What’s Happening With the Great American Outdoors Act

Photo credit: Holly Mandarich

We’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve extolled the virtues of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, also known as LWCF. After getting the fund reauthorized early last year, Outdoor Alliance has been focused on trying to get funding for LWCF. The fund is authorized for up to $900 million each year, but Congress has siphoned money from the fund every year during appropriations.

And because of disingenuous arguments about how the U.S. shouldn’t be acquiring more public land before it takes care of what it has, addressing the maintenance backlog has become inextricably linked with LWCF in the Congressional imagination. A bill to fund the maintenance backlog and restore parks – called the Restore Our Parks Act (ROPA) – initially excluded National Forests, BLM land, Fish and Wildlife, and other public lands that were also in need of maintenance. Since the beginning, our coalition has worked to make sure that other Department of Interior lands were added as well as National Forests.

You may remember that this all came to a surprisingly acceleration in early March, when Trump tweeted that he wanted to see parks and public lands funded, which kicked off a solid bipartisan package called the Great American Outdoors Act that would fund LWCF as well as the maintenance backlog for National Parks, and included additional funding for the Forest Service, BLM, and other public lands. The Senate set a date to vote on the package, and things were looking good until, of course, they weren’t.

After returning from recess, Congress has been rightly focused on the coronavirus response. The current focus is still immediate needs, like ensuring personal protective equipment for frontline workers and protecting the workforce from layoffs, but at some point in the future, Congress will pivot away from emergency legislation and toward infrastructure bills to help rebuild. At that point, bills like the Great American Outdoors Act will be an important part of long-term recovery.

As the last weeks have demonstrated, Americans need opportunities to get outside, especially the close-to-home opportunities that LWCF makes possible. These funding mechanisms will also put people to work in rebuilding infrastructure on public lands. Both bills made sense before, but make even more sense now. And as we eventually work to recover from this crisis, investing in public lands and waters should be a part of that. You can read our full letter of support to Congress right here.

You can help by writing a message to your Congresscritters and asking them to include the Great American Outdoors Act to long-term efforts to rebuild and recover. We’ve made it easy with the tool below.