Over the past few months, you may have seen some talk of a new bill called the Great American Outdoor Act. If you're like me and are apart of different habitat organizations, you may have received texts to contact your senators about supporting this bill. If you're also like me, you don't want to contact senators about bills you're uneducated on blindly. So what is it? Well coming straight from the first page of the bill it is:
"To amend title 54, United States Code, to establish, fund, and provide for the use of amounts in a National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund to address the maintenance backlog of the National Park Service, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, and the Bureau of Indian Education, and to provide permanent, dedicated funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and for other purposes."
What does this mean, and how will it happen? Well, just a disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer or have any legal background. However, I took the time to read the bill and look at the people who voted against it. So let's get into it.
The bill would take a max of 1.9 billion dollars from money made off renewable energy created on public lands, renewable energy being; oil, gas, coal, or any other alternative or renewable energy development. This money would then directed towards maintaining parks and other public lands areas. Mostly, 65% of the capital, going towards park infrastructure, roadways paved and unpaved, bridges, tunnels, and paved parking areas. The breakdown of where the money is going to go is 70% to national park service, 15% to the Forest Service, 5% to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 5% to the bureau of land management, and 5% to the Bureau of Indian Education. The bill also allows for public donations to help with funding. This bill will run from 2021 to 2025 to fix the build-up of issues in our parks and public areas. In total, the bill will fund almost $30 billion in projects for public lands.
This bill has limitations on land acquisition and bonuses for the federal government. Where people who have issues on it become worried is that it would fully fund the land and water conservation fund, which does allocate money to land acquisition. The bill has already passed the Senate with a bipartisan vote of 73 for and 25 against. All against were republican's most notable both senators from the states of Utah and Wyoming. All similar voicing concerns of the bill being too expensive and giving more money to land acquisition through the funding of the LWC.
Coming straight from Senator Mike Lee of Utah's website "is an expensive, shortsighted mistake. It spends money we don't have to buy more federal land when the federal government fails to take care of the land it already owns."
Mike Lee did purpose amendments to the bill that he believed would solve these issues. These amendments were co-sponsored by fellow Utah Senator Mitt Romney and Wyoming Senator John Barrasso but were turned down by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, per Wyoming Public Media. All saying we can't cover the cost of our current public lands and that we don't need to be buying more. Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming had a different take on the bill and how it should be funding, Per Wyoming Public Media: "
"Foreign visitors to the Taj Mahal in India will pay an $18 fee compared to a fee of only 56 cents for local visitors. At Kruger National Park South Africa, visitors from outside the country will pay $25 per day compared to $6.25 for local visitors. Many European countries like Spain, France and Italy charge a tourist tax on hotel rooms that's used to pay for tourism infrastructure,"
Altogether the bill passed the Senate and has moved on to the next phase, with the expectation that both parties want to see this passed.