A move is underway in Washington to provide enhanced funding for infrastructure upkeep and repairs within the National Park System.
Three years ago, in a rare bipartisan vote Congress overwhelmingly approved the Great American Outdoors Act, which sailed through the Senate by a 73 to 25 margin and in the House by 310 to 107.
The legislation has since provided up to $1.9 billion in support for deferred maintenance needs annually for projects that are not only a part of the National Park System, but also the U.S. Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
The support has been particularly needed considering an historic recent increase in park visitations which have put pressure on the parks’ roads, bridges, visitor centers and trails infrastructure. Last year, there were around 312 million such visitations—a 5% increase over the year before.
In the West, the Grand Canyon remains a crowd magnet, seeing around 5 million visitors, while the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado brings in 4.5 million annually and the White Sands National Park in New Mexico is nearing the 800,000 mark.
In a letter to the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands, Jack Waldorf, executive director of the Western Governors Association, has urged for an extension of the Great American Outdoor Act “beyond 2025,” while also suggesting that Congress should “examine longer term solutions to the deferred maintenance backlog.”
The National Parks Conservation Association, among other groups, is also calling for an extension of the legislation, which it describes as a “critically needed source of funding for deferred maintenance and repairs.”
By Garry Boulard
