Support Additional Funding for Trails

Support Additional Funding for Trails in the Interior Appropriations Bill

April XX, 2006

Dear Colleague,

I invite you to show your support for trails and join me in contacting Representative Charles Taylor, Chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee and Representative Norman Dicks, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, to request the Subcommittee’s support for additional funding for trails in the FY 2007 Interior Appropriations bill.

The U.S. is blessed with an incredible network of more than 200,000 miles of trails that connect our communities and provide access to outstanding natural and cultural treasures. Our trails offer countless opportunities for healthy, family-oriented recreation, alternatives for transportation, and economic development opportunities. Unfortunately, our trails don’t receive the funding they need, resulting in large maintenance backlogs, deteriorating infrastructure, insufficient staffing, and negative impacts to resources.

The federal land management agencies are barely sustaining themselves with current funding and cannot absorb further budget cuts. Additional funding is critical to ensuring our trail legacy and keeping our trails open, safe, and enjoyable today and for future generations.

For more information or to sign on to the letter, please contact Brad Cantor in my office at brad.cantor@mail.house.gov or x54811. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Earl Blumenauer
Member of Congress

Dear Chairman Taylor and Ranking Member Dicks:

We are writing to express our strong support for additional funding for trails in the FY 2007 Interior Appropriations bill. Trails and recreation have increased dramatically in importance for the American people, yet the federal investment for trails, recreation, and land conservation has not increased accordingly. This lag has resulted in high maintenance backlogs, deteriorating infrastructure, loss of open space, and negative impacts to resources along the more than 200,000 miles of our country’s trails.

Our national system of trails connects to virtually every congressional district in the country, providing healthy, family-oriented recreation activities, alternatives for transportation, model partnerships, and economic development for local communities. Trail programs across the agencies are highly successful in leveraging federal funding, multiplying the federal investment many times over in local, state, and partnership direct funding and in-kind matches.

We support $10.1 million for the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance program (RTCA). Through technical assistance and extensive partnerships, RTCA helps communities across America restore rivers and wildlife habitat, develop trail and greenway networks, preserve open space, and revitalize communities—all contributing to improved quality of life and close-to-home recreation. Flat funding for most of last decade, combined with a $200,000 decrease in FY 2006, has resulted in significant cuts to staff and reduced staff participation in on-the-ground projects. RTCA requires at least a $2 million increase, to $10.1 million, to remedy the program's continued erosion, compensate for losses due to inflation, and enable the program to respond to growing needs and opportunities in communities throughout the country.

We support $90 million for Capital Improvement and Maintenance for Trails and $275 million for Recreation Management, Heritage and Wilderness. The USDA Forest Service manages 133,000 miles of trails and suffers from severe funding shortages. The agency lacks the necessary funding to restore and maintain thousands of trail miles, improve trail infrastructure, prevent and mitigate resource impacts, effectively utilize and support volunteers, and provide safe, high-quality recreational experiences for millions of trail enthusiasts.

Finally, we support $70 million for Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Recreation and Wilderness Management and respectfully request $46 million for operations and planning funding for the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), a $3 million increase over the FY ’06 enacted budget.   This funding level would enable the BLM to maintain services at the FY ‘06 enacted level, while providing additional capacity to address law enforcement and visitor management, science and natural resource monitoring, and cultural resource management.  We also urge you to require BLM to provide a cross-cut budget for NLCS that includes subactivity accounts, similar to that published in the FY 2002 Interior budget, and require BLM to provide expenditure and accomplishment reports on NLCS areas, like Monuments and National Scenic and Historic Trails, starting with reports for FY06.

These funding increases are critical to ensuring our trail legacy and keeping our trails open, safe, and enjoyable today and for future generations. We look forward to working with the Subcommittee in the coming months to adequately fund these essential programs. Thank you for considering this request. 

Sincerely,

[Your Name Here]

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