Backers of the fund say it's important for Congress to keep pumping money into it as the nation loses roughly 3 million acres to development each year. They say it's a race against time, noting that one out of every three developed acres in the nation was developed from 1982 to 2007. The National Park Service has identified 1.8 million additional acres that it wants to acquire, at a cost of $1.9 billion.


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