Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is signaling he would likely support a bipartisan compromise House bill to pay for billions of dollars of repairs and maintenance in national parks.
Last month, Reps. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., introduced legislation to pay for repairs with money the government collects from the development of oil, natural gas, wind, and solar energy on public lands.
The introduction of the bill is significant because Bishop and Grijalva, who usually spar on public lands issues, agreed to a compromise that is similar to a Trump administration proposal to fund the Interior Department’s $16 billion maintenance backlog.
[Opinion: Win-win-win: Fixing national parks, protecting taxpayers, producing energy]
“The secretary is very happy to see the House put forth a bipartisan bill to rebuild our national parks and other Interior Department infrastructure,” Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift told the Washington Examiner. “This bill very closely aligns with President Trump’s budget proposal and the secretary has been pitching this idea for more than a year now. He believes the momentum is building for a bipartisan and bicameral solution.”
Zinke had proposed creating a new 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. The proposal earned bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, as members were eager to see a funding mechanism to fix pipeline leaks, broken bathrooms, and potholed roads at America’s national parks.
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 money, under Zinke’s plan, was to come from projected revenues from energy production on public land, and the money would only become available when the revenue materialized. This is why important Democrats such as Grijalva opposed it, preventing it from getting a vote, on the grounds that it would incentivize further energy production, including fossil fuel extraction, on public land.
The new proposal by Bishop and Grijalva would create a similar pot of money to Zinke’s, dubbed the National Park Service and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund. But the money would be significantly less, 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 new bill only uses unallocated energy revenue that is already due to the federal government from leasing on public lands, not new revenues from anticipated leases.
Bishop said he expects a bipartisan group of senators to introduce a similar bill soon. He predicted the bills could be voted on as stand-alone legislation, rather than being attached to a must-pass measure such as government funding, signaling how good he feels about the chances for the proposal to pass.
“This is one of those issues of significant value, it’s a major problem, and has enough momentum that it easily can go as a stand alone bill in both the House and the Senate,” Bishop said during a July 25 news conference. “We can’t wait any longer to do it.”
