{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/enr-committee-passes-king-legislation-on-national-parks-deferred-maintenance-bill-advances-permanent-reauthorization-for-lwcf", "ENR Committee Passes King Legislation on National Parks Deferred Maintenance Bill, Advances Permanent Reauthorization for LWCF", "2018-10-02", "2018", "2018-10", "Independent", "House", "ME", "Angus King", "K000383", "www.king.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON D.C.  Today, U.S. Senator Angus King\r\n(I-Maine), Ranking Member of the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on\r\nNational Parks, applauded the ENR Committee's passage of the Restore\r\nOur Parks Act, a bipartisan bill led by Senators King, Rob Portman\r\n(R-Ohio), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) that aims to\r\naddress the $12\r\nbillion deferred maintenance backlog at the National Park Service (NPS).\r\nThe Committee also approved legislation cosponsored by Senator King to\r\npermanently reauthorize and fully fund the Land and Wildlife Conservation Fund\r\n(LWCF). Both pieces of legislation will now be sent to the full Senate for\r\nconsideration.  Last month, I accompanied the\r\nActing Director of the National Park Service to Acadia National Park  and\r\nwhile the views were as beautiful as ever, the situation behind the scenes is\r\nnot so picturesque as the park grapples with serious maintenance backlogs, said\r\nSenator King. Acadia has delayed a number of important projects worth a\r\ntotal of $60 million that are vital to ensuring that visitors can continue to\r\nenjoy the park's natural wonders with a high quality visitor experience.\r\nIt's not alone in that struggle, as national parks across the country currently\r\nface a backlog of $12 billion. These lands are a national promise to leave\r\nbehind a better world than we received, but these massive backlogs show that\r\nwe're not currently living up to that responsibility. Today's markup is a step\r\nin the right direction for a bipartisan bill that will address this backlog and\r\nprotect our national parks for future generations.\" The Restore Our Parks Act consensus\r\nproposal is the product of bipartisan discussions among the senators who had\r\npreviously introduced similar bills, the National Park Service Legacy Act\r\n(Warner/Portman) and the National Park Restoration Act (Alexander/King), and\r\nhas been gaining momentum since its introduction; the legislation is\r\ncosponsored by 30 Senators and is supported by U.S. Secretary of the Interior\r\nRyan Zinke, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Pew Charitable\r\nTrusts' Restore America's Parks' campaign, and the Outdoor Industry\r\nAssociation, among others. Last month, Senator King joined Acting Director of\r\nthe National Park Service, Dan Smith, on a tour of Acadia National Park to\r\nassess the park's critical maintenance needs that would be funded if Congress\r\npassed the Restore Our Parks Act. This legislation would have a positive\r\nimpact on Acadia specifically, which has a maintenance backlog of approximately\r\n$60 million, and the surrounding communities like Bar Harbor. A companion bill,\r\ntheRestore our Parks and Public Lands Act,has been introduced in\r\nthe House.  More specifically, theRestore\r\nOur Parks Actwould establish the National Park Service Legacy\r\nRestoration Fund to reduce the maintenance backlog by allocating existing\r\nrevenues the government receives from on and offshore energy development. This\r\nconsensus legislation has been praised by witnesses at aSubcommittee\r\non National Parks hearing in July. Senator King is an steadfast supporter\r\nof the National Park System, and during his tenure in the Senate has pushed for\r\nmodernizations to make the parks more accessible to future generations,\r\nincluding the implementation of a pilot program to make entrance passes for\r\nparks available online, that waslauded\r\nin a Subcommittee hearing last year. The program has been particularly\r\nsuccessful in Acadia National Park (ANP); Acadia accounts for 72% of total\r\nsales in the pilot program, and online purchases accounted for 10% of the\r\npark's total entrance fee receipts in 2016.Additionally, today we took an\r\nimportant step to defend our public lands by approving a permanent\r\nreauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, Senator King\r\nadded. LWCF has been a vital protection for public lands for the last half\r\ncentury, helping Americans from all walks of life access the natural beauty of\r\nour country. This is important legislation that transcends partisanship, as\r\nshown by the overwhelming support within the Committee for this permanent\r\nreauthorization. In all of the noise, sometimes quieter work can go unnoticed,\r\nbut today's step to permanently reauthorize and fully fund the LWCF should be\r\ncommended as an important, bipartisan accomplishment.Senator King has been a strong\r\nsupporter of the LWCF, and in August joined a bipartisan group of Senators in\r\nsending a letter to the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders requesting\r\na permanent reauthorization of the program before its expiration on\r\nSeptember 30, 2018. The LWCF has supported more than 42,000 state and local\r\nprojects in communities across the country. The program is funded by a\r\nportion of federal oil and gas royalties, operating without any taxpayer\r\nfunding. However, according to the letter, since its founding in 1965\r\nmore than $21 billion has been diverted from the LWCF trust fund to other\r\npurposes.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/enr-committee-passes-king-legislation-on-national-parks-deferred-maintenance-bill-advances-permanent-reauthorization-for-lwcf"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.052629366517067, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}