On the recordJuly 25, 2019
I thank Mr. Kilmer for leading off on this particular issue and all the work that he has been doing on this particular concept. It is important. I am very happy that this bill has 300 cosponsors now here in the House. That is the largest number of cosponsors who have ever supported a bill coming from the Natural Resources Committee. I think there are only 10 other bills that have more cosponsors in the House. It passed our committee on a 36-2 vote and is now awaiting the chance of being heard here on the House floor. There is a companion bill in the Senate, not quite as good as our ours, that already has one-third of the Senate as cosponsors of that. This is an idea whose time has actually come. We talk about the maintenance backlog of our national parks and all of our public lands, including fish and wildlife land, BLM land, and also our national forests. Especially as we now enter August, when there will be the largest participation of Americans going out to visit these parks and public lands, it is important that their experience be a positive one and not be stopped by broken roads, lack of sewers, lack of facilities, or lack of any kind of access that they may need. That is why it is so significant. We have almost around $17 billion of maintenance backlog only in our parks.…
