Pipeline leaks, broken bathrooms, and potholed roads at America’s national parks have pushed some Democrats to hold their nose and support a Trump administration idea on how to fix it.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has proposed paying for billions of dollars of repairs and maintenance in national parks with money the government collects from the development of oil, natural gas, wind, and solar energy on public lands.
The plan would create the Public Lands Infrastructure Fund of up to $18 billion over 10 years for maintenance and improvements in national parks, wildlife refuges, and Bureau of Indian Education schools. It would use royalty payments and lease sales on federal onshore and offshore lands.
Bipartisan coalitions in both chambers of Congress have endorsed the proposal with matching legislation.
“I don’t understand other Democrats who are opposed to this,” said Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., a cosponsor of one of the bills. “The money comes from oil and gas revenue, but what’s greener than our national parks system? Let’s be smart about this for gosh sake and use this money for something that promotes the values I’d like to think thoughtful Democrats and Republicans both have with our national parks.”
But other Democrats oppose the plan, arguing it’s wrong to tie the health of national parks, which are uniformly loved, to the Trump administration’s aim to expand drilling, an effort loathed by environmentalists that form some of the liberal base.
“We are going to be incentivizing extraction of oil and gas,” Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “I understand the desperation some Democrats feel as it pertains to the maintenance backlog, and I absolutely agree with them. I am willing to talk. But the premise of the plan is the more extraction, the more we take care of the backlog. And that’s backwards.”
The Interior Department has a $16 billion maintenance backlog. Of that amount, the National Park Service has the largest share, $11.6 billion in 2017 for the nation’s 417 national park sites.
The Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona alone has a maintenance backlog of more than $329 million.
The burden comes as more people are coming to the parks. Visitation has grown from 273 million in 2006 to 331 million in 2017. Meanwhile, the number of sites in the park system increased from 390 to 417.
The repair problem is so stark, and a fix so elusive, that the energy fund proposal is fracturing Democrats who have been nearly unified in opposing the Trump administration’s agenda.
Schrader, a former budget guru in the Oregon state legislature, says he supports the Zinke plan because the park repairs need a dedicated funding source that is not subjected to the ebbs and flows of the appropriations process.
He’s also eager to please his constituents.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican, or independent, when the government shuts down, the first calls we get are about the parks,” Schrader said. “This is a no-brainer. When the Trump administration comes up with a decent proposal, we should back something; this is good for our country.”
Schrader, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, suggests that some Democrats such as Grijalva oppose the plan simply because the Trump administration conceived it.
“This is as bad as Republicans saying no to everything Obama came up with,” he said. “Are we going to look in the mirror? I hope Democrats are bigger than that.”
Grijalva prefers Congress repair parks with money from the regular appropriations process. But the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget plan, he notes, cuts the Interior Department’s budget by 15 percent and eliminates nearly 2,000 National Park Service jobs.
Asked if President Trump is primarily fueling his opposition, Grijalva shot back at Schrader, who he calls “a friend.”
“He hasn’t met a drilling project he hasn’t supported,” Grijalva said of Schrader. “He hasn’t been at the forefront of environmental protection and enforcement that I know of. His votes don’t reflect that.”
Driving the Democratic split is concern over the amount of money the parks would actually receive.
“I don’t know many members on the Democratic side who are opposed to the concept of using revenues from an energy fund to address the park maintenance backlog,” a senior Democratic aide told the Washington Examiner. “But the devil is in the details on how that functions. The opposition to the Schrader bill coming from our side is due in large part on the particulars of how revenues are generated and allocated.”
The Schrader bill, backed by Zinke, differs in an important way from other proposals that would use energy revenues to fix the parks. The legislation, introduced in March with Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, provides funding to the National Park Service for repairs only after the government meets a certain target for energy revenue.
The bill sets the target for energy revenue in fiscal 2018 at $7.8 billion, with the number rising incrementally every year after that. Once that target is reached, the fund would devote 50 percent of the revenue not already allocated to other purposes to the parks.
That would ensure funding would remain for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a cherished program also funded by energy revenue that is used to buy land for federal, state, and local parks.
Critics say those goals are unrealistic, when oil prices are below $70 per barrel and energy companies have reacted skittishly to the Trump administration’s proposal to expand offshore drilling in nearly all federal waters. Zinke this month acknowledged results from two massive offshore oil and gas lease auctions in the Gulf of Mexico were “modest at best.”
Federal energy revenue from 2015 to 2017 averaged $6.4 billion per year, Interior Department data show, less than what the bill forecasts.
“In other words, the national parks will not receive a single extra dollar unless oil, gas, and coal revenues to the federal government rise dramatically,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, and a former deputy chief of staff at the Interior Department, who is pushing Democrats to oppose the Schrader bill. “You don’t have any idea year to year how much money is coming in.”
Ashley notes that leases on federal land from wind and solar development make up a small fraction of revenue.
Some Democrats, such as Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., prefer bipartisan legislation introduced in the House and Senate that would set aside $500 million annually from existing mineral extraction revenue on public lands.
The funding amount is less than the Schrader bill shoots for, but it’s guaranteed and not subject to energy industry interest in drilling.
“The only way the Trump administration model will result in increased funding for the [National Parks] backlog is with a huge expansion of drilling, or if the price of oil increases dramatically,” Warner told the Washington Examiner. “That’s not a sustainable solution to fix our nation’s parks.”
Grijalva says he is open-minded to the Warner approach and is planning to meet soon with Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, who is a sponsor of an identical House bill.
Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, cosponsored the House version of the Warner bill and prefers the $500 million-per-year approach. But after some cajoling from Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Hanabusa signed onto the Schrader bill preferred by the Trump administration.
“You can either be part of the solution or part of the problem,” Bishop told the Washington Examiner. “The Democrats who are supporting this proposal chose to be a part of the solution. And for that, I am grateful.”
Hanabusa endorsed the Trump plan because she says it’s the only alternative that could pass Congress when it’s controlled by Republicans.
“I joined on because it has a realistic opportunity to pass,” Hanabusa told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t think people who are in support of this should be vilified in any way. You aren’t telling [the Trump administration] to drill more. You are saying in the event they do, and the chances are great with this administration, you are putting the revenue to a good cause. I get criticized a lot because I feel the way I do. But these are the decisions we all have to make.”
