U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, left, was one of six members of Congress recently honored by the National Park Foundation for their work in getting the National Park Service Centennial Act passed late last year/NPF

Six members of Congress, three Democrats and three Republicans, have been honored by the National Park Foundation for getting the National Park Service Centennial Act passed late last year.

Among the six was Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio who worked virtually nonstop through the night of December 9 until just before sunrise on December 10 to see the Senate unanimously pass the bill, and Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican who introduced the legislation but is not normally considered a strong public lands advocate.

Also receiving a "Centennial Champion" award from the Foundation were Reps. Raúl Grijalva, D-Arizona and Niki Tsongas, D-Massachusetts,and Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Maria Cantwell, D-Washington.

While Rep. Grijalva long has been seen as a staunch defender and advocate of national parks, as has Sen. Portman, Rep. Bishop's position on public lands usually revolves around minimizing the federal footprint. He opposed Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, long sought to reduce, or completely remove, the authority given presidents to designate national monuments via the Antiquities Act, and most recently has worked with the rest of the Utah congressional delegation to see Bears Ears National Monument in Utah abolished.

Will Shafroth, president and CEO of the Park Foundation, told the Traveler on Friday that the award given to the six was specific to their work to see the National Park Service Centennial Act passed.

"A really important lens from our perspective was his advocacy and support for the National Park Centennial Act, that's really what it was all about," Mr. Shafroth said. "That, as you know, passed the Congress in early December, and it was something we had been working on for close to two years."

The legislation assures the National Park Service a relatively small, but helpful, infusion of dollars to help maintain the sprawling National Park System. It also increases the price of a lifetime pass for senior citizens 62 and older to $80 from its current $10 lifetime fee. Seniors who don't want to pay the $80 could purchase an annual pass for $20.

It calls for deposit of up to $10 million generated from all Park Service sales of America The Beautiful - The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Passes into a Second Century Endowment for the National Park Service to be managed by the National Park Foundation. Any revenues above $10 million would be deposited in a Centennial Challenge fund for projects in the parks. However, they would need to be matched by private dollars before they could be spent as the legislation is written.

The legislation also provides an annual appropriation of $5 million to the National Park Foundation for each of the 2017-2023 fiscal years for use as matching funds for contributions made to the foundation.

Missing from the House bill was a request from Rep. Grijalva that Congress appropriate an additional $300 million per year for fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019 to help the Park Service address its maintenance backlog, estimated at $12 billion.

"It was a good, solid bill," Mr. Shafroth said. "And frankly, because of how it ended up, the eggs were mostly in the energy bill basket, if you will. It was a bill that had been negotiated. At the end of the process, the leadership in the House decided not to move the energy bill, so the only reason we had this Centennial Act was Rep. Bishop moved his bill as a stand-alone measure and got it out. It got over to the Senate in a couple of days and Sen. Portman sat up all night, and at 6:38 a.m. Saturday (December 10) the last bill approved was that.

"Most people had thrown the towel in on it, but Bishop hung in there and he was the one that got the bill to the floor and out and over to the Senate," he said. "This was a really important bill and the only chance we were going to get it done I think was during the centennial."

Earlier this year Sens. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, Portman, Angus King, I-Maine, and Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, introduced the National Park Service Legacy Act. If passed by Congress and signed by the president, the measure would budget $50 million in annual appropriations for fiscal years 2018, 2019 and 2020; $150 million for fiscal years 2021, 2022, and 2023; $250 million for fiscal years 2024, 2025 and 2026, and; $500 million for fiscal years 2027-2047. Add it up and it comes to $11.85 billion.

"Obviously, it would have been really great if there would be a proposal that would in ten years take down the backlog," Mr. Shafroth said back in April. "But this is a serious attempt to take care of the most urgent needs in the Park Service. It doesn’t mean that this is the only thing that one could be working on. I’ve had many conversations with Sen. Portman about this. He was on the Second Century Commission, he was the OMB director, he knows how this works,and I don’t think he pretends that this would be a silver bullet, if you will, in terms of taking care of it.

“This is a really, really important step in that direction.”

How the Trump administration views the Park Service's backlog could surface later this month when it releases its blueprint for the fiscal 2018 budget.