[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 145 (Monday, September 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9036-H9037]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SAVING THE NATIONAL PARKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my 
disappointment at heavy-handed actions by the leadership of the 
Committee on Resources by placing H.R. 260 on the Suspension Calendar 
today, and I hope that everybody out there that is aware of this 
terrible transgression realizes what H.R. 260 would do. It would simply 
be a vehicle to close down national parks.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill would create a park closure commission to 
recommend specific parks to Congress foreclosure, privatization, or 
sale to the highest bidder. But what is most heavy handed is the fact 
that this bill is on the Suspension Calendar despite the fact that many 
of us in the Committee on Resources were able to offer amendments to 
change this bill. This way we have on the Suspension Calendar no 
opportunity to offer amendments that are alternatives.
  Mr. Speaker, I had asked for one amendment that would allow a new 
form of financing the parks, through fees, through concessions, and 
through other alternatives that recognize that we do have to improve 
the management of the parks. But there are some very heavy-handed 
tactics of preventing honest debate on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, the Clinton administration opposes this bill. The 
environmental community opposes this bill. The National Parks and 
Conservation Association opposes this bill, and I would simply ask my 
colleagues to vote no on this bill so that it can go back to a rule and 
allow logical and fair amendments. In fact, just one amendment.
  So by voting no, you are not killing the bill; you are killing a 
process that is wrong and heavy handed. What we have here is a park 
closure commission that would close national parks.
  Now, the bill does exempt 54 national park units from closure, but it 
leaves less visited, smaller budgeted parks, and important national 
monuments like Independence Hall, the Statue of Liberty, Mount 
Rushmore, the Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments, and the 
Martin Luther King historical site on the chopping block.
  The Chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, the gentleman from 
Utah [Mr. Hansen], has said that he wants to close 150 parks. This is 
an agenda that I believe is wrong. Let us improve the management of 
these parks. Let us find ways to raise money to keep the parks as 
important components of this country.
  Mr. Speaker, the national parks are not the playgrounds of the rich. 
They are the vacation destinations of millions of ordinary hard working 
Americans who want to see and enjoy the natural wonders they support 
with their tax dollars. They deserve to continue to have that 
opportunity.
  Mr. Speaker, the national parks today are more popular than ever. 
This year 270 million visitors will visit our national parks, an 
increase of 5 million over last year. By the year 2000, 360 million 
visitors will visit the parks every year. That is if we still have some 
of them to visit in the year 2000. Recent nationwide polls show that 
this boom in parks visitation is matched by concern for the future of 
the parks.
  A recent poll by Colorado State University found that 98 percent of 
those surveyed believed protection of the parks for future generations 
was important, editorial boards around the country, Salt Lake City 
Tribune, St. Louis Dispatch, the New York Times.

  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 260 strikes at the very heart of our national 
heritage, the 369 natural and cultural treasures which make up the 
National Park System, and by authorizing, which is what we would do by 
passing this bill, the creation of a park closure commission, like a 
military base closure commission, without any alternatives, H.R. 260 
takes the decisions out of the hands of the Congress and turns it over 
to politics, to political appointees. Surely business as usual is not 
the message the voters sent the Congress in the 1994 elections.
  Mr. Speaker, let me explain what my alternative does, and all I want 
is the ability to offer this alternative under a closed rule, under a 
modified rule. One amendment, that instead of creating a park closure 
commission, that we find other ways to raise funds for parks through 
increased, perhaps fees, through a trust fund, through the changes in 
concessions so the McDonald's and other concessionaires, the Marriotts, 
pay a fairer share of what it costs to maintain the parks.
  This is something that is on a bipartisan basis. Mrs. Meyers of 
Kansas has a very constructive proposal to change the concession system 
of the parks.
  So I am not here asking for a rejection of this bill. I am saying, 
let us respect the process. By voting no on H.R. 260, which we should 
do, 143 votes are needed so that the two-thirds is not achieved, we 
would send the bill back to the Committee on Rules.
  Mr. Speaker, watch this bill. H.R. 260, vote ``no,'' send it back to 
the Committee on Rules. Let it come back under a fair rule.
  I insert the following information for the Record:

               [From the Salt Lake Tribune, May 6, 1995]

                         Don't Close the Parks

       Generally, people want to enter a national park; they want 
     to leave a military base. Indeed, there is little that the 
     two have in common, other than that they are both federally 
     owned. Yet there is inexplicable sentiment in Congress for 
     providing a common element to both-a closure commission.
       A bill known as H.R. 260, which has already passed Utah 
     Rep. Jim Hansen's subcommittee and is due up before the full 
     House Resources Committee this month, proposes the formation 
     of a Park System Review Commission. It would do for national 
     park units what the Base Realignment and Closure Commission 
     has done for military bases: It would close them.
       Closure is appropriate for some unneeded military bases, 
     but not so for national park units, which presumably have an 
     unchanging value. After all, national parks were created for 
     purposes of preservation and posterity, not for the ever-
     shifting requirements of national defense. Existing park 
     units simply should not be exposed to the whims of an 
     independent commission.
       The issue has surfaced because the National Park Service 
     has been having problems adequately funding all 368 units in 
     its system. One complaint is that the system is overloaded 
     with units that don't belong, units that were designated at 
     the behest of some congressman trying to bring home the pork 
     for his district.
       The problem can be addressed without the creation of a park 
     closure commission. For starters, Congress can support the 
     portion of H.R. 260 that calls for the Interior secretary to 
     devise tighter criteria for additions to the NPS, thereby 
     safeguarding the system from selfish lawmakers.
       Then, if Congress still feels that undeserving units have 
     crept into the system, it can simply deauthorize them itself, 
     as it did last year with the John F. Kennedy Center for the 
     Performing Arts. It does not need some new level of 
     bureaucracy to do this.
       The rationale behind a park closure commission is that it 
     would save money for the NPS. Well, as the BRAC members can 
     testify, it would cost a lot of up front money to close these 
     units. And once closed, who would operate them--the states, 
     or some other division of the federal government? How do the 
     taxpayers save on that?
       If the goal is to improve NPS finances, then start with 
     passage of park concessions reform or entrance fee reform. 
     Start funneling such fees back into the parks, instead of the 
     national treasury. It makes little sense to set up a 
     mechanism to close parks when proposed methods of increase 
     park revenues have not been implemented first. 

[[Page H 9037]]

       National parks are not at all like military bases. They 
     were created to establish a natural or historical legacy for 
     future generations. They don't need a closure commission; 
     they need more creative ways to stay open.
       H.R. 260 would:
       Create a park closure commission to recommend specific 
     parks to Congress for closure, privatization or sale to the 
     highest bidder;
       Weaken Congress' statutory authority to make decisions on 
     park management by granting broad powers to a politically 
     appointed commission;
       Send a strong signal to the American people that Congress 
     does not have the political will to carry out its 
     responsibilities of oversight over the National Park Service.
       Exempt the 54 National Park units from closure, leaving 
     less visited, smaller budgeted parks and important national 
     monuments like Independence Hall, the Statue of Liberty, Mt. 
     Rushmore, the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson Monuments and 
     the Martin Luther King. Jr. Historic Site on the chopping 
     block.

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