Sen. Burns lauded for securing budget increase for national parks

The Daily Inter Lake

Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., played a key role this week in securing a $95 million increase for national park operating budgets in a Department of Interior spending bill.

The National Parks Conservation Association heaped praise on Burns, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"Sen. Burns is to be strongly commended for his leadership on this issue," said Tony Jewett, senior regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. "Our nation's heritage rests within our national parks and that heritage is endangered by insufficient funding."

Details on how the interior spending bill will benefit Glacier and Yellowstone national parks were not available Friday.

But the bill states that all 388 national park sites will receive, at a minimum, an increase of 5 percent for base operations. The money will not go toward Glacier's much-publicized reconstruction of Going-to-the-Sun Road.

That project will largely depend on a six-year transportation funding bill that has yet to clear the House-Senate conference committee.

The National Parks Conservation Association maintains that national parks are faced with an annual operational budget shortfall of about $600 million.

As part of a larger omnibus spending bill, the Interior Appropriations legislation is expected to go to the House and Senate floors for a vote this weekend. The increased appropriations will likely be less if Congress requires an across-the-board cut in the omnibus bill.