President Trump signed into law Tuesday the first major conservation act in decades to provide billions of dollars for long-delayed maintenance work at America’s crumbling national parks.
In a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which provides $1.9 billion per year for five years to address the maintenance backlog at parks such as Yellowstone in Wyoming and the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
The president said the action “builds on my administration’s unwavering commitment to preserving and conserving the grandeur and splendor of God’s creation.”
Vice President Mike Pence took a jab at the Obama administration, and indirectly at presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden, for failing to address the problem over eight years.
“Under the last administration, we saw a backlog of maintenance,” Mr. Pence said. “For all the talk about the environment, we saw projects left aside and ignored, literally $20 billion of work left to be done. Those days are over.”
The measure establishes a legacy fund to fix roads, bridges, visitors’ centers, sewers and other infrastructure at parks and wildlife refuges nationwide. Nearly two dozen parks across the country each have a maintenance backlog of more than $100 million.
The money will come from revenue paid to the federal government from oil and gas exploration fees.
Sen. Cory Gardner, Colorado Republican and one of the bill’s authors, said the law “will stop Congress from stealing the money that they have, for decades, and put it back into the national parks.”
“In the midst of acrimony, in the midst of partisanship, in the midst of times when the American people probably look out and wonder if they can get anything done, Congress came together to pass the most significant bill the Great American Outdoors Act, in over 50 years with the largest infusion of funding this country has ever seen,” Mr. Gardner said.
The law also creates permanent funding of $900 million per year for land and water conservation.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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