National parks can renew leases without bidding once.
H.R. 4931 — National Park System Long-Term Lease Investment Act · Filed by Gregory Murphy (R-NC) · Introduced Aug 8, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill lets the National Park Service extend leases one more time. No bidding is needed. The lessee must have held the lease for at least 5 years. The lessee must follow all rules. After that one extension, future renewals must have bidding.
Who it affects
Park visitors lose the chance to get the best or cheapest service. Companies that run lodges, restaurants, shops, and tours in parks gain one free renewal. They do not have to bid against other firms.
One thing to notice
Once a park firm gets one free renewal, it can raise prices without fear. If only one firm runs a lodge or restaurant in a park, visitors have no choice.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Aug 8, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Aug 8, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources”
- Dec 2, 2025 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Subcommittee Hearings Held”
- Jul 22, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Jul 22, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported in the Nature of a Substitute (Amended) by Unanimous Consent”
- Sep 14, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote”
- Sep 14, 2026 — Floor vote scheduled · Congress.gov: “Mr. Westerman moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Dec 2025 to Dec 2025.
Those reports show $139,430 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 46 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Gregory Murphy, who sponsored the bill, received $1,109,198 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- National Parks Conservation Association — $139,430 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- lease — A contract that lets a firm run a service on park land for a set time.
- lessee — The firm or person that rents land or a service spot under a lease.
- bidding — A process where multiple firms offer to run a service and the park picks one.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,651 characters) on Jul 28, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jan 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-01.
“National parks can renew leases without bidding once.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr4931/simple Report an error
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