of money can be spent. A recent order by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum could prevent the Bureau of Land Management from acquiring land and stymie projects outside of places currently managed by the agency. It also requires sign-off from state governors and county commissioners.
“By putting all these top-down restrictions on it, they're really suffocating a lot of great projects,” Lindholm said.
Burgum’s order also allows states to use LWCF money to purchase “federal surplus property.” That, Lindholm said, could put the onus on states to buy back land already in public ownership and set aside their own parks projects.
For its part, the Interior Department said the new LWCF guidance will expand recreation opportunities.
“The Secretary’s Order directs Interior bureaus to work closely with state and tribal governments to ensure LWCF investments support outdoor recreation infrastructure and expand opportunities in underserved and urban communities,” the Department of the Interior published in a news release, while also announcing a $437 million LWCF allocation to all 50 states.
In addition, it appears the program won’t be altered at this time to the extent that advocates had feared. While President Trump’s 2026 budget request included diverting hundreds of millions of conservation and recreation dollars toward maintenance backlogs -- an unauthorized use of the LWCF -- the idea was squashed by members of both parties in Congress, and didn’t make it into Burgum’s order.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between KUNC, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
