On August 4, 2020, President Donald J Trump signed into law The Great American Outdoors Act (Public Law 116-152). This who have been following this site will remember that National Parks maintenance has been deferred for a number of years. At last tally, deferred maintenance projects were estimated to be in the range of $13 Billion.
The Pew Charitable Trusts reported (on August 4):
“A bipartisan group of lawmakers in both the Senate and the House of Representatives worked across the aisle to craft the Great American Outdoors Act, which recently passed both bodies with overwhelming support. With President Trump’s signature on August 4, this groundbreaking act is now law and will provide an investment of up to $6.65 billion in nontaxpayer funds over five years for priority park repairs and nearly $3 billion for our U.S. forests, Bureau of Land Management lands, fish and wildlife Service, and Bureau of Indian Education schools. The act also permanently and fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund, an important tool to protect access to public lands and that provides communities with resources to build local parks, trails, and soccer fields.
This law is a long-overdue investment in the maintenance of our parks and public lands, and it will also create jobs. The act will help sustain the 5.2 million American jobs the recreation industry supports each year—spending from park visitors alone supports over 340,000 jobs annually—and a recent National Park Service (NPS) analysis projects that it will generate an additional 100,000 park-related jobs.”