Our View - CARA Lite is a hollow imitation

By J. Robb Brady - Idaho Falls Post Register Editorial
© Post Register Oct. 12, 2000.

A congressional conference committee's back-door deal with the White House will gut the Conservation and Reinvestment Act. People like Idaho Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Larry Craig may like this watered-down version, but Idaho will suffer because of it.

CARA promised to redeem a 35-year-old promise to provide permanent, reliable funding for wildlife and local and state public recreation programs such as playing fields for kids.

CARA was to use royalties from offshore oil drilling to restore lands and build public recreation sites.

It was a sound and popular idea. Thousands of Idahoans liked this approach to shore up state wildlife programs and to address a huge backlog - at least $150 million - of local recreation needs in their state.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and the National Governor's Association supported CARA. Boise Mayor Brent Coles - as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors - lobbied for it.

Five thousand conservation, business and religious organizations urged its passage. A national poll showed 80 percent of Americans wanted it.

So what happened?

A small group of Western Republicans, including Idaho's congressional delegation, fought the CARA bill tooth and nail. They were obsessed with fears that CARA would lead to federal buyouts of private lands for public access or open space. CARA answered that concern by limiting federal land acquisitions. No one could be compelled to sell to the government.

No matter. The Western Republicans got their way and CARA got emasculated. Now Craig, Crapo and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, say they will vote for the new bill. U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho, won't.

The original CARA was to be a 15-year, $45 billion trust fund. It's been scaled back to a six-year, $12 billion package.

Spending for parks has been slashed from $450 million to $90 million. CARA proposed to spend $350 million a year for wildlife. Now it's only $50 million.

CARA offered states the opportunity to plan for the long term. That's gone. So is dependability. There's no telling what CARA's budget will look like after it competes each year with pork-barrel projects.

The original CARA would have provided Idaho parks and local recreation projects with $5 million a year. Only a fifth of that amount remains in the new bill.

CARA also would have provided another $4 million a year to help with Idaho wildlife recovery. Now the Idaho Fish and Game Department won't be guaranteed anything for wildlife programs. It will have to compete with other wildlife programs across the country. Just at a time when Idaho will face the burden of managing wolf populations, this new bill won't provide states with money to handle endangered species.

This is not CARA. This is CARA Lite. President Bill Clinton says he'll sign it. But he shouldn't.

Ironically, the Western Republicans got what they least wanted. CARA Lite means there will be more federal control of land acquisition with almost no input from the states.

People like Crapo and Craig let their predictable anti-fed philosophy prevail over parents who are searching for baseball, soccer and hockey facilities for their kids to play.