{"id":11768,"date":"2020-06-18T18:07:57","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T18:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=11768"},"modified":"2020-06-18T18:08:08","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T18:08:08","slug":"u-s-senate-set-to-vote-on-great-american-outdoors-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=11768","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Senate set to vote on Great American Outdoors Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"980\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gr-70451-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11761\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gr-70451-1-1.jpg 980w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gr-70451-1-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gr-70451-1-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><figcaption><strong><em>Big Bend National Preserve in west Texas has $90 million in deferred maintenance including crumbling roads, deteriorating historic buildings, rundown trails and outdated water, sewer and electrical systems.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Photo: nationalparks.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>By ROZ BROWN<\/strong><br>Texas News Service<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 The arrival of summer in two weeks means many Americans will head to national parks for rest and relaxation. They may, however, find parks in disrepair \u2013 a problem that could be addressed by action in the U.S. Senate this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/116th-congress\/senate-bill\/3422\">Great American Outdoors Act<\/a>&nbsp;is a bipartisan bill that would fund deferred maintenance to help keep up with aging infrastructure. Marcia Argust, director of The Pew Charitable Trusts\u2019&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewtrusts.org\/en\/projects\/restore-americas-parks\">Restore America\u2019s Parks campaign<\/a>, said even as visitation has increased over the past decade, the park system has crumbling roads, deteriorating historic buildings, rundown trails and outdated water, sewer and electrical systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis bill would invest the dollars to keep these systems functioning and safe,\u201d Argust said. \u201cAnd in doing so, it would also create jobs \u2013 and that\u2019s really important right now to help the country get back on its economic feet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The legislation includes full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. If approved by the House and Senate, President Donald Trump has said he will sign it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the current COVID-19 crisis, many Americans have discovered how important outdoor recreation can be for physical and emotional health. Isaac Albarado with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/exploreaustin.org\/\">Explore Austin<\/a>&nbsp;is a huge fan of Big Bend National Park in west Texas and said he doesn\u2019t want aging infrastructure to diminish the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFrom Big Bend to Guadalupe in Texas, our parks provide us the opportunity to get away from our neighborhoods and get away from the concrete jungle that we live in and actually experience the great beauty that these parks have to offer,\u201d Albarado said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Argust added that 5 million people visit Texas parks each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThose visitors are spending over $300 million in local communities,\u201d Argust said. \u201cThat spending generates over 4,000 jobs each year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The proposed bill would use $6 billion in royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling over five years to fix up federal sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By ROZ BROWNTexas News Service AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 The arrival of summer in two weeks means many Americans will head to national parks for rest and relaxation. They may, however, find parks in disrepair \u2013 a problem that could be addressed by action in the U.S. Senate this week. The&nbsp;Great American Outdoors Act&nbsp;is a bipartisan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11769,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11768\/revisions\/11769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}