January 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 20

ADVOCACY

AF TER THE CLIFF

NRPA has three priorities regarding
LWCF. The ﬁrst is to have Congress enact authorizing legislation that protects
the interest of states and local communities by ensuring 40 percent of
the total funding provided to LWCF is
allocated to the LWCF State Assistance
Program on a yearly basis-the same
amount currently required by law to be
provided to the federal land acquisition
program. Secondly, in absence of authorizing legislation, NRPA asks appropriators to exercise their discretionary
power and allocate at least 40 percent
of the total LWCF funding to the State
Assistance Program through the annual appropriations process. Additionally, NRPA asks appropriators to oppose
attempts to use LWCF State Assistance
dollars for purposes other than originally intended, such as a Department
of Interior-administered competitive
grant program.
During the 112th Congress, the
LWCF was almost funded for $700
million for two years, while being reauthorized until 2022. Unfortunately,
that funding was taken out of the surface transportation bill, despite strong
bi-partisan support from many members of Congress and much of the public. Under the FY 2012 allocation, $45
million was allocated to the state assistance program. Approximately this
same amount is allocated under the
current CR, which is in effect until
March. NRPA will continue to ﬁght
for additional funding for the LWCF
State Assistance Program.

Surface Transportation
One area that the 113th Congress is sure
to address is that of surface transportation. The 112th Congress passed, and
the President signed, the Moving Ahead
for Progress in the 21st Century Act
(MAP-21). This bill provided transportation infrastructure funding for ﬁscal
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Parks & Recreation

| JANUARY 2013 | WWW.NRPA.ORG

years 2013 and 2014, which means that
the 113th Congress will be responsible
for planning future funding. In addition to removing LWCF funding, one
of the things that the MAP-21 bill did
was to create a funding category called
Transportation Alternatives that encompassed several popular programs
including Transportation Enhancements (TE), Safe Routes to School, and
the Recreational Trails Programs. MAP21 allowed states to opt out of participating in the Recreational Trails Program,
but still receive Transportation Alternatives funding.
The new surface transportation bill
will offer opportunities to ﬁx the ﬂaws
that were present in MAP-21. Planning and advocacy have already begun.
The incoming House Transportation
and Infrastructure Chairman, Rep. Bill
Shuster (R-PA), has already met with
Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-WV)
about next year's committee agenda.
Additionally, senior staff have been
meeting, which bodes well for the passage of a bipartisan surface transportation bill. Additionally, in the Senate, trail
supporters Merkley (D-OR) and Cardin
(D-MD) remain in Congress.

Urban Parks Legislation
The Urban Revitalization and Livable
Communities Act (H.R. 709) and its
Senate counterpart, The Community Parks Revitalization Act (S. 3583),
provide matching federal grants to
revitalize urban areas through local
park and recreation projects and programs. It was introduced in the House
by Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) and in the
Senate by Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC).
Funding is provided through a competitive grant process administered by
the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD). Types of grants
include rehabilitation and construction grants, innovation grants, at-risk

January 2013 - Parks & Recreation

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