The National Park Foundation honored U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) for his leadership in dedicating $9.5 billion to redress maintenance backlogs at our national parks. The article has no byline, so presumably it was based on issuances from the organization and/or the senator's office. What the article didn't address helps us understand how ingeniously our government works.
Legislation to redress maintenance backlogs at our national parks went nowhere until it was recrafted to dedicate $1.3 billion annually from onshore and offshore energy development on public space. Suddenly, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) from the country's second highest coal-producing state; Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the eastern half of whose state, loaded with oil and gas operations and coal mines, is twelfth in crude oil production; and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) whose state has enough oil and gas production to warrant having its own state industry group hopped on as cosponsors and the legislation suddenly moved.
The bill's prospects also improved when the President, worried that the Obama-Biden Administration's fixation with climate change had stalled economic recovery, who will only believe climate change is true when rising sea levels reach Trump Tower's and Mar-a-Lago's doorsteps, backed it. Note also how the law lasts for five years, just long enough to get us through the Biden Administration whose proclivity for doing short-term damage to energy development to stanch climate change is well known.
Now, when those pesky environmental groups complain about energy leases on public lands and the Biden Administration tries to put a stop to issuing them, the counter will be that they're taking funding away from our national parks.
Dino Drudi
Alexandria