There’s bipartisan support for a bill that would permanently reinstitute a longstanding conservation measure, protecting the nation’s parks and wildlife refuges from development.

Colorado U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner are co-sponsors of a piece of legislation introduced earlier this month by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.)  that would permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the nation’s main conservation program.

“It’s often talked about as the most important conservation program, you’ve never heard of,” said Alan Rowsome, The Wilderness Society senior director for government relations for land.

The fund has historically enjoyed wide bipartisan support, but is currently operating under a three-year extension, which will expire in 2018. The fund is the key federal investment in a sector that supports more than 6 million jobs and contributes $646 billion annually to the nation’s economy. Colorado has received more than $275 million in monies from the fund over the past 50 years.

“Access to Colorado’s open spaces is critical to our thriving outdoor recreation economy,” Bennet said in a statement. “The LWCF has supported hundreds of projects across Colorado, from protecting the Ophir Valley to expanding and improving the Animas River Trail to providing Denver kids with outdoor educational opportunities in their own neighborhoods.”

The fund uses revenues from the depletion of offshore oil and gas to help protect national parks, including Rocky Mountain and Grand Canyon, and rivers and lakes and national wildlife refuges from development and provides matching grants for state and local parks and recreation projects, Rowsome said.

Annually, about $900 million in royalties are put into the fund, but in its 52-year history, it’s only been fully funded twice, with Congress often diverting monies out of the fund.

At a time when visits to national parks have boomed, reauthorizing the fund and protecting national parks and public lands are a logical step, Rowsome said.

“Why wouldn’t we make this permanent, it works and it’s valuable,” Rowsome said. “This is one of the best opportunity if not the only opportunity to find bipartisan common ground on an issue that we should be able to agree on.”

But, some anti public lands lawmakers are attempting to kill the fund in its tracks, Rowsome said.

“I think kicking the can down the road allows some members of Congress to play politics with an issue that is one of the real examples where you can find common ground, even in a hyper divisive atmosphere,” Rowsome said.