Congress Misses Opportunity for America’s Outdoor Recreation Act, Lands Bills

In case you missed Outdoor Alliance banging on about a recreation and lands package all year long, we had been hoping that Congress would pass America’s Outdoor Recreation Act along with some key public land protections before the end of the year.

During the last month, thousands of people reached out to their lawmakers about passing a recreation and lands package and the Outdoor Alliance policy team met in D.C. earlier in the month to advocate for the proposals. Many lawmakers, including leadership negotiating the package, seemed committed to getting these bills across the finish line during the lame duck.

Though it came within an inch of being included, at the 11th hour, the effort to pass the recreation and lands package by the end of the year fell apart in negotiations.

However, our spirits are not too diminished! 2022 was a Richter year for conservation priorities. The passage of a historic climate package (the Inflation Reduction Act) was a success decades in the making that took Outdoor Alliance and countless other climate advocates years of steady work to help achieve. If we had to pick one thing to pass this year, it was climate action. And it happened.

The fact that Congress is on track to pass an omnibus funding bill at all, instead of punting to next year with yet another continuing resolution, is also something to celebrate. The year-end bill includes significant and greatly-needed funding increases for key recreation and conservation programs at all the Forest Service, National Park Service, BLM, and other agencies. Negotiations over government funding will likely be even more contentious next year in a divided Congress, and we are grateful to House and Senate appropriators who worked tirelessly to reach a bipartisan agreement that will benefit public lands and waters and outdoor recreation moving forward.

The omnibus funding bill does include several important lands and recreation provisions. Most notably, it includes the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Advancement Act, which will help create a long-distance bike trail in Utah that was a particular focus for IMBA over the last few years. The bill also includes provisions to designate Wild & Scenic Rivers in Maine and Connecticut, and to study new National Scenic Trails in Ohio and Alaska.

We are also pleased that Congress passed several public lands bills outside of the omnibus. These include the National Heritage Act, which would standardize how federal agencies manage important cultural and historic landscapes, as well as the Katimiîn and Ameekyáaraam Sacred Lands Act, which would place more than 1,000 acres of federal land along the Klamath and Salmon Rivers in Northern California into trust for the Karuk Tribe, who consider these lands sacred.

We are also confident that America’s Outdoor Recreation Act, and many of the public lands protections we have been advocating for, will pass at some point. Advocacy is a long game and requires a lot of patience and optimism.

Conservation bills in particular can take years, even decades, to complete, and every time they get closer to passing, it becomes easier to pass them the next time around. Every time we advocate so hard that these bills approach the finish line, we make the runway a bit smoother for the next time we push.

While America’s Outdoor Recreation Act didn’t pass this Congress, we are hopeful for the next Congress and will continue to push on it. At some point, the timing is right and the bills we all work so hard for feel like they fly across the finish line. It’s been a huge year for conservation—thanks to your outreach—and we are confident that our continued advocacy will help these long-standing priorities make it across the finish line before too long.