LAWMAKERS INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN BILL TO FIX PARKS MAINTENANCE BACKLOG: The chairman and ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Interior Department teamed up on Wednesday to introduce a bill that aims to fix a multibillion-dollar national parks maintenance backlog. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) introduced the Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act to address the roughly $12 billion dollars in maintenance needed at national parks across the U.S., including road and visitor center construction needs. The House bill, largely seen as a companion to a bipartisan Senate bill introduced in June, would fund the needed construction projects by earmarking revenue made from energy production on public lands, including income from onshore and offshore oil and gas leases. The House bill goes a step further than the Senate proposal, looking to spread funding not just to address backlogs in the National Park Service (NPS), but also at the Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management -- a move that will likely be embraced by hunting and fishing groups who utilize those public lands. "There is an equal problem with a same situation with a backlog. And all of those different elements once again, help people be able to access those areas. And if you can't access them there is little value to us," Bishop said of the expansion. Under the House bill, 80 percent of the funding would go toward backlogs at the National Park Service and the remaining 20 percent would hit the other bureaus. Read more here. CORPORATE PRAISE FOR CURBELO'S CARBON TAX BILL: A group of companies in oil, natural gas, chemical manufacturing, utilities and others is praising a Republican lawmaker's legislation to impose a carbon tax. Companies including BP America, Shell, PG&E Corp., Dow Chemical Co., DuPont, Equinor US, National Grid and General Motors signed onto a letter Wednesday to Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) that stopped short of endorsing the bill, but called it a welcome development toward meaningful climate change legislation. Curbelo's bill, the Modernizing America with Rebuilding to Kick-start the Economy of the Twenty-first Century with a Historic Infrastructure-Centered Expansion Act, or Market Choice Act, would repeal fuel taxes and replace them with a $24 per metric ton tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) has also signed onto it. "We welcome your demonstrated commitment to finding common ground on federal policies that can mitigate the effects of climate change," the companies said, adding that the bill "represents an opportunity for both parties to engage in substantive dialogue on the risks and opportunities posed by climate change, and to craft legislative solutions that benefit citizens in many different areas of the United States." Read more. |
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