Rep. Blake Moore’s LODGE Act belatedly clears U.S. House committee

U.S. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) has announced that his 'Lodging Options Developed for Government Employees Act' had finally cleared the House Natural Resources Committee by a unanimous vote in early December.

WASHINGTON D.C. – After months in committee discussions, the House Natural Resources Committee has finally unanimously passed the Lodging Options Developed for Government Employees (LODGE) Act introduced by U.S. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) in April.

“My colleagues and I are committed to finding way to improve government programs while simultaneously saving taxpayers’ dollars,” Moore explained after the early December committee vote.

“The LODGE Act is a great example of how these goals come together to make a positive impact.”

The LODGE Act will cut red tape and provide the National Park Service (NPS) with new authority to enter into innovative housing partnerships with the private sector.

The legislation will also reduce costs to the taxpayer by providing modern housing for the NPS employees to rent; increase the ability of that agency to hire and retain staff; and improve NPS employees’ morale.

This model of public-private partnerships is similar to those successfully used by other federal agencies, including the Falcon Hill Research Park at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

The LODGE Act is also a prime example of the way that Moore has forged bi-partisan alliances with majority Democrats during his first term in Congress.

His co-sponsor on this legislative proposal was U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, a three-term congressman from California and the son of Leon Panetta, who served in numerous official posts in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

Their seemingly “odd couple” partnership calls to mind the relationship between the late Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and the late Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D-MA) who forged unlikely legislative deals on social programs in the 1980s and 1990s.

While it seemed during the recent election that those times had changed, Moore has indicated that he now sees no reason to abandon his winning bi-partisan strategy in the upcoming session of Congress where Republicans will be in the majority in the House.

Moore’s staff reports that 44 units of the National Park Service set a record for recreational visits in 2021.

Utah’s national parks were particularly busy, with visitation rates up by nearly 80 percent.

While a surge in tourism is beneficial to local economies, they say, it poses major challenges for housing options in national park communities and surrounding areas, known as gateway communities.

Additionally, local property owners are compounding the problem by using short-term rental services to rent their homes to vacationers rather than leasing them to NPS and private sector service employees.

As a result, housing costs in many gateway communities have skyrocketed.

“Not only will passage of this bill bring relief to the housing markets for National Park Service employees around our gateway communities,” Moore predicted, “it will also provide them with better living and working conditions so they can focus on maintaining our national parks for generations to come.

“I look forward to supporting this bill through the legislative process in the new Congress.”

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