WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo) offered an amendment to the Omnibus bill to restore funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program. The amendment, which is paid for by reducing US spending on overseas programs, would provide $421 million for PILT in Fiscal Year 2014. Local governments receive federal payments under the PILT program to help compensate for the loss of property tax revenue due to non-taxable federal lands within their boundaries.
“Since Washington controls almost half of the land in Wyoming, local communities miss out on hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue each year,” said Barrasso. “The PILT program is a fair way to make sure states like Wyoming have the resources they would have if they had control over more of their land. Washington needs to do the right thing and restore funding for the PILT program immediately.”
The amendment was cosponsored by Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Dean Heller (R-NV), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), James Inhofe (R-OK), James Risch (R-ID), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and John Hoeven (R-ND).
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The funding for PILT is offset by reductions of $421 million from the following international climate change programs under the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act:
– U.S. Contributions to the Global Environment Facility (GEF)- $143.75 million
– U.S. Contributions to the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) – $184.63 million
– U.S. Contributions to the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF) – $49.9 million
– Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change/United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – $10 million
– Sustainable Landscape programs in the bilateral economic assistance through the economic support fund – $32.72 million.
The GEF is an international financial institution that receives U.S. contributions to help address global climate change and other environmental issues.
The CTF and the SCF are investment trust funds administered by the multilateral development banks which finance low-carbon technologies and climate-resilient development in foreign countries.
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