Editor's note: The following guest column was written by Deny Galvin, who served as deputy director of the National Park Service and is on the board of the National Parks Conservation Association.

For 50 years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has been a successful conservation tool for protecting America’s national parks. Unfortunately, this important fund, which enjoys strong bipartisan congressional support, is threatened by a proposed U.S. House bill. Congress should reject it, and instead permanently extend the program.

Our nation loses 1.6 million acres of rural land to development each year. Helping address development threats for protected lands, LWCF invests a small portion of federal offshore drilling revenue to protect America’s heritage. The fund allows the National Park Service and other federal land agencies to purchase lands within the borders of federally protected areas from landowners when they are offered for sale. Without these funds, the land is more likely to be sold to the highest bidder, risking damaging construction projects ranging from sub-developments to strip malls to resorts. Acquiring these parcels from willing sellers also makes park management more efficient.

In addition to this federal program, LWCF also provides grants to states and localities to protect working forests, recreation facilities, endangered species habitat and civil war sites. The state assistance program supports local additions to outdoor recreation. I served on juries that evaluated projects that rehabilitated urban facilities, and I saw how needed these projects were.

The federal LWCF program has successfully protected more than 2.2 million acres that are within more than half of the 409 areas within America’s National Park System, from the Appalachian Trail to Gettysburg to Yosemite and beyond.

As an employee of the National Park Service for nearly 40 years, including almost a decade as deputy director, I witnessed the effectiveness of LWCF in protecting our national parks. Therefore I am deeply disappointed that a congressional proposal, the PARC Act, would effectively dismantle the federal LWCF program.

This past October, Congress failed to meet the necessary deadline to extend the LWCF program. Instead, it was argued in the House that LWCF should not be extended without alterations, despite its demonstrated success. In this spirit, the recently proposed draft PARC Act effectively disables the LWCF program by severely limiting the funding available to the National Park Service and other federal agencies, and by diverting funds towards several other uses.

The PARC Act is simply the wrong approach and, if passed, would threaten the construction of luxury homes and commercial developments within the borders of some of America’s most historically and naturally important treasures—areas that do not just define our nation but also bolster local economies.

The bill seeks to severely limit federal land preservation projects, especially in the West. The impact of these limitations would be to halt efforts to protect areas within the National Park System. Projects proposed to protect parklands next year—such as at Olympic and Acadia national parks—would very likely not take place.

The PARC Act also seeks to siphon off a small portion of these needed dollars to address national parks’ aging infrastructure. Crumbling trails and roads and decaying visitor centers, for example, comprise some of the most significant challenges facing the Park Service. However, Congress should instead address those urgent needs by boosting its investment within the existing congressional spending and highway bills. Congress should also extend support for innovative funding sources and take advantage of the private support that national parks attract. The National Park Service Centennial Acts currently under consideration propose a matching grants program and an endowment. Americans support funding for both maintenance and land acquisition; it is a false choice to rob one to pay the other and both can be supported within existing budgetary sources with a more adequate investment.

A full description of all of the bill’s mistakes would be lengthy; suffice it to say it is the wrong approach. Given LWCF’s track record of success in protecting national parks—as well as national forests, wildlife refuges and other protected lands—the program should be reauthorized as it currently functions. Fortunately, a better approach has received bipartisan support in the Senate. Two recently proposed Senate bills seek to both permanently extend LWCF and help address national parks’ maintenance needs.

Congress should support the Senate’s approach in the remainder of this calendar year. The best way to meet that timeline is to include a simple and permanent extension of LWCF in the omnibus spending bill currently under consideration, due by December 11th. As the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service approaches in 2016, permanently extending the LWCF program is one critical opportunity for Congress to extend its support for America’s treasures.

Denis P. "Deny" Galvin served as deputy director of the U.S. National Park Service and is on the board of the National Parks Conservation Association.