Our nation boasts an abundance of beautiful topography. Sweeping plains, rolling hills and valleys, rugged deserts, glassy lakes, and cascading waterfalls are all found across our various states. And Americans should indeed enjoy the benefits of these natural features.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act of 1965 was enacted to further this goal: to strengthen the “health and vitality” of our citizens by helping preserve, develop, and ensure access to outdoor recreation resources. While this is certainly a laudable goal, the fund has unfortunately drifted far from its original intent and is in desperate need of reform.

The fund was set up to be the principal source of money for federal land acquisition, and to assists states in developing recreational planning and facilities. Originally, the LWCF directed 60% of its funds to be appropriated for state purposes and 40% for federal purposes. However, in 1976 the law was amended to remove the 60% state provision, stating that “not less than 40%” must be used for federal purposes.

The result? About 61% of this money has historically been spent on federal land acquisition, while only 25% has been allocated to state grants. The LWCF has thus added an additional 5 million acres of land to the federal government’s vast estate.

Unfortunately, the federal government has proven to be a poor steward of the land that it has purchased. According to a 2017 CRS report, the maintenance backlog on federal land is estimated to be $18.62 billion. Wildfires have run rampant in the West and the government has failed abysmally in preventing them. Ill-kept roads and trails mean that citizens sometimes don’t have access to our nation’s greatest parks.

The LWCF’s ability to accrue additional revenues to the fund is set to expire on September 30th. Supporters argue that the program cannot function without reauthorization, and just this week there was already a proposal in Congress to permanently reauthorize it – without any major reforms.

But the fund currently has a balance of $21.6 billion that can continue to be appropriated for LWCF projects going forward. Under the FY2018 appropriation level, it would take around 50 years to exhaust the fund.

Congress has reauthorized the program, without reform, for years. And permanently reauthorizing the program would be even worse, because it would deny us of any leverage to enact changes to it in the future.

I believe that there are several key reforms that we can and should make before reauthorizing it.

First, we should restore the original balance of funds so that the majority of them go to the states, as the law originally intended. We ought to empower the states and local stakeholders – who are best equipped to manage LWCF funds and care for the lands in their jurisdiction.

Second, we should mandate that the funds cannot be used for further land acquisition by the federal government. Instead, a portion should be required to go towards National Park Service maintenance backlog projects.

The last thing Congress should do is authorize more money for the federal government to acquire more lands that it can’t take care of. If we truly want greater access to and preservation of our nation’s beautiful lands and waters, we need to rethink LCWF in the long term.

A few years ago a small start-up company in California called JUST, Inc., formerly known as Hampton Creek, started selling a vegan brand of mayonnaise called “Just Mayo” in stores nationwide.

This start-up company was the picture of an American success story: a small business that developed a popular and innovative product, in this case an affordable eggless alternative to mayonnaise.

But “Just Mayo” was too successful for the likes of the egg industry. So much so that top executives from the industry conspired with a federal entity called the American Egg Board and USDA employees to coerce and threaten retailers into not carrying the “Just Mayo” brand.

And how did they do this? They accused JUST, Inc. of illegally using the term “mayonnaise” since their product did not contain any eggs.

What was their true crime? Their success. As the American Egg Board’s CEO had put it in an email to colleagues, Just Mayo posed a “crisis and major threat to the future of the egg product business.”

This is just one example of cronyist abuse of “standards of identity” established by the FDA.

The FDA established these labeling requirements to regulate what a food product must contain to be marketed under a certain name. While they were set in place with the intent of protecting consumer safety as part of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, these antiquated rules have failed to keep pace with modern innovations.

Instead, they have been used as a tool by the well-established food industries to suppress competition and limit new players from entering the market.

And the market for meat, dairy, and egg alternatives – such as plant-based products – has only grown in recent years. In fact, between 2015 and 2016 the total profit for sales in plant-based foods rose by 8 percent. Consumers are clear that they want these options available to them.

But the current labeling requirements on the books are poised to restrict many of these innovative products.

For example, milk is defined by the FDA as “lacteal secretion… obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows.” By this definition, almond milk, soy milk, and coconut milk – among others – technically violate the legal standard.

And the list goes on… “almond butter,” “goat cheese,” and “gluten-free bread,” for example, could also be accused of being illegally labeled.

Not only are these labeling requirements outdated, but they are also unnecessary. There are already separate requirements for manufacturers to list all of a product’s ingredients on the nutrition facts panel – confirming the fact that consumers are not “deceived” by these labels.

The truth is that these labeling requirements play right into the hands of the large, cronyist food industries that want to place new, innovative products at a disadvantage. Because after becoming established and reaching success themselves, they aim to pull up the ladder behind them – preventing any of the small competitors from having a chance in a level playing field. Rather than playing fair and square, they stifle competition and rig the rules of the game in their favor.

