Why You Shouldn’t Fall For Steve Daines’ America The Beautiful Act

“No election-year lipstick will pretty up his dirty pig of a record,” says Montana Conservation Voters

Brace yourselves everyone. As the 2026 mid-terms loom, and the electoral environment looks increasingly challenging for fascists (sorry, they prefer the pronoun “Republican”), we’re going to see more and more politicians who have dedicated their lives to destroying the outdoors playing dress up as people who care about the outdoors. And no one is better at pretending to be outdoorsy than Senator Steve Daines (R-Montana).

You’ll remember Daines from 2020’s Great American Outdoors Act, which he and other Republicans turned into an effective campaign tool by claiming that it fully funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and that it would address the maintenance backlog in National Parks and on other types of public land.

“The Great American Outdoors Act provides full, mandatory funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and addresses the maintenance backlog facing national parks and public lands,” Daines is attributed as saying on his website. “I met with President Trump in February of 2019 to highlight the importance of these conservation priorities for Montana. During the meeting, President Trump agreed to support and sign this historic conservation bill into law if we could get a bill through Congress. This major bipartisan victory is the result of years of hard work and I am grateful to have gotten this done for Montana.”

The central claim politicians make around GAOA is that it “fully” funds LWCF. That law was passed in 1965 for the purpose of ensuring access to outdoor recreation for all Americans. It funds that access through land acquisitions, conservation grant programs, and the construction and maintenance of recreation facilities like parks, playgrounds, swimming areas, and trailheads.

To do that, LWCF draws money not from taxpayers, but through fees assessed on offshore oil and gas extraction. The original LWCF Act did not specify a specific funding amount, but Congress set that at $900 million annually in 1978. That money is paid into the Treasury, and Congress draws from it to appropriate funding for LWCF projects.

The problem there is obviously in relying on Congress to do what it’s supposed to. Between 1978 and 2020, legislators only fully appropriated the fund twice. During that time period, LWCF appropriations averaged about $450 million annually.

What Daines and his colleagues did with with GAOA was make the $900 million appropriation permanent. Federal agencies, and state and local governments still have to apply for grants and other funding, but thanks in part to Daines, the $900 million total is there to be spent.

The problem isn’t in that achievement, which is indisputably good, it’s in the messaging around it. Since the passage of GAOA, Daines has rebranded himself as “The Conservative Conservationist,” and has promoted it as “the greatest conservation achievement in 50 years.”

Shortly after passing the act, Daines won re-election against former Montana Governor Steve Bullock with 55 percent of the vote.

Let’s do some math. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator, $900 million in August, 2020 (when GAOA became law) money was worth only about $216 million in 1978, when funding levels for LWCF were last set. $900 million today was only $175 million in 1978.

Congress never intended for 1978-level funding for LWCF to remain permanent. And it’s important to remember that the funding is provided by offshore oil and gas extraction, not taxpayers. In 1978, the average price for a gallon of gas was $0.65. Today it’s $3.16. The price of gas has outpaced inflation, but fees applied to it by LWCF have remained at the same dollar amount.

A more accurate claim would be that GAOA permanently funds LWCF at less than one-fifth its intended budget, an amount that will continue to decrease each year. But that wouldn’t win a Senate race.

The other big piece in GAOA was its Legacy Restoration Fund: $9.5 billion over five years directed towards addressing the maintenance backlog on public lands, 70 percent of which went to the park service. Well, that five years is up, so enter the America The Beautiful Act, which seeks to re-authorize LRF for another eight years, and increase its annual funding by $100 million annually.

“When President Trump signed my Great American Outdoors Act into law in 2020, it was the greatest conservation win for Montana and the entire country in 50 years,” states Daines “I’m proud to work with my colleagues to strengthen that win and protect our outdoor way of life for generations to come. The America the Beautiful Act will fund crucial projects and address maintenance backlogs, so that people can get outside and enjoy the natural beauty we’re lucky to have here in the U.S.”

LRF money is drawn from fees assessed on energy development projects on public lands and waters. So it’s again taxpayer neutral.

