LWCF / GOA - Ted Cruz

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Nov 1, 2019
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For those of you from texas...may be of interest to others. Our US senator does not have much interest in public lands and had voted against this act...pinged him about it several months ago and just got the response this week

Thank you for contacting me regarding the acquisition and conservation of public lands. Input from fellow Texans significantly informs my decision-making and empowers me to better represent the state.

America has been blessed with many natural resources. It is our duty to act as responsible stewards to protect our waters, air, and land, along with the many plants and animals that inhabit our lands. The best way to protect all these resources is implementing rational environmental laws that balance the protection of the environment with the rights of private property owners. Texas public lands include some of our most coveted national treasures, from Big Bend National Park to the Padre Island National Seashore. Maintaining public access, infrastructure, and the natural beauty of these lands should be a top priority.

The federal government currently owns 28 percent of all land in the United States and over 50 percent of lands in some states. While the federal government has primarily focused on the acquisition of land, the maintenance of existing federal land has been neglected. Within the National Park Service alone, there is a backlog of deferred maintenance projects that exceeds $11 billion. Despite these facts, federal agencies acquire and hold massive swaths of land, especially in western states, putting these lands out of commercial and even recreational use which deprives surrounding communities of economic and environmental benefits.

Federal programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) allow Congress to provide funding to federal, state, and local governments primarily for the acquisition and development of public lands. Since its inception over 50 years ago, the LWCF has drifted far from its original intent and is in desperate need of reform. Programs like the LWCF often devolve into tools that allow the government to acquire land at will and with little oversight. Simply reauthorizing the LWCF, or doing so without meaningful reforms, will only further erode the efficacy of the program. While I value conservation, federal acquisition of more and more land is not the proper way to achieve it.
 

generalist

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Texas has next to no public land, for him this position makes sense. This is an example of the rock and hard place a lot of hunters find themselves. I'm going to assume Cruz is pro 2A, he's Texan. At the same time though, he's going to be, for all intents and purposes, anti-public lands. You want your guns or your public land?
 
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Who said anything about gun rights? The idea that we should give politicians a pass on everything else because they support gun rights is ridiculous.

I let republicans I voted for know that they are dogshit on conservation issues frequently.
 
OP
P
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I have a pretty good idea in my head ( which may be wrong ) of what his intentions are and the money is pretty obvious. It's the usual transfer the land to the state...but the state has to make enough money on the land and if they are spending all their time in court trying to get permission to log or drill they don't make money...so they just sell it. Which means we lose it. It's different from state to state what you can / cannot do on state lands...some you cannot hunt, some you cannot camp, some you cannot target shoot. once land is in private hands you typically don't get access to it every again.

The sad part is that public lands are used for logging, mining, grazing, drilling + all of the recreational uses which support economies of the local community. He knows this...it's intentional messaging that it cannot / is not used for this which pisses me off. What I am unsure of is how much land is actually acquiring...I think this is all a play on the transfer of BLM/USFS to national monument type stuff.

Just the nonsense in the letter is pretty damn blatant and annoying. I know he has hunted before but every time I have heard about it has been on private land in tests or midwest game reserves.
 

NDGuy

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Just the nonsense in the letter is pretty damn blatant and annoying. I know he has hunted before but every time I have heard about it has been on private land in tests or midwest game reserves.
Better get used to that, it's going to be our only option eventually if things keep going the way they are going.
 

Tenstrike

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MN
On a recent podcast Randy Newberg commented on the senator's thoughts on public land and Randy quoted a past comment of Sen. Cruz, it was something like, "2% of Texas is public land and in my opinion that is 2% too much." I am thankful I live in a state that has an abundance of land open to the public for hunting and fishing.
 

Northpark

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The lwcf isn’t being used to buy more federal land. It’s being used to update campgrounds, fix roads and trails and generally just try to update infrastructure from the 1950s. Most of the LWCF (something around 80%) funds are going to the park service. I know this because I’m one of the USFS guys trying to get a little bit of funds.
 

mtwarden

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^ I don't think he (Cruz) really cares about the details :)

I know that some lands are being purchased (or opened through easements) by local municipalities and state agencies, of course they are open to the public- such a waste of money :rolleyes:
 

FLAK

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Yeah, thats a big turn off on Cruz for me. IMO, state run lands are worse than Federal lands. I would much rather hunt/fish on Forestry/BLM land than I had State WMA's.
And, being in TX, he really has no ground to speak about public lands.
 

Pabst

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Who said anything about gun rights? The idea that we should give politicians a pass on everything else because they support gun rights is ridiculous.

I let republicans I voted for know that they are dogshit on conservation issues frequently.
Very sad how voters make single-issue decisions on who to vote for. Almost doesn't matter what that one single issue is when so much else is being let slide.
 

5MilesBack

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It's funny how a lot of people make assumptions about people based on decisions they've made. Just like "anyone that's against open borders must be a racist and anti-immigration". That's just idiotic thinking. There's a lot of misconceptions out there about the "why's" regarding public land and/or the management/mismanagement of said lands. Similar to government "welfare".......the government has no business being in philanthropic endeavors.....especially with OUR money. But if an elected official is against that, then they're labeled cold-blooded heartless racists. You have to look much deeper to find the logical reasons why decisions are made, rather than making a rash emotional assessment of the "why's".
 

mtwarden

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Ted Cruz and conservation I don't think are very often mentioned in the same sentence.
 

Firestone

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Right now its not the sell off of public lands that scares me, its the selling of timber company land. In my home valley right now its out of control. 500,000 acres have switched owners 3 times in the last year and a half. The Gults have been buying up sections all around us from who at the time was weyrehouser. And this is in northwest Mt where its timber country, not ranch land. Almost the entire Thompson River drainage and surrounding areas could be sold off to a "non" public buyer. Thats scary
 
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Cruz is presenting a false dichotomy that land is either public and off-limits, or private and productive. That's either ignorant or intentionally misleading. He also makes it sound like he's pro- public land maintenance, while voting against a bill that funds public land maintenance. He's a politician to the core and he position here shows that. Texas has terrible public lands opportunity so this is politically a low-risk position for him to take, but one that probably helps him get donations from certain powerful individuals or companies.

Speaking of false dichotomies I hate the idea that you have to put up with anti-2A or anti-public lands politicians with nothing in between. My home state of Arkansas has conservative congressmen who are big supporters of public lands and improving access. We shouldn't be putting up with garbage that has us convinced the alternative is worse.
 

brocksw

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Who said anything about gun rights? The idea that we should give politicians a pass on everything else because they support gun rights is ridiculous.

I let republicans I voted for know that they are dogshit on conservation issues frequently.
Effin A cotton! Preach!
 
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