The Land and Water Conservation Fund contains many worthwhile projects, but the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan is not one of them.
-David Ortman
Below is a letter you can use to contact your U.S. House Representative regarding inclusion of the Yakima Plan in the Lands Use Bill that recently passed the U.S. Senate. It is important to stay in our legislators ears as we continue our fight to Save Lake Kachess! Let them know slipping in bad projects in to otherwise good legislation is unacceptable.
Feel free to copy the letter or use it for inspiration.
Sample Letter for your U.S. Representative
“The Land and Water Conservation Fund contains many worthwhile projects, but the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan is not one of them. YBIP should be evaluated with rigorous and unbiased analysis, not given a “pass” in an unrelated package that avoids the essential oversight of Congress. Please oppose any attempt to authorize YBIP, either separately or in combination with other projects.”
This should be amended. S. 47 is a bundle of various and diverse and unrelated land use bills, including one short section reauthorizing (without a sunset) the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The LWCF provides funding for acquiring private land on behalf of the national and state government. As such, it has little to nothing to do with the Yakima Plan (although in the future it is possible that some small inholdings in the Yakima Basin may be purchased with LWCF funds.
So to be more accurate:
“S. 47 contains many worthwhile projects (including re-authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund), but authorizing Phase III of the the Yakima Basin (Subtitle C, Secs. 8201+) is not one of them. The Yakima Plan should not be authorized given that the benefits do not exceed the costs, environmental studies have not been completed, and the Yakima Plan was unable to be passed by the U.S. Senate on its own, but has been rolled into a much larger bill. In addition, the House of Representatives has not held any hearings on S. 47. Please oppose any attempt to authorize the Yakima Plan either separately or in combination with other projects.”
Thank you,
Citizen Kane