Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are receiving unusually intense attention from property-rights advocates and environmentalists because they remain undecided on the Conservation and Reinvestment Act — what could be the most substantial legislation Congress will pass this year. Though the bill has been debated for more than a year, there is nothing wrong with the senators taking their time on this issue, ensuring that both a fair distribution of funds and protection of private property remain as the bill goes through the Senate.

CARA is a collection of programs that Maine has used for more than three decades to support projects from local ball fields to Lake Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge, tennis courts to the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, swimming pools to Acadia National Park — thousands in all, mostly small, in-town projects that improve the quality of life for residents by providing recreational areas that communities could not afford otherwise. These programs are funded through royalties from federal offshore oil and gas revenues, with approximately $3 billion of the $4 billion available going to these important environmental programs.

While their concerns are not identical, Sens. Snowe and Collins both indicated that they want to ensure the $36 million that Maine would receive annually through CARA is not used to create a new national park, an idea property-rights advocates despise. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, the centerpiece of CARA, specifically prohibits that. Similarly, they are keeping an eye on willing-seller provisions and the ban on federal authority overriding state spending. These are legitimate concerns, and it is understandable that the senators would wait until Senate action on the act concludes before voicing their opinions.

But it should not be lost on Maine that CARA, as currently written, could be enormously helpful in protecting coastal areas, particularly in sprawling Southern Maine, or that dozens of conservation initiatives and local park and playground projects depend on the act’s passage. The senators can help the process along by emphasizing their concerns and encouraging colleagues to support a version that addresses landowner concerns and gives states flexibility to make maximum use of this resource.