Half of CARA

Supporters of the largest federal conservation program in years may have thought the many months they had spent debating, negotiating and lining up members of Congress to support the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) would have assured them of getting it passed this year. A sudden compromise between the White House and Western senators, however, left them with a half measure – at $12 billion over six years, still large, but not what leading Democrats and Republicans wanted. Now, in the final days of the session, there’s a chance to pass separately some of the pieces of CARA they could not pass whole.

CARA had overwhelming support in the House, was backed by the White House and had the apparent support of 63 senators who sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott demanding a vote on the proposal. The proposal had plenty of local support because it helps pay to preserve land, protect coastal areas, fund ball fields and swimming pools and allow states such as Maine better fund wildlife and open-space programs. But just as this Senate has become not a place to propose legislation, but a place to kill it, a few senators with individual problems – its automatic funding mechanism, the amount of funding – threatened to stall it permanently.

Late last month, a compromise between congressional leaders and the White House was reached, irritating some conservationists because it contained less, for instance, for wildlife and turning away some property-rights advocates because it does not have all the explicit protections that had been included in CARA. More to the point, the compromise is a year-to-year proposal, with no long-term planning for the programs it covers and no stable source of funding. A bit of good news for Maine: The compromise did keep $2 million for easements on Pingree land and at least $2 million for a stretch along the West Branch of the Penobscot.

Overall, however, what began as an attempt to build a permanent way to use federal offshore drilling revenues to fund natural-resource programs, as intended a generation ago, ended with merely a beefed-up Interior spending bill. States affected by offshore drilling, however, are still hoping that a portion of CARA – its $150 million Coastal Impact program – can survive attached to another spending bill, for the departments of Commerce, Justice and State. A similar proposal is being drafted for Northeastern states that should receive support from the Maine delegation.

The program would provide $60 million in competitive grant money awarded to states that nominate land determined to be of clear regional significance based on their ecological, recreational or cultural value. No federal parks, or even federal land, is allowed through this proposal, yet it gives this region of the country a chance to use federal land money, which during the past several years has largely gone to Western states.

It isn’t clear how soon Congress will complete its session, but a proposal this straightforward, with the proper push from Maine’s senators, still has a chance at passage in the next few days. It would rescue a small part of a large and popular plan.