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From Acadia’s rocky Atlantic coastline to Glacier’s snowcapped valleys, our national parks are America’s crown jewels, admired at home and abroad. Our parks represent more than natural beauty, however. They embody our history, our freedoms and our future. It’s our responsibility to ensure they remain a critical part of these shared values.
All of these places, large and small, tell the story of America: where families gather to camp and fish, where veterans reflect at historic battlefields and where local economies thrive on outdoor recreation and tourism. In recent years, we’ve made progress toward maintaining the national parks to make them safer, more modern and better equipped to handle hundreds of millions of visitors each year — all thanks to the Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF), a federal program dedicated to repairing and restoring our parks. But the LRF is set to expire Sept. 30, 2025, and there is much more work to be done to honor the heritage and history the parks represent, especially ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. That is why we introduced the America the Beautiful Act to reauthorize the LRF. It continues the vision Congress advanced with the Great American Outdoors Act and builds on the strong bipartisan consensus that preserving our parks and public lands is a duty we all share — and a natural investment.
For decades, park needs went underfunded. That began to change in 2020, when Congress passed with a broad bipartisan majority and President Trump signed into law the Great American Outdoors Act, the largest investment in our parks in more than 50 years. The results speak for themselves.
CONGRESS CONSIDERS PERMANENT NATIONAL PARK FEE INCREASE FOR INTERNATIONAL VISITORS
In just five years, more than $6.5 billion has been invested into nearly 400 projects nationwide —making for a better visitor experience across the parks. And the LRF isn’t just about preservation and repairs; it’s about economic strength. It has generated over $8 billion in GDP, supported over 72,000 jobs and pumped billions of dollars into local economies.
However, if Congress fails to reauthorize this critical and successful program, projects will stall, repair costs will rise and communities that depend on park tourism will suffer.
Last year alone, 331 million national park visitors contributed over $55 billion in spending to nearby communities, towns and businesses. These are not abstract numbers; they represent paychecks for guides, waiters, hotel staff, mechanics and small business owners — the livelihoods of our neighbors, the lifeblood of American communities.
Across Montana and Maine, we’ve seen firsthand how critical these investments are. In Montana, Glacier National Park supports thousands of jobs and sustains small towns across the Flathead Valley. In Maine, Acadia’s breathtaking coastline brings visitors who fill local shops and restaurants, while investments in safe trails and restored facilities keep them coming back. These experiences depend on infrastructure we cannot allow to crumble.
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The support for this commonsense effort is broad and growing. We hear about it from constituents, local elected officials, business leaders and industry associations. More than 50 national organizations, from economic groups to conservation and heritage advocates, have already endorsed it. They recognize what we see: The LRF is not just good policy, it’s good stewardship of the resources and freedoms that define America’s past, present, and future.
Reauthorizing the LRF is about more than roads and buildings. It’s about safeguarding the places where Americans come together, strengthening the communities that depend on them and ensuring that future generations inherit the same opportunities to experience the best of America.
As we approach America’s 250th birthday, Congress has the chance to reaffirm a bipartisan promise by passing the America the Beautiful Act: to protect the lands, history and freedoms that unite us as a nation. Let’s not let this opportunity pass.
Independent Angus King represents Maine in the United States Senate. He is a former governor of Maine.
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