President Donald Trump poses for a photo during a signing ceremony for H.R. 1957 – "The Great American Outdoors Act," in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
By Darlene Superville
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law legislation that will devote nearly $3 billion annually to conservation projects, outdoor recreation, and maintenance of national parks and other public lands. The measure was overwhelmingly approved by Congress.
"There hasn't been anything like this since Teddy Roosevelt, I suspect," Trump said about the 26th president, who created many national parks, forests, and monuments to preserve the nation's natural resources.
Supporters say the Great American Outdoors Act is the most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century. Opponents counter that the money isn't enough to cover the estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog on federally owned lands.
The law requires full, mandatory funding of the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund and addresses the maintenance backlog facing America's national parks and public lands. The law would spend about $900 million a year — double current spending — on the conservation fund and another $1.9 billion per year on improvements at national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and range lands.
Trump in his budgets to Congress had previously recommended slashing the amount of money allocated to the fund, but he reversed course and called for full funding in March.
Supporters say the legislation will create at least 100,000 jobs while restoring national parks and repairing trails and forest systems.
The park maintenance backlog has been a problem for decades, through Republican and Democratic administrations.
The House and the Senate cleared both bills by overwhelming bipartisan margins this summer.
Among the bills' congressional champions are Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana. Both are among the Senate's most vulnerable incumbents, and each represents a state where the outdoor economy and tourism at sites such as the Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone national parks play an outsize role.
Daines and Gardner persuaded Trump to support the legislation at a White House meeting this year.
The late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., sponsored the original measure that passed the House and contained Senate amendments.
Ivanka Trump, the Republican president's daughter, and adviser, also supported the legislation.
President Trump talked about the beauty of the national parks on Tuesday, ticking off the names of some of them but tripping over Yosemite, one of the best known, and badly mispronouncing it twice.
"We want every American child to have access to pristine outdoor spaces, where young Americans experience the breathtaking beauty of the Grand Canyon when their eyes widen in amazement as Old Faithful burst into the sky when they gaze upon Yosemite's, Yosemite's, towering sequoias, their love of country grows stronger and they know that every American has truly a duty to preserve this wondrous inheritance," Trump said, pronouncing Yosemite's as yoh-SEH'-mytz instead of yoh-SEM'-it-eez.
The legislation's opponents, mostly Republicans, complain it would not eliminate an estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog on 640 million acres (259 million hectares) of federally owned lands. The legislation authorizes $9.5 billion for maintenance over five years.
Lawmakers from Gulf Coast states also complained that their states receive too small a share of revenue from offshore oil and gas drilling that is used to pay for the conservation fund.
___
This story has been corrected to show the area with the maintenance backlog is 640 million acres, not 640 acres.
Krutika Amin, associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation for the Program on the Affordable Care Act, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss the Biden administration's plan to fix the so-called 'family glitch' in the Affordable Care Act preventing millions of Americans from accessing government-subsidized health plan.
Abdallah Fayyad, opinion writer at the Boston Globe, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss the House's vote to hold former Trump aides Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro in contempt of Congress and send the recommendation to the Department of Justice. Fayyad also weighs in on the pressure facing Attorney General Merrick Garland to be more aggressive in prosecuting the January 6 case.
Those paying back federal student loans are getting a few extra months of relief. President Biden just announced another extension of the pandemic relief program allowing millions of borrowers to freeze their student loan payments. The pause began in March 2020 and it has been extended six times. Tomas Campos, co-founder and CEO of Spinwheel, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
There has been notable disagreement in the medical community about a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose. The FDA last week authorized a second booster dose for older and immunocompromised individuals, as some agency officials did not support the idea. The FDA made the decision without meeting with its advisory committee, as it had ahead of its recommendations on the previous COVID-19 vaccine doses.
The CDC followed in the footsteps of the FDA and authorized a fourth dose as well. Reports say the agency also did not discuss the move with its own advisory team of vaccine experts. Now, a growing number of doctors are speaking out against the decisions - leaving people confused about whether they should get another vaccine dose. Dr. Julie Morita, a member of the CDC's advisory committee to the director, and the executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The Senate has confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, shattering a historic barrier by securing her place as the first Black female justice and giving President Joe Biden a bipartisan endorsement for his effort to diversify the court
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tested positive for COVID-19, her spokesman says. That's a day after the 82-year-old Democratic leader appeared unmasked at a White House event with President Joe Biden.
JetBlue made an unsolicited offer to buy low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines, potentially jeopardizing the original offer from Frontier Airlines. Several analysts sounding the alarm on JetBlue's proposed $3.6 billion merger, saying the deal doesn't quite make sense. Jim Corridore, Senior Insights Manager at Similarweb joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
The Biden administration is once again extending the pause on federal student loans payments — this time, through the end of August. In a statement, President Biden cited a recent analysis from the Fed that if the payments were to resume, millions of student loan borrowers would face significant "economic hardship, delinquencies, and defaults that could threaten America's financial stability." Sarah Foster, an analyst at Bankrate, breaks down the impact of the extension on borrowers, the economy, and the future of student loan forgiveness. "I think this is just an instance of the federal student loan forbearance program kind of creating additional uncertainty for borrowers, especially in the sense that these past four extensions from the Biden administration have kind of come at the 11th hour here," she said.
