Bird Calendars

Postcard from the President

By Jer Toll 

Let's Protect the Nebraska Environmental Trust from Legislative Raiding

I have been hearing a lot of rumblings from the Nebraska Legislature about how the recession has depleted the state coffers and the challenges they face trying to find enough money to keep the state running. One place our senators are looking for sources of revenue is the Nebraska Environmental Trust. There were no less than three bills and a constitutional amendment introduced to eliminate or greatly reduce the mandated purpose of the Trust.

The Trust began with the agreement in 1993 that if Nebraska started a lottery, the revenues would be split between education and the Environmental Trust. It was voted on by Nebraskans who overwhelmingly passed the amendment. Since then, periodically, legislators have tried to raid the Trust even though it receives bipartisan political support and wide support across Nebraska from diverse groups.

According to an op-ed in the Omaha World Herald, an effort in 2004 to safeguard the Trust by a constitutional amendment was again passed by the voters "but even then that didn't stop the raiding. As the support for the latest fund diversion shows, there's a powerful, ongoing temptation at the Capitol to disregard the repeated expressions of the voters' will on this issue."

The Nebraska Environmental Trust has widespread support for good reason.

According to the Trusts' 2010 Annual Report, all 93 counties in Nebraska have received financial support on natural resource projects totaling over $157 million on over 1,200 projects. The Trust, on average, gets $2 in matching funds for every $1 it gives out in grants. Over $471 million has so far been made available for natural resource projects.

The Board of Trustees has demonstrated their commitment to equitably distribute grants across the state based on population and geography. The grants go to projects as diverse as the needs of Nebraskans. There are small grants to towns for tree planting, grants for NRDs to improve water quality or soil management, grants for recycling, or for grassland habitat improvement, for some examples.

The Trust has been good for birds and bird lovers. In 2008, the Trust joined with the Nebraska Bird Partnership to fund BEAK, a program to teach Nebraska kids about Nebraska birds. The Trust was instrumental in the purchase of Audubon Nebraska's Spring Creek Prairie and has since aided with expansion and easement efforts around the prairie. Rowe Sanctuary has received three grants for habitat restoration and protection of critical habitat for cranes.

¨ LB 229 will take $7 million per year for the next 11 years from the Environmental Trust and transfer it to the Water Resources Cash Fund. The WRCF was set up to deal with the water compacts with Kansas and other states over allocations of surface water.

¨ LB 395 would not allow the five agency directors who currently sit on the Trust's 14-member board to vote (the directors of the Departments of Agriculture, Environmental Control, Game and Parks, Natural Resources and Division of Public Health). The other nine board members are governor appointees, three from each congressional district. The bill will limit the expertise currently made available to the board.

¨ LB 229 would limit the Environmental Trust to no more than 10% of its grant funds to be made available for land purchases and conservation easements. Additionally, it would allow only political subdivisions to be eligible for land acquisitions with Trust funds. Under these rules, no charitable organization such as Audubon would be eligible for Trust grants, and habitat protection would be sharply curtailed.

¨ LB 51CA is a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Environmental Trust altogether.

(Thanks to the Wachiska Audubons' newsletter "The Babbling Brook" for a synopsis of the bills.)

"These bills are bad solutions to real problems and should be rejected by the state legislature." Dave Mooter, retired state forester.

Stop the raiding of the Environmental Trust. Voice your opposition to your state senator and write an op-ed or blog.