On the recordJune 12, 2020
thank you for your willingness to preside over the Chamber at this late hour, at least in the Nation's capital, midnight, here, or 10 o'clock in the great States of Colorado and Montana. My colleague and one of the lead sponsors of this legislation has been doing a lot of work this past week on the Great American Outdoors Act to make sure that we can get this across the finish line. The truly bipartisan spirit of this bill has been remarkable. I think that is kind of what I wanted to start off with my comments tonight, is really the coast-to-coast nature of this legislation, the Great American Outdoors Act, because so many people have put in not just a couple of weeks of work or a couple of months of work or a couple of years of work but decades of work on the legislation that we have before us. The Great American Outdoors Act combines two pieces of legislation: the crown jewel of our conservation programs across the Nation, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and the Restore Our Parks Act. The Restore Our Parks Act focuses on the catching up with the maintenance backlog in our national park systems. About 70 percent of the funding, $1.9 billion a year, will go towards our national parks. Additional dollars will go towards the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Land Management now headquartered in the great State of Colorado. A portion will go to the U.S. Forest Service. A portion will go to the U.S.…





