Lawmakers working on Great American Outdoors Act renewal

By Garrett Downs | 01/31/2025 06:44 AM EST

The law has wide bipartisan support, though one prominent Senate Republican could be a hurdle.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) at a confirmation hearing Jan. 30, 2025.

“There are members of both sides working together on reauthorization,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) of the Great American Outdoors Act. Francis Chung/POLITICO

Top senators have begun working on reauthorizing the Great American Outdoors Act, a sweeping bill passed during President Donald Trump’s first term to fund maintenance projects at the nation’s national parks.

The law is set to run out of funding in mid-2025, while the deferred maintenance backlog at the Park Service it was intended to address continues to grow. When the bill was signed in 2020, the backlog was at roughly $17 billion, adjusted for inflation. According to the latest figures from fiscal year 2023, that figure has now grown to $23 billion.

That’s despite yearly infusions of $1.9 billion from the law into the Legacy Restoration Fund, which was created by the act to address the deferred maintenance backlog. The bill was passed with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in 2020 and signed into law by Trump, who has since returned to the White House.

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Now some lawmakers are hoping to plus-up the bill so the Park Service can continue addressing the maintenance backlog. But they’ll have to contend with Trump as an X factor as well as the new chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Mike Lee (R-Utah), who voted against the 2020 bill.

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