Colorado’s U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner told northern Colorado business leaders Wednesday afternoon that additional support is on the way to recover from the pandemic, but leaders in both parties will have to work together.

Congress is trying to shape the next recovery package, but Washington being Washington, the two sides seem far apart this election year. Gardner is one of the most targeted and endangered Republicans in the nation’s Capitol for reelection, as Democrats angle to unseat him and take control of the Senate, while holding the House and bouncing President Donald Trump from the White House.

“It cannot pass if it’s a partisan bill,” Gardner told chamber and other economic development officials from the region.

Three weeks ago, the U.S. House narrowly passed a $3 trillion relief bill – the fourth such stimulus effort – that’s bottled up by Republicans in the Senate. The bill in the House attracted just one Republican vote, while 14 Democrats voted against it.

That bill included $1 trillion for state and local governments and $200 billion for hazard pay for essential frontline workers and another round of $1,200 direct payments to most Americans.

“Whatever happens is going to have to be bipartisan,” Gardner said Wednesday. “What the House did was not bipartisan.”

Senate leaders are working on extending paycheck and unemployment protections, as well as disaster loans and a path toward a COVID-19 vaccine, he said.

The next relief package is expected to bail out state and local governments, where budgets have been decimated by the coronavirus crisis and subsequent economic collapse as tax revenue in a downward spiral. The Colorado state budget is facing a loss in excess of $3 billion, a quarter of state government’s operating budget and $500 to K-12 schools.

An estimated 1 million government jobs at the state and local level have been lost, a congressional committee heard Tuesday.

“I’ve got great faith in this country,” Gardner said, setting up his only mention of the country’s racial strife caused by the police killing an unarmed black man in Minneapolis. “We learn the from the past. We have to, whether it’s the coronavirus or this tragic murder of George Floyd. We have to do everything we can to learn from it and do better in the future.”

Reopening the economy, however, isn’t as simple as reopening businesses, Gardner explained.

“We have to restore confidence in the American consumer that if they’re going to go out to a business, everything is going to be OK,” he said. “If they don’t have confidence, even if businesses are open, they’re not going to reengage in the system of commerce.”

Gardner told the Colorado leaders that he’s hopeful his Great American Outdoors Act, will be up for a vote in the Senate next week.

He called it a significant bonus to the state’s outdoors and its economy, and he’s confident it will become law, as he’s gotten assurances of support from the White House.

Though the left has criticized Gardner for President Trump’s move to slash the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the senator’s bill would permanently restore that funding.

This bipartisan bill Gardner authored would establish the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund to address deferred maintenance projects on federal lands up to $1.9 billion a year from 2021 to 2025 for the national park system

Colorado alone has nearly a quarter of a billion in backlogs, including hiring people to fix facilities, trails and make other improvements, stimulating local economies, he said. Nationally estimate that it could help generate 40,000 jobs throughout the economy, describing it as “almost like a Civilian Conservation Corps.”

Rocky Mountain National Park, alone, has “millions and million and millions of dollars” in needs, including barracks to house outdoors workers.

“Estes Park with be a prime beneficiary,” Gardner said. 

His bill takes half the federal money from development of oil, gas, coal or alternative or renewable energy on federal lands and waters.

“It will be one of the biggest conservation success Congress has had in the last 50 years,” Gardner said. “Certainly at this time, with the economic need, it’s going to provide an excellent economic boost for our country.”

In a May 11 letter, 850 outdoor groups and environmental organizations endorsed the bill, including Environment Colorado, the American Hiking Society, The Trust for Public Land, the Wilderness Society, The Nature Conservancy and the Colorado Mountain Club.

Gardner is a member of the Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, where he chairs the subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity.