(June 18, 2026) – Washington, DC – Yesterday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the America the Beautiful Act, a top priority for the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), which seeks to reauthorize and build upon the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act.
Our uniquely American federal public lands are central to our time-honored traditions of hunting, fishing, trapping, and recreational shooting. Not only do these lands and waters provide critical habitat for fish and wildlife that are cherished by sportsmen and women, but federal public lands also provide unmatched access opportunities to enjoy our sporting-traditions.
Unfortunately, our federal public lands face a significant headwind of deferred maintenance backlog such as roads, trails, bridges, campsites, etc., which threatens to limit access opportunities to these important places. The America the Beautiful Act, led by Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (CSC) Member Sen. Daines and CSC Co-Chair Sen. King, among dozens of other CSC Members, seeks to address the deferred maintenance challenge by providing $1.9 billion annually over five years to address deferred maintenance across the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, among federal agencies.
“CSF extends our appreciation to CSC Member Sen. Daines, CSC Co-Chair Sen. King, as well as Chairman Lee and Ranking Member Heinrich for their bipartisan efforts to see the America the Beautiful Act pass Committee,” said CSF Senior Vice President Taylor Schmitz. “The Committee vote is a clear indicator that our public lands and outdoor traditions continue to be an unmatched area of bipartisan agreement”.
Just last week, the leaders of the House Natural Resources Committee, Chairman Bruce Westerman, Co-Chair of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (CSC), and CSC Member and Ranking Member Huffman, introduced and held a hearing on the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act 250, which is complementary to the efforts in the Senate through the America the Beautiful Act.
CSF would also like to thank President Trump and the White House for including $1.9 billion annually in their FY27 Budget Request for deferred maintenance. This funding request marked a critical step forward to seeing this effort become a reality.
Yesterday’s vote is a direct result of the commitment of Sens. Daines, King, Lee, and Heinrich to work in a pragmatic, collaborative manner to develop a product that received unanimous support in Committee. The America the Beautiful Act now heads to the Senate floor for consideration.