Commentary: Low-income youth and their families could soon have expanded opportunities to access state parks, federal public lands, and a variety of outdoor recreation and education opportunities as part of a statewide and national coalition effort to establish an Outdoor Equity Fund in the 2019 New Mexico Legislative Session.

Parks and outdoor recreation are not new for many Latino families, and there’s a growing movement of Latino leaders who are calling for increased access to parks in urban and rural communities.

The federal Land and Water Conservation Fund has provided the funding necessary over the past 54 years for underserved communities and families to enjoy access to the outdoors and open spaces. These are families that typically have less opportunities to visit national parks whether because of cost, distance, or time.

WASHINGTON – Last night, the Senate failed to pass bipartisan legislation that would have saved the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which Congress let expire at the end of Sept. The 54-year-old program, which is funded through offshore oil and gas royalties at no cost to taxpayers, has provided more than $18 billion in support of more than 42,000 parks and recreation projects across the country. Attention now shifts to the incoming Congress, where there is hope it will be addressed early next year.

Today, 11 Latino faith leaders from Por la Creación Faith-based Alliance submitted a joint letter to Andrew Wheeler, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Administrator, opposing the proposal to weaken the New Source Performance Standards, which have been in place and working for almost a year, strong and in effect to protect communities living near oil and gas development from harmful pollution.

In a joint letter to Acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler, led by GreenLatinos and Hispanic Access Foundation, 23 Latino organizations urged the EPA to stop its harmful rollback of the New Source Performance Standards – commonsense methane pollution protections finalized in 2016 that limit the release of toxic air pollution from oil and gas operations.

There’s a certain irony in Colorado hosting the one and only public hearing of the President Donald Trump administration’s proposed re-write of the 2016 Environmental Protection Agency methane rule. Colorado was the first to implement state-level methane regulations on oil and gas production in 2014, a mark not only of Colorado values, but the necessity of protecting the health, safety and taxpayer resources associated with being the sixth-largest oil- and gas-producing state.

WASHINGTON, DC – Maite Arce, President and CEO of the Hispanic Access Foundation, released the following statement in response to Senator Kamala Harris’ introduction of the Northwest California Wilderness, Recreation, and Working Forests Act and San Gabriel Mountains, Foothills, and Rivers Protection Act. These two bills support responsible stewardship, as well as meaningful access for all communities to our public lands.

WASHINGTON, DC – Hispanic Access Foundation published ads today in the DC market to highlight the impact the Land and Water Conservation Fund has had on Latino and urban communities throughout the United States and emphasizes why Congress needs to permanently reauthorize and fully fund the program before Congress adjourns in December.

People visit and have moved to our beautiful state of Colorado for the outdoors and the clean, fresh mountain air that accompanies it. I would love to keep our state beautiful, pristine, and appealing for both visitors and residents.