America the Beautiful Act honors Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation legacy

Theodore Roosevelt always went big. That was especially so with our national landscape. He left America a remarkable conservation inheritance. During his presidency, he protected some 230 million acres of public land — roughly one-third of all federal land that exists today — and helped establish conservation as an enduring American ideal. More than a century later, honoring that legacy requires more than protecting land. It requires taking care of what we already have. That is the promise of the America the Beautiful Act, bipartisan legislation currently making its way through Congress that offers a smarter path for funding the stewardship of America’s national parks and public lands. The act dedicates resources to the upkeep of what we already own, making those dollars work harder, and asks international visitors to contribute more toward the care of the extraordinary places they travel here to enjoy. The need is hard to miss. National parks may be, in the words of Wallace Stegner, America’s best idea, but behind the postcard views lies a massive $24 billion maintenance challenge. Roads and bridges need repair. Trails and campgrounds are deteriorating. Water systems, visitor facilities and historic structures are aging. These problems lack the romance of creating a new national park, but conservation at its core is about taking care of what you own. A rancher who buys more land while letting his fences fall down isn’t practicing good stewardship. Neither is a government that lets the public’s lands fall into disrepair. The America the Beautiful Act recognizes that distinction. The legislation would secure up to $1.9 billion a year for the Legacy Restoration Fund through 2031, dedicating significant resources to deferred maintenance across national parks and other public lands. It would prioritize projects that address safety risks and high visitation impacts, prevent assets from deteriorating into more expensive problems, and make measurable progress against maintenance backlogs. Just as importantly, those dollars will continue to be dedicated to caring for what we already own, rather than acquiring additional lands. Conservation isn’t measured simply in acres. It is also measured by the condition in which we leave those acres to the next generation. Critically, the bill contains an innovative way to help pay for that work: an international visitor surcharge at national parks. The Interior Department has already taken a first step in this direction. Beginning this year, it imposed an additional $100 charge on international visitors at 11 of the nation’s busiest parks. The America the Beautiful Act would put the concept into law and expand it to National Park System units that charge entrance fees, with the additional revenue supporting deferred maintenance. It’s an idea the Property and Environment Research Center has championed for years and presented to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in 2025. The market logic is simple: International tourists often spend thousands of dollars traveling to see Yellowstone, Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. Park admission fees represent a tiny fraction of their trip. Asking them to pay a bit more means every dollar they contribute is a dollar American taxpayers don’t have to. Other countries already use similar pricing at prized natural and cultural attractions, like the Louvre in Paris, France, or the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, so why not try this approach at home? It is a virtuous conservation loop. People value a place enough to visit it, their visit generates revenue, and that revenue helps keep America’s parks beautiful. In other words, conservation can help pay for conservation. This approach would have been familiar to Theodore Roosevelt. His conservation ethic was grounded not simply in preservation, but in stewardship — the responsibility to use America’s natural wealth wisely and leave it in good condition for those who come after us. Theodore Roosevelt learned this as a rancher in the Dakotas before becoming president. When he and George Bird Grinnell founded the Boone and Crockett Club, in 1887, its first task was securing the wildlife and resources of Yellowstone, then a park in name only. Protecting a place was the beginning of the work, not the end of it. Fittingly, the bill has a champion in Burgum, who led the state where Roosevelt’s conservation ethic was forged. This Oct. 27 marks Theodore Roosevelt’s 168th birthday. What more fitting way to honor his legacy than for Congress to pass this critical piece of legislation immediately after the election and send it to the president’s desk? More than a century after he helped make conservation an American ideal, the occasion is an opportune reminder of what his legacy asks of us. But time is of the essence in the remaining days of this Congress. Roosevelt helped conserve an extraordinary inheritance. Our job is to take care of it. Now. Brian Yablonski is the chief executive officer of the Property and Environment Research Center. Simon Roosevelt is the executive vice president of conservation at the Boone and Crockett Club. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.