Senate expected to OK billions for National Park Service.
‘Once-in-a-generation opportunity’ for national parks is getting bipartisan support
Driven by unusual alliances in election year politics, the U.S. Senate is expected today to pass what would be the most far-reaching new conservation law in 40 years: A bipartisan bill co-sponsored by California senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, and supported by President Trump and other Republicans.
The measure, sought for decades by environmental groups and the recreation industry, would provide billions in new funding to national parks. It would permanently shift millions of dollars every year in offshore oil drilling revenues to pay for city parks, swimming pools, sports fields, fishing piers, trails and campgrounds in all 50
states, including in urban areas with limited park resources.
Last week, the bill, known as the “Great American Outdoors
Act,” passed the Senate 80-17 on a procedural vote. A final Senate vote is expected by mid-day today, with a House vote in the next few weeks.
Trump has spent much of his presidency weakening environmental laws and appointing former industry lobbyists to top environmental jobs. But he is looking to burnish his environmental credentials and those of several endangered GOP senators before the November election, and has said he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.
For environmental groups, the political dynamics are a rare window.
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have the U.S. enshrine conservation as a core value for years to come,” said Tom Cors, director of government relations for lands at the Nature Conservancy.
The bill would make two landmark changes.
First, it would provide $9.5 billion over the next five years to repair roads, restrooms, trails and campgrounds at America’s national parks — from Yosemite to the Everglades — and at other public lands where facilities have fallen into disrepair after years of neglect and funding shortfalls. The money would come from royalties on oil, gas, coal and renewable energy that are already being paid to the federal treasury. Altogether, 70% would go to national parks, which have a $12 billion maintenance backlog. The U.S. Forest Service would receive 15%; and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and Bureau of Indian Education schools would receive 5% each.
Second and more enduring, the bill would guarantee $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund in perpetuity. That fund was first recommended by the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s as a way for the nation’s parks to keep pace with population growth. Congress created it in 1964, requiring that up to $900 million a year in offshore oil revenues go to buy new park land and maintain local parks.
Over the past 56 years, the fund has become the most important tool for preserving public land in the United States, helping protect 7 million acres, from Redwood National Park and Big Sur in California to Cape Cod to Martin Luther King Jr.’s boyhood home site in Atlanta.
The money also has funded state grants to build 40,000 swimming pools, soccer fields, baseball diamonds, playgrounds, fishing piers, jogging trails and other projects at local parks nationwide. Among those in California: new bike paths at Lake Merritt in Oakland, renovations at Pacifica’s fishing pier, public pools in Los Angeles, public trails and beaches at Lake Tahoe, land adjacent to Big Basin Redwoods and
Mount Diablo state parks that would have been logged or developed, and wetlands restoration around San Francisco Bay.
But over the years, instead of providing $900 million as the law intended, Congress and numerous presidents have instead shifted more than half of the money to other uses. Trump’s original budget this year proposed just $15 million be spent on parks and public lands from the fund. The current bill would require the full $900 million to be spent every year on parks.
During the coronavirus pandemic people have rediscovered the value of parks and open space, said Roberto Morales, chair of Nature for All Coalition, a nonprofit group in Los Angeles. In many ways, parks are a civil rights issue, he said, especially for children and families.
“Low-income communities don’t have equal access to parks,” Morales said. “Public outdoor spaces are not a luxury. They are essential. Having the ability to tap into these funds will help.”
There is some opposition from conservative Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the cattle ranching industry and others. If passed, the bill will be America’s most significant conservation law since at least 1980, when President Jimmy Carter doubled the size of the national park system by establishing 157 million acres of new parks, wildlife refuges, scenic rivers and other wilderness areas in Alaska during his final weeks in office.
The bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, is trailing in the polls for his November re-election. With control of the Senate hanging in the balance, other GOP senators at risk of losing their seats are among the co-sponsors, including Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana and Martha McSally of Arizona — many of whom have sided with industry on other environmental measures.
“It’s a convenient opportunity for senators and an administration that has included historic environmental rollbacks to try to convince voters that they have now found a new conservation ethos,” said Jayson O’Neill with the Western Values Project, a Montana environmental group. “But any time elected officials see the importance of protecting the environment, we are going to be behind that so we can get some positive things done.”