Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Needs Addressed During Testimony to Key Congressional Committees
The Outdoor Recreation Industry Roundtable (ORIR) delivered testimony earlier this month to two key Congressional committees outlining our nation’s infrastructure needs, where lack of broadband access threatens outdoor recreational safety and enjoyment. Committed to strategically work together for the benefit of American outdoor recreation as a whole, the ORIR is a coalition of 14 outdoor industry associations, including the NMMA.
In similar testimony to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which met Feb. 1 on the topic of
“Building a 21st Century Infrastructure for America,” and to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which met Feb. 8 on “Modernizing Our Nation’s Infrastructure,” ORIR representatives asked the Congress to “understand the recreation-related features which must be included in accurately defining our nation’s infrastructure needs.”
ORIR noted that its customers make more than one billion annual visits to sites managed by federal agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and more.
Noting that the sites managed by these agencies cover more than 30% of the nation’s surface, ORIR singled out the agencies’ billions of dollars of deferred maintenance backlogs.
“The infrastructure needs of the nation’s federally-managed lands are a national responsibility and deserve a key role in the Trump Administration/115th Congress Infrastructure Initiative,” ORIR stated in its testimonies.
Specifically, ORIR encouraged Congress to embrace and facilitate the use of private investments, an “infrastructure bank” with lending limited to recreation-related infrastructure projects on public lands, a Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) that would allow dedication of revenues from specific projects to repayment of loans, and widespread leveraged use of federal funds, similar to the NPS Centennial Challenge as well as an expanded Recreational Trails Program.
“A recreation title infrastructure initiative could achieve dramatic improvements in use of appropriated funds, while bolstering private investment in our public lands and waters,” ORIR testimony stated.