Thank you Senators Kaine and Warner for co-sponsoring the Great American Outdoors Act (S.3422)

The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) (S. 3422) will come to the Senate floor for a vote this Monday, June 8th at 5:30 PM. If successful, it will benefit generations to come because it dedicates funds toward deferred maintenance on public lands and permanently and fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The GAOA is a combination of the Restore Our Parks Act and the LWCF Permanent Funding Act.

While the GAOA benefits from strong bi-partisan support, 61 yes votes are needed on Monday night for the legislation to advance (as of this writing there are 58 co-sponsors).​  In Virginia, both Senator Tim Kaine and Senator Mark Warner are co-sponsors of this bill.  We are writing to ask you to thank them for protecting and preserving nature and ensuring that it is available to all Americans in these challenging times and for future generations to come. Please find links to their contact webpages below.

The Great American Outdoors Act:

• Makes $1.9 billion available annually, for five years ($9.5 billion total) for maintenance projects with 70% allocated for National Park Service projects (same as originally proposed), 10% for the U.S. Forest Service, 10% for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 5% for Bureau of Land Management, and 5% for Bureau of Indian Education.
• The Land and Water Conservation Fund section is almost identical to S. 1081 text, providing permanent, mandatory LWCF funding at the fully authorized annual amount of $900 million.
• The only substantive change beyond the existing bills is an additional $3 billion for other public lands infrastructure dedicated over five years.

Contact information
Senator Tim Kaine
Senator Mark Warner