What impact did five years of $1.9 billion in funding achieve?

Here’s a rundown of maintenance backlogs from each major federal land management agency in 2020, before GAOA was passed:

• National Park Service: $14.37 billion

• U.S. Forest Service: $5.86 billion

• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: $1.33 billion

• Bureau of Land Management: $4.09 billion

• Bureau of Indian Education: $591.5 million

And, according to Daines’ office, here’s where those numbers stand today:

• National Park Service: $23.26 billion

• USFS: $8.695 billion

• USFWS: $2.65 billion

• BLM: $5.72 billion

• BIE: $804.5 million

Now I should note here that there are external factors influencing those increases. Inflation is a bitch (NPS’s $14.37 billion 2020 backlog would equal $17.74 billion today). And, accountability measures introduced by GAOA have changed some ways in which these agencies tabulate their backlogs, leading to some increases.

But I think a takeaway that all parties could agree on here would be: $1.9 billion/year is not enough money to effectively reduce, or even halt increases in deferred maintenance on our public lands.

And that’s a further issue, because of inflation. $2 billion today is only $1.62 billion in 2020 bucks.

An accurate claim on which Daines should campaign on next year is that, should his America The Beautiful Act pass, he’ll have reduced LRF funding—which was already grossly inadequate—by 15 percent. Adjusted for inflation, that dollar amount will then decrease each year through 2033, and all things being equal, will undershoot the expansion in deferred maintenance by a massive margin.

If our nation’s political environment were normal right now, and if politicians spoke about things using facts, an accurate way to describe GAOA, LRF and America The Beautiful Act funding would be by describing them as failures to perform the bare minimum in order to fund the needs of our nation’s public lands system. A system that’s remarkably efficient at using that money to produce outsize returns for all of America’s citizens. Every dollar invested in NPS produces $18 for the wider economy. Every dollar invested in BLM produces $194 for the economy. Failing to make adequate investments in such efficient, productive agencies would, if things were normal, demonstrate simple incompetence.

Of course, all things are not equal, and we are not living in normal times.

According to the League of Conservation Voters, during his 12 years in Congress, Daines has voted for protecting public lands, the environment, wildlife, and similar just 8 percent of the time.

Daines was influential in the Forest Service’s recent decision to perform a controversial land swap in Montana, which will lock out most public access to the Crazy Mountains, a 600 square-mile mountain range, all so Justin Timberlake can get a new place to go skiing.

And Daines has also been a longtime advocate for eliminating Montana’s million acres of Wilderness Study Areas, which provide critical habitat supporting the state’s healthy wildlife populations.

In 2020, Montana Conservation Voters named Daines to its “Dirty Dozen” list of anti-conservation candidates, and stated he has a, “dirty pig of a record.”

But perhaps the biggest departure between the image Daines is trying to imagine and reality is in his unwavering support of President Trump. Not only has that administration decimated staffing levels across public lands agencies, but it’s also proposing massive budget cuts, including stripping $900 million from the $3 billion taxpayers provide to the National Park Service.

And while stripping staff and budgets, the administration is also ordering that all attractions in national parks be kept open, a move that could lead to tens of billions of dollars in damages, perhaps doubling that agency’s maintenance backlog in the space of just a single year.

Trump has also proposed selling national parks in order to fund tax cuts for billionaires.

But perhaps the biggest disparity between the grossly inadequate public lands funding Daines plans to campaign on, and our shared reality as we live through this administration’s attempt to destroy our country is the fact that the White House must approve each and every project funded by LWCF and LRF.

The last time that occurred with Trump in the driver’s seat—remember this is after he signed GAOA into law—his Secretary of the Interior attempted to avoid approving a single dollar of those funds. Why should we believe this time will be any different?

Top photo: USFS

Wes Siler is your guide to leading a more exciting life outdoors. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports independent journalism and gives you personal access to his expertise and network, which he’ll use to help you plan trips, purchase gear, and solve problems. You can read more about what he’s doing on Substack through this link.