April 9, 2026

DENVER – Western Energy Alliance this week welcomed President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget proposal calling on Congress to reauthorize the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF), a critical conservation program funded by energy revenues that has invested $8.2 billion since 2021. The LRF expired in October 2025 due to inaction by Congress.

Under the Department of the Interior’s section, the president’s budget proposal announced this week states, “The Budget proposes to reauthorize the Legacy Restoration Fund, which funds deferred maintenance on Federal lands, at $1.9 billion per year for five years.”

“The Legacy Restoration Fund is a success because it balances energy development on multiple-use public lands with maintaining our most iconic and historic landscapes. We estimate 95 percent of the funds available for LRF conservation come from oil and natural gas production,” said Melissa Simpson, president of the Alliance. “Over the past five years, 1,824 projects have been funded across national parks, forests, and wetlands. The public today is benefiting from improved visitor centers, campgrounds, trails, and habitat restoration, in addition to record energy development. We’re pleased President Trump is prioritizing the LRF by urging Congress to renew the historic, bipartisan program and for the recognition of our industry’s incredible contributions to conservation.”

Background

Authorized in 2020 as part of the Great American Outdoors Act, the LRF was designed to address the National Park Service’s and other federal land agencies’ multibillion-dollar maintenance backlogs, which today stands at $40 billion. The program directs up to $1.9 billion annually in revenues from energy development on federal lands and waters into repairing aging roads, trails, campgrounds, docks, and visitor centers, ensuring that existing public land infrastructure remains safe and open to the public.

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