Senator Alexander: Support for Funding from Energy Production on National Parks 'Unprecedented'

(Photo: Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Credit: Ka!zen, Flickr Creative Commons)

United States Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said on the Senate floor that bipartisan legislation he introduced — along with eleven members of Congress — is the first significant proposal where the president, his Office of Management and Budget and his Interior Secretary recommend Congress provide mandatory funding paid for by revenues from energy production on federal lands for the $11 billion maintenance backlog for national parks.

Here’s how: the legislation will use revenues from energy production on federal lands to provide mandatory funding for the maintenance backlog. "This is a well-established conservation principle: taking some of the money created by an environmental burden and using it for an environmental benefit,” Alexander said. “The significance of the proposal we are introducing today is that, to my knowledge, it has never happened before.”

The legislation will help address, for example, the $215 million backlog of projects in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Last year, the park broke its own record by welcoming over 11 million visitors to the park. The funding will provide money for maintenance needs and repair and rebuild campgrounds, trails and roads.

Restoring parks not only helps to preserve land for generations to come, but also helps to grow the economy throughout the country, he said.

The National Park Restoration Act:

• Creates the National Park Restoration Fund to provide mandatory funding for the high-priority deferred maintenance needs that support critical infrastructure and visitor services at national parks.
• Provides mandatory funding for the maintenance backlog on top of annual appropriations for operations and construction at the National Park Service.
• The fund receives 50% of onshore and offshore revenues from energy production on federal lands over expected amounts that are not already allocated to other purposes.
• Protects payments to states, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Reclamation Fund, and all other existing uses of onshore and offshore revenues. These existing uses will receive all of their funding before the National Park Restoration Fund receives any funding.