The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee recently unanimously approved the America’s Outdoor Recreation Act of 2022, the first comprehensive recreation package since 1963.
The bill would improve and expand the country’s outdoor recreation economy while providing sustainable economic boosts to rural communities, as per the News & Insights report of the RV Industry Association (RVIA).
The RVIA government affairs team continues to act as one of the bill’s leading advocates, ensuring federal campgrounds are repaired, reopened, expanded, and modernized to accommodate current and future generation park stewards and recreationalists.
America’s Outdoor Recreation Act will go far and wide in creating sustainable improvements to federal campgrounds and improving the experiences of current and future RVers, according to the News & Insights report.
The planned and most needed improvements are longer and broader sites, additional RV hookups, improvement of day-to-day upkeep of campgrounds, accommodating EV and other future technologies, cell/Wi-Fi service for safety purposes, access reservations and rentals, and more “RV-friendly” campsites for the overwhelming demand.
“The RV Industry Association strongly supports this bill and has advocated for its passage because we know that access to the outdoors, along with safe and adequate campground inventory, must keep pace with the overwhelming demand from the American people,” said the RV Industry Association Director of Federal Affairs Chris Bornemann.
“America’s Outdoor Recreation Act of 2022 recognizes this demand and takes crucial steps to address it by modernizing campgrounds, improving outdated recreation policy, and ensuring all Americans have the opportunity to enjoy the many benefits of living a healthy, active outdoor lifestyle.”
The bill provides gateway community assistance for outdoor recreation businesses and campgrounds, responsibly extends shoulder seasons, and brings much-needed broadband to front country campgrounds, addressing safety issues and delivering technologies that current and future park visitors require.
The RVIA also advocated for the legislation’s establishment of a pilot program for public-private partnership agreements in modernizing campgrounds on federal lands.
The partnerships are a sensible and proven way of bringing public land infrastructure into the 21st century, ensuring all public lands remain in the federal government’s hands, and preserving access and enjoyment of the campgrounds to current and future RVers.
View the full text of the bill here, a one-page summary here, and a section-by-section summary here.