During the height of the pandemic, President Donald Trump signed one of the most important pieces of legislation of his first term. It was August 6, 2020, and Trump held a ceremony in the White House passing The Great American Outdoors Act into law.
This historic victory for conservation was decades in the making. The overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation permanently funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), devoting billions of dollars to expanding access to the outdoors, primarily through land purchases.
At the time, Trump compared himself to Theodore Roosevelt, calling himself “the same or almost as good” as America’s greatest conservation president. And while Trump may be known for hyperbole, passing The Great American Outdoors Act did represent a huge victory for public lands — at least until now.
On Friday, May 30, the Trump administration released its budget request for 2026, which includes a “shocking and devastating reversal” of the landmark bill, the LWCF Coalition — an umbrella organization, comprising landowners, outdoor advocates, small businesses, and more — said in a statement.
The proposal would divert $387 million, more than a third of LWCF’s federal funding, to supplant a separate fund used for Forest Service maintenance needs. The diverted funds represent 90% of the money earmarked for protecting national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, and other federal lands.
“This budget would put a stake in the heart of a program that has enjoyed broad bipartisan support for 60 years,” said Amy Lindholm, a spokesperson for the LWCF Coalition and director of federal affairs for the Appalachian Mountain Club.
A New Threat to Outdoor Recreation
The Land and Water Conservation Fund was established by Congress in 1964 to safeguard national areas and outdoor recreation. Rather than using taxpayer dollars, its funding comes from offshore oil and gas leases. But over the decades since its initial creation, the LWCF’s funding was frequently siphoned off by Congress toward other purposes — until the Great American Outdoors Act.
That landmark bill enshrined the LWCF’s budget as only for conservation purposes, essentially funding projects for public land access in perpetuity. With its budget request Friday, the Trump administration is asking Congress for an amendment that would undo the central tenet of a bill that Trump signed into law 5 years ago.
Trump’s administration wants to use that money for a new Forest Service Deferred Maintenance Program. But money for maintenance is supposed to come from the Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF). Another piece of the Great American Outdoors Act, the LRF’s funding was approved for 5 years and expires this year.
A Senate bill introduced last month, called the America the Beautiful Act, would reauthorize LRF funding through 2033 and leave LWCF money for its intended use: public land access.
Instead, the Trump administration is “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” the LWCF Coalition said.
That would halt the roughly 60 annual public lands projects funded through the LWCF. Examples include a paddling trail in Connecticut, a bear habitat in New Hampshire, and hunting and fishing opportunities at the Yavapai Ranch in Arizona.
Perhaps the best example is the planned acquisition of 538 acres of additional land for Giant Sequoia National Monument in California. The purchase would bring federal ownership of the giant sequoia ecosystem to 99%, improve access for millions of people, reduce crowding, and create new camping and hiking opportunities.
These acquisitions are also time-sensitive. If private landowners lose confidence in the federal government, they may sell the land to someone else.
“It was spectacular to see folks mobilize against the public lands sale,” Lindhold told GearJunkie. “But this is just as big a threat.”
Other Programs on the Chopping Block
The LWCF isn’t the only program targeted for steep cuts by Trump’s proposed budget. His plan for the U.S. Interior Department also calls for the following changes:
- Cutting total funding for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) by 33%, from $1.4 billion to $936 million, according to a budget overview released by the Interior Department on Monday.
- Eliminating the BLM’s onshore renewable energy program and the Bureau of Ocean Energy. Management’s offshore wind program (while adding $15.9 million to oversee new coal leases on about 570 million acres of BLM land).
- Cutting BLM funding for wildlife habitat management by 76% (from $149 million to $35 million).
- Making a 75% cut to the National Conservation Lands system (bringing its funding from $60 million to $15 million).
- Cutting the entire budget for the U.S. Geological Survey’s “ecosystems” program, which includes grants to universities for what the Trump budget calls “social agendas [such as] climate change research.”
These changes would impact all forms of outdoor recreation, Kaden McArthur, director of policy and government relations at Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA), told GearJunkie. That includes the sportsmen and women who rely on the LWCF to prevent loss of access to public lands.
“The president’s budget proposes to dismantle the overwhelmingly bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and divert LWCF funding, which BHA and many others in the hunting and fishing community worked so hard to ensure would never happen again,” McArthur said.
The LWCF Coalition urged the public to contact their representatives in Congress and tell them to vote against Trump’s proposed budget cuts. The Department of the Interior did not return GearJunkie’s requests for comment.
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