Tea Party - Freedom Caucus. Same-O, Same-O.

       Have you ever heard of the Land and Water Conservation Fund? No? Well how about the Appalachian Trail or the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania where the plane went down on 9-11, 2001? Well as it turns out that Land & Water Conservation Fund helped to purchase lands for those two and other locations in every state and nearly every single county in America.  And has continued to help fund them.
       And guess what? Not one single dime of taxpayer money has ever been used to do it. Pretty hard to believe isn't it. Well it's true. The money for this fund comes from offshore oil and gas leases and the like. Upps, sorry. That's not quite true. The money for this fund used to come from those sources. But since October 1, 2015, that money is no longer available to the fund. You may ask why, in fact I hope you ask why.
       The reason is that, in spite of overwhelming support in Congress from both Democrats and Republicans, one man, one Congressman, the Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah refuses to allow a vote to come to the floor to reauthorize it. But he does have a really good reason for refusing to allow a vote. He wants all that lease money to go back to the oil and gas companies. I think he feels these multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 companies are just poor folks in need of a handout.
       The New York Times Op-ed on this deal was written by Timothy Egan. The thing is, you don't live very far from some piece of trail or monument or scenic view or other place and I'd be willing to bet you've taken advantage of one or more of these places, but because of this single Freedom Caucus member of Congress, you might not have that opportunity to do it again.
       The last time this L&WCF fund had to be reauthorized was 25 years ago and it sailed through without complaint. It would now too, well except for Congressman Bishop and maybe a few other Freedom Caucus members. They used to be called Tea Partiers, but I think they felt they got a bad reputation. Small wonder. How long will it be before they have to change their title again?