Congress, retailers want to rebuild national parks. Road tolls might pay

Congress is trying to come up with more money to give the aging national parks a facelift in honor of the country’s 250th birthday this year. President Donald Trump talks about the importance of federal facilities looking good, while his budget proposal slashed funding for the National Park Service.

Republican lawmakers are searching for revenue sources including establishing tolls on federally operated roads in the Washington area used daily by tens of thousands of commuters and by hiking fees to visit national parks for visitors from outside the U.S. Democrats say putting tolls on roads that intersect with the Capital Beltway is an untenable solution and that finding new money to fund park overhauls is not necessary since it’s already the government’s responsibility to maintain the parks.

Lawmakers are racing to pass the successor to the Great American Outdoors Act, or GAOA, a law Trump signed during his first term to clear the National Park Service’s backlog of deferred maintenance in the park system. The law has now expired, and the maintenance backlog has only grown, so Congress wants to pass a successor measure to finish the job.

The national parks are one of the few remaining truly bipartisan issues on Capitol Hill due to their immense popularity with voters. Few lawmakers will oppose funding the parks, and Trump’s proposed cuts and sales of public lands have been routinely vanquished in Congress. And, the parks help support a booming outdoor recreation industry that contributes to the economy, supporting sales of gear and materials from companies such as REI, Patagonia and DuPont.

“If we could find a way to use tolls on federal roads, that’s one way you could fund it,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Westerman said he’s looking to create what he’s called the “Next 250 Fund” to fund the parks.

Westerman said tolls would be justified because the first iteration of the Great American Outdoors Act directed money to restore the George Washington Memorial Parkway, a federal road in the metropolitan Washington area. A slew of federally operated roads crisscross the capital area.

“Look at all the money that comes out of the parks in Wyoming that goes to things like the George Washington Parkway, the entrance fees from there, so why shouldn’t that be an option to raise funds to do maintenance backlog going forward?” he asked.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, ruled out tolling to raise additional tax dollars, saying the drivers who use the Washington-area roads have recoiled from the idea.

“All the colleagues I’ve talked to that represent those areas say it’s a nonstarter, poison pill,” Huffman said.

Huffman said there’s no need to find additional revenue to balance the new spending in the bill, calling it an “obsession” of Republicans.

“This is deferred maintenance, it’s like a debt we’ve already incurred,” he said. “So to be playing around with these politicized offsets is not a productive path forward.”

The legislative effort occurs against the backdrop of Trump’s proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year that would slash the National Park Service’s overall budget by 34% and its construction budget to less than $50 million, a 72% decrease from 2025.

Those cuts would follow National Park Service staff reductions totaling nearly a quarter of the agency’s workforce in 2025 after Trump returned to the White House, according to data compiled by the National Parks Conservation Association.

The Senate is not pursuing tolls or other new revenue for its version of the bill, dubbed the “America the Beautiful Act.” That bill would use the same mechanism as the first Great American Outdoors Act to fund the maintenance: funneling oil and gas royalties from all federal energy development revenues into a fund called the Legacy Restoration Fund, set aside for park maintenance.

The Senate bill, led by Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Angus King, I-Maine, has 52 sponsors in the Senate.

“Let’s see how we can do over here and then we’ll talk with Chairman Westerman,” King said when asked about the proposed tolls.

Hanging over the debate is the White House, which, in its budget request for fiscal 2027, asked for the Legacy Restoration Fund, which expired after the 2025 fiscal year, to be restored. The White House also endorsed foreign visitor fees, saying the park service “would implement a surcharge on international visitors at the most visited parks that would provide hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain parks around the Nation.”

The number of international visitors to the U.S. dropped 5.9% in Trump’s first year back in the White House from the year before, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The National Park Service already implemented a $100 per person surcharge for non-U.S. residents per daily visit to the most popular national parks, and Trump wants to put the change into law.

Democrats are also on high alert for any legislative language that may clear the way for Trump’s various projects around Washington, such as his White House ballroom and a proposed triumphal arch.

“I am concerned that some of the language we’ve seen could be used for vanity construction projects, and that’s not going to fly either,” Huffman said.

The outdoor recreation market is a massive industry worth billions in the U.S. that touches almost every part of the retail industry — from specialty players such as REI and Patagonia to big box stores such as Walmart and Target to apparel companies such as Lululemon and Abercrombie & Fitch.

During Trump’s first term, retailers threw their weight behind the GAOA because legislation that supports the outdoors and U.S. national parks is safe policy to support and is inherently apolitical, said Neil Saunders, a GlobalData Retail analyst and managing director.

“It kind of throws a halo around the brands. It links in with sustainability. It links in with the green agenda, but it’s not really political in a way that is controversial,” Saunders said. “Most Americans are like, ‘Hey, our public parks, you know, are an asset. They’re a national asset. We should protect them. We should look after them. We should make sure that they’re well kept. They’re a source of pride. And I think retailers find it very easy to sign on to things like that.”

Of course, it’s also good for business.

In a November report, the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, a trade association that supports the GAOA, says outdoor recreation drives $1.2 trillion in economic output and supports 5 million U.S. jobs each year. The group found that recreation on federal lands and waters adds $351 million to the U.S. economy every day — the same amount of economic juice that could come from hosting eight Super Bowls every month.

For retailers such as REI and VF Corp — whose brands include The North Face and Timberland — that means more customers coming to their stores to buy camping gear, helmets or hiking boots. If consumers visit a national park and like what they see, they may decide to make outdoor recreation a more regular hobby, which likely means spending money on gear associated with those hobbies. Conversely, if they visit a park and find it to be poorly maintained and unenjoyable, they may try something else during their next bout of free time, perhaps indoors.

More people visiting national parks “potentially enlarges the market size because there are more people doing outdoor activities,” Saunders said. “They need equipment, even if it’s basic stuff, like coats and backpacks.”

The debate on how to fund the GAOA comes at a time when the overall wellness market is growing and becoming an important economic driver. More consumers are ultra-focused on their bodies, what they consume and how they spend their time. For many, that includes more time outdoors, either exercising or just spending time in nature for mental health reasons.

U.S. consumers’ focus on wellness was a growing trend before the Covid-19 pandemic that accelerated during lockdown orders, fueling a surge in interest in outdoor activities, national parks and sales of sports and leisure goods.

While that interest is still there, and is now being buoyed by the Make America Healthy Again movement, sales for sports and leisure goods have slowed since the pandemic. That’s largely because so many people stocked up on outdoor goods during that time and due to an overall slowdown in discretionary spending, Saunders said.

Between 2015 and 2022, the U.S. outdoor market grew each year for seven years but has since softened, shrinking 6% between 2022 and 2025, according to GlobalData.

Given how slow discretionary spending has been in recent years, fresh funding for the GAOA could prove to be an important sales driver for retailers, especially if it’s coupled with marketing tied to revamped national parks and outdoor events around the nation’s 250th birthday.

“They need it,” Saunders said. “The market’s been a little bit sluggish, so I think retailers see this as a nice boost at the right time.”