The likely impact of Great American Outdoors Act
After winning final bipartisan approval in Congress last week, a bill that will pump billions of dollars into overdue repairs and maintenance of U.S. national parks is now headed to the president for his signature. It’s an unlikely success story: bipartisan support in a polarized legislature for an environmental and conservationist initiative to which the Trump administration has shown itself hostile until only recently. Linda Bilmes, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), served on the bipartisan National Parks Second Century Commission and on the U.S. Department of Interior National Parks Advisory Committee from 2011 to 2017. She is also co-author (with John Loomis) of “Valuing U.S. National Parks and Programs: America’s Best Investment” and is an expert on the national parks’ complicated budgeting and chronically scarce funding. We asked her about the new legislation. Q&A Linda Bilmes HKS: What is the Great American Outdoors Act...