Vice President visits Yellowstone

Update:

Joined by Secretary of Interior David Bernhardt, his wife, and Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly, Pence called for bipartisan legislation to fix park infrastructure.

“Our National Parks need more than $12 billion to repair aging infrastructure due to decades of inaction, and we are calling on Congress to support on a bipartisan basis the Trump Administration’s proposal to address this vital need. It’s time to act,” said Bernhardt.

Yellowstone Park comprises about $500 million of the deferred total.

While at Yellowstone, Pence and Bernhardt spoke to approximately 120 employees and partners, and received briefings from NPS employees on the subjects of deferred maintenance, forest management and wildfire, and Yellowstone’s unique geology and wildlife.

In order to maintain our National Parks and public lands, the Trump Administration via the Department of the Interior (DOI) included a legislative proposal in the FY2019 budget that called for the creation of a Public Lands Infrastructure Fund.

This fund would establish a dedicated revenue stream generated from federal energy leases and royalty payments (all forms of energy, solar, wind, coal, oil, gas, biomass, geothermal, etc.) to fix infrastructure and maintenance projects in National Parks and on other public lands.

Bipartisan legislation was introduced in both chambers, but ultimately a consensus was not reached before the end of last session. The DOI re-proposed the PLIF in the FY2020 budget.

Original Story:

Vice-President Mike Pence spoke to park rangers and visitors at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park Thursday morning.

His talk focused on administration plans to catch up with a backlog of infrastructure needs in the National Park Service system.

Kaitlin Miklos was on hand for the occasion and will have a full report at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Local News 8 and on Eyewitness News 3 at 5:30 p.m.