Benton Mackaye National Scenic Trail Feasibility Study Act of 2026

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. The Benton MacKaye Trail runs approximately 287 miles from Springer Mountain in north Georgia through east Tennessee and western North Carolina into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, ending in Big Creek in the northeast corner of the park.

The Benton MacKaye Trail provides numerous opportunities for easy, moderate, and challenging day hikes, many routes for multiday backpacking and camping, and of course, for the most serious hikers, end-to-end hikes.

More than 200 volunteers do maintenance work on the trail each year, generating approximately 8,000 hours of volunteer maintenance annually.

It offers quite an alternative to the heavily used section of the Appalachian Trail from north Georgia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Congress has not designated a new National Scenic Trail since 2009. This trail is long overdue for that recognition.

The feasibility study is the next step. It is a low-cost, low- footprint measure. The trail is already on Federal land for about 95 percent of its length and would be administered by the Forest Service. This is bipartisan legislation that passed committee with unanimous consent.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this great bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source