[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 35 (Thursday, March 24, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          THE NATIONAL PARK OVERFLIGHT CONCESSIONS ACT OF 1994

                                 ______


                           HON. PAT WILLIAMS

                               of montana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 24, 1994

  Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, most Americans are surprised to learn that 
the scenic air tour industry is the only commercial activity taking 
place in National Parks which is virtually unregulated. The National 
Park Service has an appropriate permitting process for the hotels, 
outfitters, retail stores, restaurants and all other commercial users 
of the Parks. The Park Service permitting process operates in a way 
that provides those services to the public while at the same time 
assuring protection of the amazing resources that our Nation's 
visionaries saw fit to preserve.
  We could have a dozen new helicopter tour companies set up shop 
outside Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite or any other National Park and 
the Park Service has nothing to say about it. That's wrong and we must 
change it.
  At our most treasured national parks, like the Grand Canyon, Hawaii's 
Volcanoes, Glacier in Montana, Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, Canyonlands, 
and others, unrestricted and uncontrolled access by commercial 
overflights is very quickly becoming the number one visitor and 
resource management conflict--a conflict in which the National Park 
Service today has zero authority to influence or contain.
  Today I am introducing legislation which, if passed, will bring a 
measure of peace and quiet to those of America's National Parks which 
are today imperiled by uncontrolled and rapidly growing use by 
helicopter and airplane scenic tours.
  This legislation requires that any commercial tour operator 
conducting tours over a National Park have a concession permit with the 
Park Service, just as is required of every other concessionaire. The 
bill requires that before issuing a permit, the Park Service, in 
conjunction with the FAA, will review the effect of overflights on the 
resources and the visitor's experience at the individual park, and then 
decide the appropriate conditions to be placed on scenic overflights. 
The bill provides specific authority to the Park Service to prohibit 
scenic overflights altogether if it finds that that option best 
stewards the resources Congress intended to protect in establishing the 
park.
  There is a great need for this bill. As some of you know we passed 
legislation in 1987 providing for an airspace management plan at Grand 
Canyon National Park, a place which is at once the Nation's most 
tremendous vista, yet at the same time can be so quiet that even the 
most sensitive sound equipment shows the absolute absence of noise.
  That process was successful in limiting overflights to specific 
corridors around the park; the problem is that the total number of 
overflights has grown exponentially since then, virtually eliminating 
the gains that were made through the corridor restrictions.
  At Hawaii Volcanoes and at Haleakala National Parks, which are high 
elevation, pristine alpine parks, they have air tours operating almost 
constantly. At Haleakala, the Park Service has found that on clear days 
helicopters tours are so pervasive that they are plainly audible for 
more than 30 minutes of every hour.
  At the Statute of Liberty a tour company is proposing a fixed raft 
from which it can provide about 115 helicopter tour flights each day. 
Perhaps that's the kind of experience folks in that city are 
comfortable with; it strikes me as out of control.
  Mount Rushmore is today a very different place for visitors than it 
was because of the regular occurrence of overflights close by those 
visages of American history.
  And at my State's Glacier National Park helicopter tour operators are 
unable to resist the temptation to show their customers America's great 
wild animals up close and personal. If Montana wildlands are America's 
serengetti, Glacier and Yellowstone are its finest preserves. At 
Glacier Park helicopters have been seen hovering over grizzly bears, 
mountain goats, and elk. They fly in the midst of eagle migration 
corridors during their times of heaviest use.
  And I and thousands of people every year visit Glacier to get away, 
to put a little effort into hiking up some valley for the purpose of 
getting away, only to have that experience shattered by the 
reverberation of a helicopter sharing that same valley.
  Mr. Speaker, to some extent we as humans are adaptable--perhaps we 
can adjust to something like sharing Glacier National Park with many 
helicopters. But I suggest that the time has come to draw our line. 
Glacier National Park should not become a place where we simply learn 
to adapt to the intrusions of our modern lives, where we must 
compromise our personal priorities--in this case to find a truly 
pristine experience--in the interest of having everything for 
everybody.

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