With less than seven months remaining before the expiration of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, state and tribal officials gathered in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to urge its renewal before Sept. 30.
The federal government authorized $415 million in 2016 to help mitigate fire risk in the Tahoe Basin and preserve the lake’s famous clarity, but only $114 million of that has been appropriated so far.
H.R. 1274, the Lake Tahoe Restoration Reauthorization Act, would extend the expiration of the program another decade until Sept. 30, 2034. But the bill has languished in Congress since its introduction a little over a year ago.
“The federal government owns 80% of the land in the basin,” Steve Spurlock, chair of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, said in a Wednesday morning press conference at the Capitol. “And absent the protections of a national park, the basin really needs federal support to confront some of the challenges facing the basin today.”