ORR Supports Great American Outdoors Act

The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR) members lauded the Senate for introducing a bipartisan bill, the Great American Outdoors Act, that prioritizes the $20 billion maintenance backlog facing public lands and waters and fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). It includes the Restore Our Parks Act (ROPA), which would help improve key outdoor recreation related facilities like docks, restrooms, campgrounds, trails, roads and more – many of which have needed updating or repairs for years.

ORR members led the effort to ensure the inclusion of other agencies, beyond the National Park Service, in this legislation. Thanks to the efforts of Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO), among many others, the U. S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will receive maintenance backlog funding.

LWCF funds help provide recreation access to local, state and national parks, wildlife habitats, working forests and more. This program has only been funded at the fully authorized amount of $900 million twice in history. This bill would achieve the decades-long goal of fully and permanently funding LWCF into the future, while allowing for more recreation access projects on local, state and federal lands that will support an outdoor recreation economy for years to come.