OLD SAYBROOK – Today, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and U.S. Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-2) celebrated the permanent renewal of the conservation easement tax incentive as well as significant federal funding for land preservation. Murphy and Courtney joined State Senator Art Linares, State Rep. Devin Carney, First Selectman Carl Fortuna, Mike Urban of the Old Saybrook Land Trust, and other community leaders at the town hall in Old Saybrook, which recently completed one of Connecticut’s largest land conservation projects.

“Today, we announced a pretty amazing set of wins for land conservation in Connecticut and across the country,” said Murphy. “I have been working on the issue of land conservation since my time in the U.S. House of Representatives as the chair of the Land Conservation Caucus, and I’ve never seen successes like we’ve achieved this year. The end of the year budget and tax bill will help preserve millions of acres of land across the country and will make Connecticut eligible to receive more federal land conservation funding to partner with state and private funds than ever before. It’s easy for us to advocate for this bipartisan commitment because of the strong support for conservation here in Eastern Connecticut and across the state. We really are a national leader for land preservation, and I look forward to continuing to advocate for the best ways to preserve land and open space for generations to come.”

"I was very pleased to see so many important conservation initiatives addressed in the end-of-year agreement to fund the government and extend certain tax credits,” said Courtney. “From extending the Conservation Easement Tax Credit, to the reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund in the omnibus appropriations bill, Congress clearly showed that making targeted investments to preserve open space and protect our natural resources is a top priority. We are in Old Saybrook today to highlight these programs because the recent establishment of a protected forest area here, known as the Preserve, has made Old Saybrook a great example of a locality benefiting from this type of funding. The Preserve is a tangible example of local, state and federal collaboration, using Land and Water Conservation Funds to leverage additional investment for the purchase of this irreplaceable site. After years of effort, the Preserve will permanently protect 963 acres of pristine oak woodlands, making this the most important stretch of protected costal forest between Boston and New York."

The permanent tax credit will give landowners much-needed predictability and will allow them to afford to conserve land throughout Connecticut for generations to come. By incentivizing the voluntary conservation of land while preserving private property rights, conservation easements have been a successful, cost-effective incentive to help preserve watersheds and farms for future generations across the nation. With the enhanced incentive in place, conservation of land increased by about 33% nationwide, exceeding one million acres per year. In Connecticut alone, 11,344 acres were preserved in the first five years that the incentive was enacted – a 44% increase in conservation compared to when the incentive was not in place. Additionally, according to the Land Trust Alliance, every dollar of tax incentives leverages $2.80 worth of land conservation.

The budget bill also increased federal funding for land conservation, including funding $900 million through Fiscal Year 2018 for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and $10 million for the Highlands Conservation program, which serves Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.