WASHINGTON D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), Ranking Member of the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, spoke on the Senate floor to advocate for the Restore Our Parks Act, a bipartisan bill led by that would address the $12 billion deferred maintenance backlog at the National Park Service (NPS). Senator King is a lead sponsor of the bipartisan bill along with Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

“We have a wonderful park in Maine, Acadia. We had three and a half million people last year at that park. But the problem is, I’ve visited, I’ve seen leaky roofs, and roads that need repair, and if we don’t do that we’re not serving the public, we’re not serving the next generation of Americans who want to enjoy the parks. And now we have an opportunity to do so that is supported on a bipartisan basis in this body, in the other body, and by the administration.”

The Restore Our Parks Act consensus proposal is the product of bipartisan discussions among the senators who had previously introduced similar bills, the National Park Service Legacy Act (Warner/Portman) and the National Park Restoration Act (Alexander/King), and has been gaining momentum since its introduction; the legislation is cosponsored by 37 Senators and is supported by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Pew Charitable Trusts’ ‘Restore America’s Parks’ campaign, and the Outdoor Industry Association, among others. In September, Senator King joined Acting Director of the National Park Service, Dan Smith, on a tour of Acadia National Park to assess the park’s critical maintenance needs that would be funded if Congress passed the Restore Our Parks Act. This legislation would have a positive impact on Acadia specifically, which has a maintenance backlog of approximately $60 million, and the surrounding communities like Bar Harbor. A companion bill, the Restore our Parks and Public Lands Act, has been introduced in the House.

More specifically, the Restore Our Parks Act would establish the “National Park Service Legacy Restoration Fund” to reduce the maintenance backlog by allocating existing revenues the government receives from on and offshore energy development. This consensus legislation has been praised by witnesses at a Subcommittee on National Parks hearing in July. Senator King is an steadfast supporter of the National Park System, and during his tenure in the Senate has pushed for modernizations to make the parks more accessible to future generations, including the implementation of a pilot program to make entrance passes for parks available online, that was lauded in a Subcommittee hearing last year. The program has been particularly successful in Acadia National Park (ANP); Acadia accounts for 72% of total sales in the pilot program, and online purchases accounted for 10% of the park’s total entrance fee receipts in 2016.