In Washington Wednesday, U.S. Senator Tom Udall secured a commitment from U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt that the Trump administration is now supporting full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, following President Trump’s tweets last night that he is “calling on Congress to send [him] a Bill that fully and permanently funds the LWCF,” despite his administration once again cutting funding for it by 97 percent in its latest budget.
Udall, the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, also questioned Bernhardt about political interference and subversion of climate change science throughout the agency. Secretary Bernhardt and Senator Udall had this conversation during Wednesday’s Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee hearing on the Department of the Interior’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget request, beginning with the New Mexico Democrat: