Rep. Mandy Steele, R-Cheswick, is pictured at the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s Wildlife Reception. The event was attended by the state Farm Bureau and officials from the state Game Commission.

A state lawmaker wants to make it easier for the state Game Commission to purchase land.

Rep. Mandy Steele, D-Cheswick, is circulating a co-sponsorship memorandum seeking support for legislation she is drafting that will lift the cap on the purchase price the Pennsylvania Game Commission can offer when buying land. Currently, that cap is $400 an acre in all counties except a Second Class county.

“This makes it incredibly difficult for the game commission to acquire land with significantly higher values and slows the development of new and expanding state game lands. To boost its efforts to conserve land for public access and protect vulnerable habitats, I will be introducing legislation to allow the Pennsylvania Game Commission to acquire land at a fair and reasonable price in all counties,” Steele wrote in her co-sponsorship memorandum.

In 2023, a 2,195-acre property transfer resulted in the creation of new state game lands in western Warren County as part of a land-for-oil deal between the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Pennsylvania General Energy. Terms of the transfer saw the Spring Creek Tract, referred to as the “Glen Dorn Property” by a PGC Facebook post, transferred to the PGC along with 943 acres in Cambria County in exchange for PGE’s ability to extract oil and gas from beneath a state game land in Lycoming County.

State Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-Oil City, noted in a letter to the state Game Commission that there are local concerns that should be dealt with in the wake of the Spring Creek property acquisition. He reiterated those concerns a month later during a Senate Game and Fisheries Committee meeting, according to the Center Square. The PGC controls over 1.5 million acres of game lands and made $1.8 million in payments in lieu of taxes to localities to replace tax revenue, but they’re a contentious issue for legislators.

“Land acquisition by the Game Commission and the policies, the plans, and the procedures — this is going to be a back-and-forth conversation going forward,” Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-Oil City, said. “Does the commission have an upper limit on the percentage of land that should be in government/Game Commission ownership?”

Steels says the Game Commission needs to be able to provide more Pennsylvanians with access to green space closer to home, which echoes what PGC Executive Director Bryan Burhans told lawmakers in response to Hutchinson’s question.

“The Pennsylvania Game Commission purchases land to preserve local water and air quality, mitigate flood risks, protect wildlife, and make game lands more accessible to the public,” Steele said in her co-sponsorship memorandum. “Unfortunately, current Pennsylvania law serves as a barrier to success when the game commission seeks to acquire land.”