Trump signs law assigning $3 billion a year for conservation

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Following overwhelming bipartisan Congressional support for the measure, on Tuesday President Donald Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act that will assign $3 billion a year to conservation, outdoor recreation, and maintenance of national parks and other public lands, USA News reports.

The Great American Outdoors Act mandates complete, permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and seeks to deal with the backlogged maintenance needs of national parks and public lands, USA News said. The law provides some $900 million a year, twice the current budget, to the conservation fund and a further $1.9 billion a year for improving national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and rangelands.

Opponents of the law have reportedly said the new funding is insufficient to meet an estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog on federally owned lands. However, supporters have said the Act is the most important conservation legislation to be enacted in almost 50 years, USA News reported.

“There hasn’t been anything like this since Teddy Roosevelt, I suspect,” President Trump said in statement on the new Act, referencing the environmentalist 26th president who created many of America’s national parks, forests, and monuments. Moreover, Interior Secretary David Bernardt said in a statement that the law will help create more than 100,000 jobs.

Among those who were reportedly instrumental in helping to get the bill passed through congress was Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington State: “For all of us who’ve fought for years to protect our public lands and invest in our outdoor recreation economy, today is a historic win for America’s beloved shared spaces,” Cantwell said in a statement.

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