Parks get a boost.

Byline: The Register-Guard

One of the few bright spots in President Bush's abysmal environmental record has been his late-blooming recognition of the need to rebuild this country's deteriorating national parks.

Earlier this month, Bush asked Congress for $2.4 billion to bolster staffing and improve programs and amenities at the country's 390 national parks. That's $258 million more than Bush proposed in last year's budget, and, if approved, would be the largest increase in the 90-year history of the National Park Service.

Decades of inadequate funding under the Bush administration and its predecessors have finally caught up to our national parks, leaving priceless natural and cultural resources in an appalling state of decay. At Gettysburg National Park in Pennsylvania, historic buildings and cannon carriages are literally rotting away. At Saguaro National Park in Arizona, invasive plant species are wreaking havoc on the iconic cacti for which the park is named.

When Bush was a presidential candidate in 2000, he promised to eliminate a maintenance backlog in the parks estimated at nearly $5 billion. Seven years later, there has been no significant progress as skyrocketing costs have devoured nominal budget increases under his administration. Meanwhile, parks in Oregon and elsewhere have been forced to reduce staffing, visitor center hours, educational programs, custodial services and law enforcement patrols.

Congress, which has set a goal of fully restoring the park system by its 100th anniversary in 2016, should support - and, if possible, expand - the Bush proposal. Among its most promising features is a pledge to provide at least $100 million a year in federal matching funds to attract philanthropic and corporate donations over the next decade.

By approving the White House proposal, Congress can position the park service to make serious inroads on reducing its maintenance backlog and improving its stewardship of historic sites. The Bush plan would provide funding for 3,000 new seasonal employees - 1,000 each for maintenance, interpretive services and law enforcement. In Oregon, that would mean an additional 14 employees at Crater Lake National Park and six at Lewis and Clark Historic Park.

But before approving the funding increase, lawmakers should make certain the park service rescinds its earlier plans to charge higher admission and other park fees to pay for improvements. At Crater Lake, for example, the park service has proposed doubling the current $10 cost of a seven-day entrance pass, which admits a vehicle and its passengers to the park, to $20 - an increase that would make admission unaffordable for some low-income Oregonians.

Surveys show that the national parks are already too expensive for some Americans, with 80 percent of Latino families saying they cannot afford to visit the parks. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who has done an admirable job of persuading the president that national parks should be a budget priority, should rescind the planned fee increases before they take effect later this year.

While Bush's budget request for the park service represents an impressive increase over previous levels, it is not sufficient to reverse the decades of underfunding that preceded it. But it's a promising start.

President Bush has stepped up to rescue America's national parks. Now Congress must follow the president's lead.