Published September 18, 2015 12:00AM
$1.5 Billion NPS Bill Introduced
Plus 4 more of the day’s top stories
The bill would give the NPS up to $1.5 billion in funding for park repairs and upgrades nationwide, rolling out the funds over three fiscal years.
On Friday, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources’ ranking member, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), and five other Democrats formally introduced a new bill in an effort to bring more funding to national parks, according to Environment & Energy Publishing. Park funding through the Obama administration’s National Park Service Centennial Act would be granted in celebration of the National Park Service’s (NPS) 100th anniversary next year, the Hill reported earlier this month.
The bill would give NPS up to $1.5 billion over three years for park repairs and upgrades. (The NPS has $11.5 billion in deferred maintenance projects.) The money would also be used to increase educational programs and establish services for visitors, including lodging and dining, as reported in the Hill.
According to Environment & Energy Publishing, many expect the additional federal funding to be a challenge to sell in Congress.
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In Other News
- On Friday, UK Athletics announced that it found no reason to be concerned about Nike’s Oregon Project in its recent independent audit. The audit was in response to a doping scandal involving Nike running coach Alberto Salazar. “Coaching and support for Mo Farah [Olympic and world champion in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, who was coached by Salazar] will remain the focus of our engagement with the Oregon Project,” said the statement.
- Residents from American Samoa, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and New York may no longer be able to fly domestically with only a driver’s license starting in 2016. The restriction is part of the Real ID Act, which will require residents of those five states to show another form of ID, such as a passport, permanent resident card, or U.S. military ID.
- On Thursday, Sandy Hill (previously Sandy Pittman) spoke out about how she was portrayed in the new film Everest. Pittman survived the 1996 blizzard on Everest and is depicted in both the movie and Jon Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air, on which the film is based. “I was an easy target,” she told the New York Post. “Back in those days, you could get away with destroying someone’s life and flogging them with innuendo.” Everest premiers on Friday.
- A man in western Colorado was sentenced to six months in jail on Thursday for littering more than 8,000 pounds of garbage into the Uncompahgre National Forest in Telluride, Colorado.
UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 18, 17:00 MDT: An earlier version of this piece stated that a Colorado man was littering in Delta, Colorado. He was littering in Telluride.
