The chairman of the Route 66 Road Ahead Partnership has endorsed a bill recently introduced by three U.S. senators to designate Route 66 as a National Historic Trail.
U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and James Lankford of Oklahoma and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, all Republicans, last week introduced bill number S.5170 that would amend the National Trails System Act and add Route 66 to the system.
The bill is listed here. Its text wasn’t uploaded until a few days ago.
Bill Thomas, chairman of the partnership, had declined to comment last week until he read the bill’s text. When contacted by email Thursday with a link to the measure’s text, he responded with this statement:
“As the historic milestone of the Road’s Centennial draws closer, the Route 66 Road Ahead Partnership can think of no better present for Route 66 than to make it a National Historic Trail. The Road Ahead commends the efforts of Senators Inhofe, Lankford, and Cruz in introducing legislation to accomplish this designation. The Road Ahead also encourages interested parties to contact their representatives in Congress to advocate for a floor vote in the House on H.R.3600 and to advance S.5170 in the Senate.”
The bill contains stipulations about land acquisition, easements, permits, a prohibition on buffer zones and eminent domain, and a ban on any disruption of the energy sector.
When Thomas was asked whether he had any reservations about supporting the bill after reading the text, he simply stated: “No.”
Previous Route 66 National Historic Trail bills have enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress in recent years but have failed to advance in time to become law.
The current bill doesn’t have much time before the current session in Congress ends in early January. Skopos Labs gives the measure just a 3% chance of becoming law.
Hope springs eternal that Congress will advance the bill to the president’s desk as a parting gift to Inhofe, 88, who is retiring.
Route 66 News endorsed designating Route 66 as a National Historic Trail more than 10 years ago. We laid out the reasons here.
(Image of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington by Phil Roeder via Flickr)