The Friends of the Nebraska Environmental Trust (NET) will hold a press conference at 9 am on Tuesday, May 2, in the State Capitol Rotunda to discuss an issue of vital importance to the environmental future of the state. We would be grateful if you can attend. Please spread the word.
First, Friends of the NET President Sandy Scofield will highlight information about rule changes being considered Thursday May 4 by the Nebraska Environmental Trust Board that will severely change the process in the awarding of grants to deserving conservation groups. She will discuss alternative recommendations by the Friends group.
Second, former State Senator Scofield will ask the Legislature to block a provision in the state budget bill to transfer $14 million from the Trust Fund to another state agency that by-passes the legally-mandated procedures of the required competitive process. This is an unfair process can deprive organizations that participate in the competitive process of receiving funding.
The Nebraska Environmental Trust is a state agency formed by legislation in 1992 and traditionally distributes $20-25 million annually from the Nebraska State Lottery to private and governmental organizations who apply to the Trust to help fund projects “to conserve, enhance and restore the natural environments of Nebraska.”
Friends of the Nebraska Environmental Trust, a nonprofit, watchdog organization, was created by several former Trust Board members, former state senators and other individuals and organizations interested in ensuring that the Trust is carrying out its mission in accordance with its regulations and the law. Let’s put the trust back in the Environmental Trust.
For more information contact Al Davis: oloranch@gmail.com
Click here to see the 2023 funded projects. Starting with the Conservation Nebraska you can see the organizations that were deprived of funding due to setting aside money for an entity that was not part of the competitive process.
Letter from former State Senator Bob Wickersham
The Nebraska Environmental Trust is under attack from within and without. It’s only defense is your voice.
The Trust was created by the Legislature in 1992 after a constitutional amendment dedicated part of the proceeds form a lottery to environmental purposes. Randy Wood then Director of the Department of Environmental Control testifying on behalf of the Governor in support of legislation creating the Nebraska Environmental Trust expressed the intent of the legislation “I think the most attractive and the biggest benefit of the Environmental Trust is that it enables the citizens, it enables the citizens today and the citizens tomorrow to do something to...for the quality of life and for the environment for the future. We all know that those citizens out there have a vision. They have a great deal of creativity. They have a great deal of ability to network with private and public entities out there to get a job done. Government doesn't do that very well. We don't look to the future very well. We've got our head down. We' re trying to solve problems today. You' re faced every year with us coming to you and say we've got all of these major problems, we need more money to do what we have to do today. We very seldom have an opportunity to look to the future and say, here are some things that need to be done. We need to do some of those things for the future. This bill will enable the average citizen, will enable those average citizen groups out there to come to the trust board with a brilliant idea, an idea that does something lasting, it does something substantial in terms of quality of life and environment in the future, come to the trust, get some money, leverage that money out there in the private world and so something real.”
The Legislature expressed its reasons for creating the trust as” It is the intent of the Legislature to establish the Nebraska Environmental Trust for the purpose of conserving, enhancing, and restoring the natural physical and biological environment in Nebraska, including the air, land, ground water and surface water, flora and fauna, prairies and forests, wildlife and wildlife habitat, and natural areas of aesthetic or scenic values. The current and future well-being of the state and its citizens is vitally dependent on a safe and clean environment and requires a dynamic, proactive approach to address environmental needs. The trust shall complement existing governmental and private efforts by encouraging and leveraging the use of private resources on environmental needs with the greatest potential impact on future environmental quality in Nebraska. The trust shall develop a long-range environmental focus which encompasses the vision of all Nebraskans regarding the future of the environment and shall join public and private efforts in achieving the collective environmental goals of Nebraska's citizens.”
The Trust carried out the intent of the Legislature and the vision of Governor Nelson, Sandy Scofield, Randy Wood and others who worked to create the trust until 2020. In 2020 the Board granted funds to a private entity in violation of the Statues governing the trust and began limiting the kinds of grants it would issue. It would no longer support projects with conservation easements. In 2021 the Board accelerated its gutting of the Trusts mission finding large numbers of grant applications ineligible, many had received funding in prior years, and failing to use all available funds. The Board’s 2021 actions resulted in fewer grant applications in 2022. Again a large number were deemed ineligible for funding and even if deemed eligible for funding many grants were left unfunded even though money was available.
While constraining grants made the Board initiated a variety of changes in grant administration that discourage participation. Many make no sense such as a requirement that grants start on July 1 of each year. Many grant application require work outside. That work can and many times should start well before July1.
Taken together the changes to the way grant applications are considered and the way grants are administered were nearly enough to kill the Trust but the Board was not finished. Now it is proposing to change its rules and regulations deleting provisions that gave guidance to grant applicants, inserting new requirements that will be expensive or impossible to comply with, and giving itself as much discretion as possible so that it can to carry out its destruction of the Trust.
Meanwhile the Trust is also subject to attack from the outside. Governor Pillen has proposed transfer of $7,000,000 from the Trust Fund to the Water Resources Cash Fund. That transfer will limit money the Trust has available for grants. The States general fund is in good shape the Governor does not need to take money from the Trust. So not only is existing money being misused or not used by the Board. Now the Governor wants to simply take money away form the Trust and use it for other purposes.
Trust money has in the past provided grant funding to projects in every county of the State, it has helped the little guys, it has helped organizations that don’t have professional grant writers, it has helped grant applicants without big staffs necessary to administer complex grant requirements, it has helped Nebraska and Nebraskan’s and it can again if the Governor and the Legislature hear form you, We need good conservation minded people appointed to the Board and we need to defeat any transfer of money away from the Trust. Please send the Governor and the Legislature a message of your commitment and belief in the Trust.