ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – The U.S. Senate has approved a bill aimed at helping the park consult with its neighbors, among other things.

The Acadia National Park Improvement Act, passed last week as part of an omnibus federal lands bill, is expected to re-establish the Acadia Advisory Commission, increase by $10 million the amount of money the park can spend on land acquisition, and authorize the park to be a partner in the Acadia Gateway Center, an intermodal transportation center proposed for Route 3 in Trenton.

“It’s very good news,” Len Bobinchok, Acadia’s deputy superintendent, said Monday. “We’re one step closer to having a piece of legislation.”

The advisory commission, a panel of residents from towns that surround the park, last met in 2006, when its original 20-year commission by Congress expired. The park also needs permission from Congress to be a partner in the Acadia Gateway Center, which would be built outside the park’s legal boundary limit.

Both Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, voted in favor of the omnibus lands bill, which was part of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008. The House of Representatives passed the narrower Acadia bill in February.

Bobinchok said he believes the broader omnibus lands bill now will have to go back to the House for approval.

It is too early to tell when the act might finally become law, but Acadia would like to reconvene the advisory commission in the next few months, if possible, according to the park official.

“It would be nice if we had a [commission] meeting this summer, but that may be optimistic,” Bobinchok said.

Marla O’Byrne, president of Friends of Acadia, praised the efforts of Snowe and Collins to get the bill passed in the Senate.

“They faced a challenge this session to pass the act in the face of a threatened filibuster,” O’Byrne indicated Monday in a prepared statement. “With two-thirds of their colleagues, this and several other noncontroversial, supportive lands bills were passed.”

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