Cutler: Fix up our national parks
With Independence Day coming soon, I’m thinking about how America’s national parks tell our remarkable American story.
For example, in Yorktown, Colonial National Historical Park protects the river’s edge where British General Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington, ending the American Revolution. At Appomattox Court House, where the Civil War ended in Virginia, another national park preserves that important historic site. Other national parks like Shenandoah and the Great Smokies preserve natural beauty and offer outdoor adventures.
Like most Americans, I want our parks to endure and prosper. However, national parks face a challenging $11 billion backlog of serious repair issues including eroding trails, crumbling roads and bridges, and decaying historic structures. Our neighboring Blue Ridge Parkway faces $238.9 million in repairs in its Virginia section alone, much of which are the park’s roads and bridges over which more than 15 million visitors traveled in 2016. Those visitors spent almost $1 billion in communities from Roanoke to Floyd and into North Carolina.
U.S. Representatives Will Hurd (R-TX) and Derek Kilmer (D-WA) have introduced legislation to address the repair backlog. The bill is called the National Park Service Legacy Act, the companion to an identical Senate bill introduced by Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Rob Portman (R-OH). If passed it would authorize $500 million for National Park repairs. The funds would come from existing revenues the government receives for oil and natural gas royalties, every year, until 2047.
Passage of this bipartisan proposal would make our parks more resilient and better prepared to continue welcoming visitors eager to explore our nation’s important natural and historic places and contribute to our regional economy.
U.S. Representatives Bob Goodlatte and Morgan Griffith can help. I hope they will cosponsor this sensible bill and work for its enactment. By so doing they would honor our American values embodied in our irreplaceable national parks.
Source: The Roanoke Times