19 NOVEMBER 2020 | ASHLAND, OR. — Many of us celebrated the act that creates a fund to address the maintenance backlog plaguing our public lands. It sets aside up to $1.9 billion per year from development of energy on federal lands.
But per the beauty and flaws of federalism, the law leaves a lot of room for the agencies to interpret (read the full text here). There’s no telling how funding will get broken up between agencies, and the jury is still out on how the funds will be spent.
What we’ve observed over the last decade of partnering with federal agencies: Local funding is ultimately dependent on local leadership. When you have motivated and functional agency personnel, they capture funding from various funding pools and get work on the ground done. In the case you have dysfunctional and unmotivated leadership, funding opportunities fly by and assets suffer as a result.
So while the Great American Outdoors Act is a move in the right direction, we know that local leadership has a lot more bearing on the places we work than federal legislation. ###
