Congress, retailers want to rebuild national parks. Road tolls might pay
American bison graze in Grand Teton National Park.
Danny Lehman | Image Bank | Getty Images
Congress is trying to find more money to give aging national parks a new look in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday this year. While President Donald Trump talks about the importance of keeping federal facilities looking good, his budget proposal cuts funding for the National Park Service.
Republican lawmakers are exploring revenue sources, including imposing tolls on federally operated roads used by tens of thousands of travelers each day in the Washington area and raising fees for visitors from outside the United States to visit national parks. Democrats say imposing tolls on roads that intersect with the Capital Beltway is an untenable solution and that it is not necessary to find new money to fund maintenance of the parks because maintenance of the parks is already the government’s responsibility.
MPs race to install successor in Parliament The Great American Outdoor Actor GAOA, a law Trump signed during his first term National Park Servicebacklog deferred maintenance in the parking system. The law has expired and maintenance has gotten bigger, so Congress wants to pass a new measure to get the job done.
National parks are one of the few truly bipartisan issues left on Capitol Hill because of their immense popularity with voters. Few lawmakers would oppose funding for parks, and Trump’s proposed cuts and sales of public lands have been routinely rejected in Congress. Additionally, the parks help support a booming outdoor recreation industry that contributes to the economy by supporting equipment and supply sales from companies like REI, Patagonia, and others. DuPont.
House Natural Resources Committee chairman R-Ark. “If we can find a way to use tolls on federal roads, that’s one way to fund this,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman. He said he is considering creating what he calls the “Next 250 Fund” to finance the parks.
Westerman said the tolls would be justified because the first iteration of the Great American Outdoors Act directed money to restore the land. George Washington Monument ParkwayA federal road in the metropolitan Washington area. A number of federally operated roads pass through the capital.
“You look at all the money coming out of parks in Wyoming and going to things like the George Washington Parkway, the entrance fees that come from there, so why wouldn’t that be an option to raise funds for maintenance work going forward?” he asked.
Rep. Jared Huffman, D-California, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, rejected charging for additional tax revenue, saying motorists using Washington area roads have turned away from the idea.
“All of my colleagues that I’ve talked to who represent these districts say this is a no-starter, poison pill,” Huffman said.
The U.S. Capitol Dome is seen as Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) speaks at a press conference on climate change with Democratic members of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition on Capitol Hill on November 13, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
Huffman said there was no need to find additional revenue to offset the new spending in the bill, calling it an “obsession” by Republicans.
“This is deferred maintenance, it’s like a debt we’ve already incurred,” he said. “So tinkering with these politicized balances is not a productive way forward.”
Legislative effort takes place in the background Trump’s proposed budget For fiscal year 2027, this would reduce the National Park Service’s overall budget by 34% and the construction budget to less than $50 million, a 72% decrease from 2025.
These cuts will follow a reduction in National Park Service staff almost a quarter of the total The agency’s workforce is reduced by 40 percent in 2025 after Trump returns to the White House, according to data compiled by the National Parks Conservation Association.
Senate stays away from toll proposal
The Senate is not pursuing tolls or other new revenue for its version of the bill, dubbed the “America the Beautiful Act.” This bill would use the same mechanism to fund maintenance as the first Great American Outdoors Act: Transferring oil and gas royalties from all federal energy development revenues into a fund set aside for park maintenance, called the Legacy Restoration Fund.
Senate billSen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. and Angus King, I-Maine, has 52 sponsors in the Senate.
When asked about the proposed tolls, King said, “Let’s see how we can do it here, and then we’ll talk to Mayor Westerman.”
At the center of the discussion is the White House, which has requested a budget for fiscal year 2027 and calls for the restoration of the Legacy Restoration Fund, which expires after fiscal year 2025. The White House also approved foreign visitor fees, saying the Park Service “will impose a surcharge on international visitors at its most visited parks that will provide hundreds of millions of dollars for the maintenance of parks across the country.”
In Trump’s first year back in the White House, the number of international visitors to the United States dropped 5.9 percent from the previous year, according to a nonpartisan source. Congressional Research Service. The National Park Service currently imposes a $100 per person surcharge for non-U.S. citizens for daily visits to the most popular national parks, and Trump wants to enact that change.
Democrats are also on high alert for any legislative language that could pave the way for Trump’s various projects in Washington, such as the White House ballroom and the proposed triumphal arch.
“I worry that some of the language we’re seeing could be used for flashy construction projects, and that’s not going to work,” Huffman said.
REI and Patagonia among companies pushing for spending
The outdoor recreation market is a massive, multibillion-dollar industry in the United States that touches nearly every aspect of the retail industry, from private players like REI and REI. To big stores like Patagonia Walmart And Aim to ready-made clothing companies such as lululemon And Abercrombie and Fitch.
During Trump’s first term, retailers threw their weight behind GAOA because legislation supporting outdoor spaces and U.S. national parks was safe policy to support and was inherently apolitical, said Neil Saunders, analyst and chief executive of GlobalData Retail.
“It creates a halo around brands. It’s linked to sustainability. It’s linked to the green agenda but it’s arguably not political,” Saunders said. “Most Americans are saying, ‘Hey, our public parks, you know, are an asset. They’re a national asset. We’ve got to protect them. We’ve got to take care of them. We’ve got to make sure they’re well maintained. They’re a source of pride. And I think retailers find it very easy to sign up for those things.”
Of course, it’s also good for business.
The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, a trade association that supports GAOA, said in a November report that outdoor recreation provides $1.2 trillion in economic output and supports 5 million jobs in the U.S. each year. The group found that recreation on federal lands and waters adds $351 million to the U.S. economy every day; That’s the same amount of economic benefit as hosting eight Super Bowls each month.
For retailers like REI and VF Corp, whose brands include The North Face and Timberland, that means more customers coming into their stores to buy camping gear, helmets or hiking boots. If consumers visit a national park and like what they see, they may decide to make outdoor recreation a more regular hobby; This means probably spending money on equipment related to these hobbies. Conversely, if they visit a park and find it squalid and unkempt, they might try something else, perhaps indoors, at their next free time.
Saunders said more people visiting national parks would “potentially increase the market size because there are more people doing outdoor activities.” “They need equipment, even basic things like motorcycles and backpacks.”
Swiftcurrent Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana.
George Dodd | Istock | Getty Images
The debate over how to fund GAOA comes at a time when the overall healthcare market is growing and becoming a major economic driver. More and more consumers are hyper-focused on their bodies, what they consume, and how they spend their time. For many people, this includes spending more time outdoors, exercising, or simply spending time in nature for mental health reasons.
U.S. consumers’ focus on wellness was a growing trend before the Covid-19 pandemic and accelerated during quarantine orders, resulting in increased interest in outdoor activities, national parks, and selling sports and entertainment products.
While this interest is still ongoing and fueled by the Make America Healthy Again movement, sales of sports and entertainment products have slowed since the pandemic. Saunders said this was largely due to the fact that many people were stockpiling outdoor products at the time and the general slowdown in discretionary spending.
Between 2015 and 2022, the U.S. outdoor market grew every year for seven years, but has since softened, shrinking 6% between 2022 and 2025, according to GlobalData.
Given how slow discretionary spending has been in recent years, new funding for GAOA could be a major sales driver for retailers, especially when combined with renewed marketing tied to national parks and outdoor recreation around the nation’s 250th birthday.
“They need it,” Saunders said. “The market has been a little stagnant, so I think retailers see this as a nice boost at the right time.”
