NMMA, Outdoor Recreation Industry Roundtable detail infrastructure needs for Trump team
The new Outdoor Recreational Industry Roundtable, a group of more than 10 outdoor industries that have come together to call attention to the collective breadth and positive impact of our nation’s recreation and outdoor industry, shared a white paper with the Trump transition team that outlines the critical infrastructure needed to sustain and grow our nation’s outdoor economy.
The Roundtable’s efforts are critical to protecting outdoor recreation, including boating. In the coming weeks, NMMA and its Roundtable partners will continue discussions with the Trump transition team, highlighting numerous priorities outlined in a series of white papers. The white papers will be shared in Currents with links to each.
The Roundtable’s infrastructure paper notes: “Insufficient investment in infrastructure projects has reduced access to facilities and outdoor experiences, damaged natural resources, increased safety risks to recreationists, and added to long-term maintenance costs. The failure to preserve and maintain infrastructure in and around public lands and waters has a significant impact across the broader economy, given that outdoor recreation represents nearly four percent of Gross Domestic Product.”
Some of the key asks in the infrastructure white paper include:
- in the first transportation funding bill enacted by Congress, fully fund the Federal Lands Transportation Program and the Federal Lands Access Program to pay for the completion of all surface transportation projects in and leading to federal public lands and waters before the end of the president's first term (see explanation below), and reauthorize and fully fund the Recreational Trails Program (RTP);
- enact new appropriations to provide a one-time infusion of funding to ensure adequate federal support to reduce maintenance backlogs in public lands and waters infrastructure by half before the end of the president's first term;
- increase annual appropriations for the civil works, recreation, and trails budgets for public lands and waters infrastructure in the DOI, USDA, NOAA, and ACOE budgets, as well as for any other departments and agencies with jurisdiction over federal lands and waters;
- remove barriers to and encourage the expansion of public-private partnerships for public lands and waters infrastructure;
- enact legislation to create an endowment for public lands and waters infrastructure, and encourage private investments in infrastructure projects in these areas; and
- reauthorize the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) to ensure fees collected on public lands and waters are used for recreation enhancements in those areas.
Click here to read “The Need for Increased Investment in Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure” on nmma.org.