The House Natural Resources Committee on Thursday passed a bipartisan bill to make billions of dollars worth of repairs and maintenance in the country’s national parks.
The bill, which moves now to the House floor, would pay for repairs with money the government collects from the development of oil, natural gas, wind, and solar energy on public lands.
It was co-sponsored by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and top Democrat, Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona. They usually fight on public lands issues, but in this case, they agreed to a compromise that is similar to a Trump administration proposal to fund the Interior Department’s $16 billion maintenance backlog.
“Our parks are national treasures,” Bishop said Thursday. “Let’s start treating them that way.”
Of the $16 billion backlog, the National Park Service has the largest repair need — $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.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke supports the bill, and cheered the House committee for its “great bipartisan work.”
Great bipartisan work in the House @NatResources today to #RebuildOurParks. Looking forward to working with @lisamurkowski and @EnergyGOP @EnergyDems to keep this historic @NatlParkService #infrastructure plan moving forward. ??????
— Secretary Ryan Zinke (@SecretaryZinke) September 13, 2018
The bill would create a pot of money for repairs and maintenance projects, dubbed the National Park Service and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund, providing $1.3 billion a year for five years, for a total of $6.5 billion.
To win the backing of Grijalva and other Democrats, the bill only uses unallocated energy revenue that is already due to the federal government from leasing on public lands, not new revenues from anticipated future leases.
Some conservatives complained Thursday that the bill would mandate more spending.
“Allocating more mandatory spending seems irresponsible,” said Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La.
Bishop, however, argued the spending is not technically mandatory, because it uses excess revenues from energy leasing already collected by the federal government, and specifically sets it aside to address the maintenance backlog on public lands.
“This is mandatory, kind of,” Bishop said. “If the money is not there, it won’t be appropriated. If it is, it won’t be in the general fund to expand government … which for my conservative friends, that’s the goal.”
