June 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 33

By Jon Wisbey

advo cacy update

Rallying Support
for Parks and Recreation
Funding

A

Meet the allies of parks and
recreation in the 112th Congress
s Congress prepares to debate and negotiate

a federal budget for Fiscal Year 2012, no federal
funding is completely safe from the threat of budget cuts. Programs that fund parks and recreation will also
need to be vigorously defended in Congress over the coming year if funding is to be preserved and expanded.

Throughout these debates, advocates throughout
the country will call upon members of Congress to
renew their support for vital initiatives like the Land
and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Stateside program, the Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act, and the Healthy Communities program,
all of which provide significant financial support for
local park and recreation systems. Particularly crucial to securing this funding will be strong continuing leadership from those members who have been
champions for local park and recreation resources
throughout their career, a politically diverse group
that includes Democrats and Republicans in both
chambers. It is this core of supporters who will need
to be mobilized in support of local park and recreation programs in the 112th Congress.

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Who are these Congressional allies?
Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) has been
a stout and consistent supporter of local parks and
recreational funding and has called the LWCF Stateside program " one of the most successful federalstate-local partnership programs in the history of
the Department of the Interior. " Over the past several years, McGovern has launched repeated legislative attempts to ensure that the Stateside program
secures its fair share of funding and he is likely to be
once again at the forefront of discussions about the
vital role of federal funding for parks and recreation

	

in the 112th Congress. However, his support for
parks and recreation is much broader than just the
LWCF Stateside program. Most recently, McGovern led efforts for a " Dear Colleague " letter sent to
Secretary Sebelius at the Department of Health and
Human Services, urging the Secretary to maintain
funding for the Healthy Communities program in FY
11 and FY 12. The Healthy Communities program
provides modest funding to communities of all sizes.
The funding is used to bring together stakeholders
within the community to plan and implement strategies that address the health issues most relevant to
individual communities.
A member of the powerful House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Interior and the Environment,
which sets federal funding levels for the LWCF Stateside program among other park and recreation priorities, Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) is
positioned to become one of the most influential supporters for local park and recreational funding in the
112th Congress. In the 111th Congress, Lummis joined
with McGovern and Representatives Joe Courtney
(D-CT) and Marcia Fudge (D-OH) to lead a bipartisan effort to obtain full funding for the LWCF Stateside program. Lummis was the winner of NRPA's 2010
Congressional Award, and as a strong voice for preserving federal funding for local park and recreation
systems, she will bring a much-needed perspective
to funding debates within the Interior Subcommittee.

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June 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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