September 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 29

W hen N R PA questioned key DOI
staff about the conversation, we were
told that the Administration " did not
support the amendment nor efforts
to further restrict how the funds were
spent. " We were further told that DOI
preferred discretion and flexibility in
the determination of spending.
NRPA is surprised and disappointed in
this lack of support from the Administration. We have requested a meeting with
DOI to discuss how they plan to sustain the
State Assistance program for future generations without such language in place.

Outlook and Next Steps
The House passed the CLEAR act by a
mere 16 votes. The Senate bill seems to
be more controversial and right now,
it does not appear that leadership has
the 60 votes needed to move the bill
forward. Prior to the August recess,
there was discussion about possibly

combining the energy bill authored by
Democrats with one that is favored by
Republicans in order to get the votes. It
is uncertain which path the Senate will
take. If they do not combine the two
bills, Democrats may prevent Republicans from offering amendments which
means Senator Barrasso could not offer his amendment that would provide
minimum funding for the State Assistance program.
There is a lot of negotiating that
needs to be done on this bill to get it
passed out of the Senate prior to Congress adjourning in early October to hit
the campaign trail. It would not be surprising to see the Senate table this until after the November elections which
is what they did in 2006 with the Gulf of
Mexico Energy Security Act.
Regardless of when the Senate decides to bring the bill to the f loor, we
must now work to get the Administration

on board with a minimum funding level
for the State Assistance Program while
also finding a Democratic Senator who is
willing to work to convince Senate leadership that this provision must be added despite a lack of support from the
Administration.
We encou rage N R PA mem bers
to visit http://www.nrpa.org/Content.
aspx?id=622 for the most current LWCF
talking points. The most current LWCF
talking points are listed under " Other Resources. " You can obtain talking points
and other resources that can be useful
when contacting your Senator. We also
remind our professional members that
citizens and friends groups have powerful voices, and encourage you to engage
as many citizens and friends groups as
possible in this advocacy effort.

Stacey Pine is Chief Government Affairs

Officer for NRPA

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SEPTEMBER 2010

Parks & Recreation 27

September 2010 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2010 - Parks & Recreation