The National Park Service’s maintenance backlog has only grown since the Great American Outdoors Act in 2020 put billions of dollars toward fixing long-standing problems.
Now, with the law’s fund for deferred maintenance up for reauthorization next year, a new report from the Property and Environment Research Center suggests ways for lawmakers and NPS to address the expanding maintenance needs at national parks. Key suggestions include raising funds through fee adjustments and restructuring parks’ maintenance tracking systems.
“The park service has struggled with dealing with these maintenance challenges for decades,” said Tate Watkins, the report’s author and PERC’s managing editor. “So now we’ve got to think about what’s going to happen and what legislators could be interested in doing.”
The Great American Outdoors Act’s legacy restoration fund pledged roughly $6.5 billion toward NPS’s maintenance backlog, beginning in 2020 and ending next September. The fund has been used to pay for a number of high-profile projects long pitched by NPS, such as addressing flooding at Washington’s Tidal Basin and improving a key water line at the Grand Canyon.
