United States Senate Tender

Senator Rob Portman R-OH highlighted his bipartisan Restore Our Parks Act currently under consideration on the Senate floor this week which will support more than 100000 jobs over the next five years. The bill will help rebuild our parks infrastructure by addressing the nearly 12 billion backlog in long-delayed maintenance projects at the National Park Service NPS. The Restore Our Parks Act is a part of a broader package the Great American Outdoors Act - landmark bipartisan legislation to address the deferred maintenance backlog across the federal land management agencies and to provide permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.Portman has pushed the Senate to pass the Restore Our Parks Act over the last several years. The bill will establish the National Park Service Legacy Restoration Fund to reduce the maintenance backlog by allocating half of the existing unobligated revenues the government receives from on and offshore energy development up to 1.3 billion per year for the next five years. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved the bipartisan Restore Our Parks Act in November 2019. Portman worked with his colleagues to expand the Restore Our Parks Act to address the more than 18 billion in deferred maintenance backlog across all land management agencies in the Great American Outdoors Act. This legislation now provides 1.9 billion per year for five years into the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund from half of unobligated on and offshore energy revenues. Last week Portman announced that a new National Parks Service NPS study of the Restore Our Parks legislation found that the legislation will support an average of 40300 direct jobs and a total of 100100 direct and indirect jobs over the next five years to help address the delayed maintenance backlog and rebuild our national parks infrastructure.Portman thanked his cosponsors U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander R-TN Mark Warner D-VA and Angus King I-ME for their work on the legislation and President Trump for his support of this legislative effort.