WASHINGTON – The Senate has approved a bipartisan bill that would double spending on a popular conservation program and devote nearly $2 billion a year to improve and maintain national parks.
The 73-25 vote on Wednesday sends the Great American Outdoors Act to the House, where approval is expected. It would be the most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century. The bill would spend about $2.8 billion per year on conservation, outdoor recreation and park maintenance.
“America’s hundreds of millions of acres of public lands are the result of hundreds of years of exploration and conservation,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnnell, R-Ky.
The Senate vote will “ensure this inheritance will stand the test of time for generations of Americans yet to come,” McConnell said, urging the House to pass it quickly.
The legislation includes Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander’s bill to restore the country’s 419 national parks and cut in half the national parks’ $12 billion deferred maintenance backlog, which the senator said will be “the biggest boost to our national parks in 50 years.” It also fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) permanently, a goal of Congress since 1964.