That’s why I have introduced legislation that would protect “standard of identity” requirements from this kind of abuse.

This bill would prohibit “standards of identity” from being enforced against products simply because of their use of a common compound name – specifically where a word or phrase identifies an alternative plant or animal source.

Because the cronies should not have a stranglehold on food terms, or a monopoly on the market. It is only right that we let companies like JUST, Inc. – and the other small start-ups and innovators across the country – have a fair shot at the competition.

Americans are increasingly divided on many issues, but federal funding for interstate highways isn’t one of them.

The American people broadly support federal spending to maintain the interstate highway system and the federal gas tax has been a reasonable, but not perfect, way to pay for it.

Unfortunately, decades ago politicians in Washington began using the once flush Highway Trust Fund to fund their own non-highway transportation pet projects.

In 1983, for example, Congress created a mass transit account within the Highway Trust Fund that was funded by simply stealing gas tax dollars from the HTF.

Today roughly 25 percent of your gas tax dollars are diverted in a similar fashion to bike paths, buses, light rail, streetcars, and vegetation management.

No wonder the system is broke.

For more than 10 years, Congress has transferred or authorized more than $144 billion from the general fund to bailout the HTF. Absent any changes, the CBO estimates that the HTF will still face a cumulative shortfall of $161 billion by 2028.

The status quo is not sustainable. And that is why I have introduced the Transportation Empowerment Act with Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Under our bill, the federal gasoline tax would gradually be lowered from 18.3 cents per gallon to 3.7 cents per gallon over the next five years, leaving Washington with sufficient funds to maintain the current interstate highway system. It also would give states a more equitable share of federal gas-tax revenue as block grants. States would then be free to set their own gas tax levels and fund their own transportation projects.

By cutting out the federal middleman, we can protect these funds from greedy politicians and special interests taking their cut before sending them back to the states with strings and burdensome regulations attached. And we can lessen the influence of distant bureaucrats in Washington who waste the money on inefficient and non-highway projects.

Instead, states and cities could plan, finance, and build better-designed and more affordable projects. All 50 states would be empowered to meet their diverse transportation needs.

Some communities could build more roads, while others could repair old ones. Some might build highways, others light rail. All would be free to experiment with innovative green technologies, and could find new ways to finance their projects.

In our 21st Century Economy, we need a 21st Century transportation system. And the best way to do this is to allow state and local governments to customize their transportation policies to meet their unique needs and values. The Transportation Empowerment Act is a step in that direction.

In the movie The Lion King, Mufasa is teaching young Simba about the lands he will eventually rule by saying “Look, Simba, everything the light touches is our kingdom…”

While this moment is fine when played out by a cartoon monarchy, it is gross federal overreach when it’s perpetuated by a federal bureaucracy in the United States. Yet that is essentially what is happening under the Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule that was imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corp of Engineers in 2015. These bureaucrats essentially said “everything the water touches is our jurisdiction…”

The rule allowed them to claim regulatory control over even “ephemeral” or “intermittent” water flows, meaning that even man-made ditches or patches of dry land that retain water only a few days a year are subject to the administrative control of this agency.

This would increase EPA jurisdiction over state lands by as much as 400%.

While the Trump administration wisely delayed the rule’s implementation until 2020, Congress needs to act to provide certainty that this rule will not go into effect. It was Congress that allowed this rule to come into being, and Congress needs to fix it.

When Congress passed the Clean Water Act of 1972, it granted ambiguous authority over the waterways of the United States to the EPA. In the kind of horrible lawmaking that often happens in Washington, D.C., the legislative branch gave up their lawmaking authority by setting a broad, vague standard and allowing an administrative agency - filled with unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats - to figure out the rest.

The mess that is WOTUS is a perfect example of this.

WOTUS was crafted by the EPA in a flawed - and actually illegal - process. Not only did the EPA disregard the comments of ranchers, farmers, and others who would be most affected by this rule, but the Government Accountability Office ruled that the EPA broke the law when advocating for support of this rule while it was being developed.

Additionally, water that is sourced on private property could require property owners to obtain EPA permits for routine actions such as landscaping, farming, or building on their own land. Many people that would be affected by this rule wouldn’t even be aware of it, and could be subject to thousands of dollars a day in fines.

This is why I attempted to attach a WOTUS repeal amendment to this week’s appropriations bill. This kind of policy attachment to an appropriation bill is not uncommon. Yet, despite the WOTUS repeal amendment having a recent history of bipartisan, majority support in Congress and actually passing in the House’s appropriation bill, 20 of my GOP colleagues joined with the majority of Democrats in voting to table the measure. This was done solely for political purposes and continues Congress’s pattern of legislative abdication.

While the King of Pride Rock may have authority to broadly claim governance of land unimpeded, the EPA does not have that right. It is Congress’s responsibility to make sure this does not go unchecked, and it is past time we enact legislation to repeal the expansive WOTUS rule.