Pardon Our Dust
We recently launched this new site and are still in the process of updating some of our archived content. Some details of this article may be incomplete, links may be broken, and other elements may not display properly yet. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
On August 4, President Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act into law, bringing to fruition years of advocacy work promoting the repair backlog within our national parks, forests, and other public land agencies.
The landmark bipartisan legislation addresses the $12 billion maintenance backlog at National Park Service sites across the country and permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
Years of advocacy work from a vast coalition of organizations across the country led to this initiative becoming law. McGuireWoods Consulting senior vice presidents Mike Reynold and Preston Bryant, and assistant vice president, Jimmy Jewett, worked with The Pew Charitable Trusts on their Restore America’s Parks program by running a robust advocacy campaign in Virginia. The program raised awareness about the $11.9 billion repair backlog facing the National Park Service (NPS) and the new law will implement long-term solutions to address the challenge.
McGuireWoods Consulting, working with a number of outdoor advocates in the state, helped support Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who led the bipartisan effort to pass the Great American Outdoors Act in the Senate. MWC’s advocacy campaign generated support for the eight Republicans and Democrats from Virginia’s congressional delegation who voted for the legislation in the House.
Conservation experts have called the Great American Outdoors Act the biggest land conservation bill in a generation, and in Virginia alone, the legislation will address the $1.1 billion in deferred maintenance at the Commonwealth’s national parks and create up to 10,340 Virginia jobs.