The bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act guarantees funding for federal land use efforts. The president claimed credit for Republicans.
President Trump on Tuesday signed into law the Great American Outdoors Act, a measure with broad bipartisan support that guarantees maximum annual funding for a federal program to acquire and preserve land for public use. Mr. Trump — who has exited the Paris Agreement on climate change, loosened restrictions on toxic air pollution and removed climate change from a list of national security threats — heralded the new law as a groundbreaking environmental achievement that he deserved credit for. “From an environmental standpoint and from just the beauty of our country standpoint, there hasn’t been anything like this since Teddy Roosevelt, I suspect,” he said at a bill-signing ceremony at the White House. “At some point, they’ll have to start thinking about the Republican Party and all of the incredible things we’ve done on conservation and many other fronts,” Mr. Trump said. The act, which allocates $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and provides up to $9.5 billion over five years to begin clearing up a maintenance backlog at national parks, was approved on a 310-to-107 vote in the House. It was introduced last year by Representative John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat and civil rights leader who passed away last month.
