2020 John H. Chafee Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Policy: GAOA Coalition
Channel: National Trust for Historic Preservation
Date: 2020-11-19

Great American Outdoors Act Coalition: 2020 John H. Chafee Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Policy

In 2016, the National Parks Conservation Association, The National Park Foundation, and The Corps Network joined efforts as part of the “Restore Our Parks Campaign” to help tackle the nearly $12 billion deferred maintenance backlog of the National Park Service. Meanwhile, a separate decades-long campaign led by the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Coalition and their partners, The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land, were working to provide full, permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

After years of extraordinary advocacy, these two campaigns joined to support the Great American Outdoors Act, which passed the Congress by overwhelmingly bipartisan votes and was signed into law on August 4, 2020. This landmark legislation will invest up to $9.5 billion to repair historic and other assets of the National Park Service and other federal agencies, as well as fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million annually. This represents the largest investment in historic resources in more than a generation.

Primary Recipients: The Land and Water Conservation Fund Coalition and the National Parks Conservation Association

Co-recipients: The Nature Conservancy, The Trust for Public Land, the National Park Foundation, and The Corps Network

The 2020 John H. Chafee Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Policy was presented at PastForward Online 2020