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National Parks Could Get More Maintenance Dollars From Congress

Yellowstone National Park. The director of the National Park Service is one of nearly 200 appointed positions that have yet to be filled by the Trump Administration.
Jim Peaco
/
Yellowstone National Park | Flickr Creative Commons
Yellowstone National Park. The director of the National Park Service is one of nearly 200 appointed positions that have yet to be filled by the Trump Administration.

Bipartisan legislation before the Senate would finally designate congressional funds to take care of about $12 billion of deferred maintenance for national parks. 

 Click 'play' to hear the audio version of this story.

The legislation that’s currently before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee would commit up to $6.5 billion to funding parks maintenance over the next five years. Those funds would come from fees on energy developers.  

Phil Francis with the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks supports the legislation. He says the typical way that Congress funds the national parks doesn’t match with America’s love for them. 

"It’s almost like, we’re buying a house and we’re saying, 'well we like this house and it’s really important for us, but we’re not going to maintain it adequately.' And that’s not a winning formula at all," said Francis. 

In national parks within Mountain West states, the maintenance backlog totals about $1.5 billion. The bill currently has no congressional co-sponsors from our region, but Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has voiced his support for the legislation. The Senate committee will take up the legislation this Wednesday.   

Find reporter Amanda Peacher on Twitter @amandapeacher.

Copyright 2018 Boise State Public Radio

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, Yellowstone Public Radio in Montana, KUER in Salt Lake City and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado.

Copyright 2021 Boise State Public Radio News. To see more, visit Boise State Public Radio News.

Amanda Peacher is an Arthur F. Burns fellow reporting and producing in Berlin in 2013. Amanda is from Portland, Oregon, where she works as the public insight journalist for Oregon Public Broadcasting. She produces radio and online stories, data visualizations, multimedia projects, and facilitates community engagement opportunities for OPB's newsroom.
Amanda Peacher
Amanda Peacher works for the Mountain West News Bureau out of Boise State Public Radio. She's an Idaho native who returned home after a decade of living and reporting in Oregon. She's an award-winning reporter with a background in community engagement and investigative journalism.
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