March 4, 2026
Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
To require the Secretary of the Interior to issue a right-of-way for an emergency exit on certain National Park Service land in the State of Virginia, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
Section 1. Short title
This Act may be cited as the Wintergreen Emergency Egress Act
.
Sec. 2. Right-of-way for emergency exit, blue ridge parkway
Section 2 of the Act of June 30, 1936 (49 Stat. 2041, chapter 883; 54 Stat. 250, chapter 277; 16 U.S.C. 460a–3), is amended—
(1)
by striking Secretary of the Interior may issue
and inserting the following:
Secretary of the Interior—
(1)
may issue;
(2)
by striking the period at the end and inserting ; and
; and
(3)
by adding at the end the following:
(2)
shall issue the right-of-way generally depicted as
Proposed Egresson the map entitledBlue Ridge Parkway, Proposed Wintergreen Emergency Egress Near Milepost 9.6, numbered 601/194,694, and dated September 2024, if the Secretary reports to the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate that—(A)
an evaluation has been completed of alternatives to the right-of-way for egress that do not cross Federal land that includes evaluating whether existing trails can be converted to roads;
(B)
an analysis of expected fire ecology behavior in the event of a fire emergency has been completed with respect to the right-of-way; and
(C)
any required reviews with respect to the right-of-way have been completed in accordance with—
(i)
the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.); and
(ii)
division A of subtitle III of title 54, United States Code.