Senator Harris Introduces Outdoors for All Act

Washington, D.C. -- Today, Senator Kamala Harris introduced the Outdoors for All Act, which is the Senate version of the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership bill introduced last year by  Representative Nanette Diaz Barragan (CA-44) and Representative Mike Turner (OH-10). Outdoors for All would create a dedicated funding source for the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP), which was established by Congress in 2014 and provides competitive grants to communities that lack outdoor recreation spaces to build parks and outdoor recreation facilities.

The Outdoors For All Act dedicates a mandatory funding source for ORLP that is in addition to previous discretionary funding. The bill would allocate twenty percent of the Land and Water Conservation Fund revenues under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA) for the ORLP.

In response, Joel Pannell, Associate Director of Sierra Club Outdoors, released the following statement:

“We applaud Senator Harris for introducing this important and timely legislation to address the some of the barriers to getting outdoors.  Just like our school systems are segregated by class and race, so are our neighborhoods, meaning that low-income families are significantly less likely to live near a local park. One in three people in the U.S. do not live within a ten minute walk of a local park. Whole generations of children in our nation are growing up without access to the benefits of getting outdoors. Given everything we now know about the mental, physical and social health benefits of outdoor activity, we have an obligation to close this gap and ensure that everyone has access to the healing power of nature and the outdoors. The Outdoors for All act will bring us one step closer to equity in outdoor access by providing a dedicated funding source for outdoor recreation projects in underserved communities.”