[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 156 (Saturday, November 8, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12074-S12075]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             NATIONAL PARKS

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to take the time that we have 
available this morning while we are waiting for these important closing 
activities--I hope closing activities--to talk a little bit about an 
issue that I feel very strongly about and that I think most people do, 
and that is our national parks and our national parks plan.
  I am chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, and we have 
spent almost this entire year working on a program to help strengthen 
the parks. Certainly, the National Park System is truly one of our 
treasures.
  The Park System is the custodian of some of America's most important 
natural and cultural resources and provides, of course, a legacy for 
our children and our grandchildren.
  The Park System today consists of about 374 units which are visited 
annually by millions of people. They stretch all the way from Acadia in 
Maine to American Samoa in the Pacific islands and provide a unique 
opportunity.
  I, of course, am particularly selfishly interested in parks because I 
come from Wyoming. We have the first national park which recently 
celebrated its 125th anniversary--Yellowstone. We also of course have 
Teton Park. But the whole country has a park system that we are 
extremely proud of.
  Unfortunately, that System is and has been under considerable stress. 
At the time that we have showed unusual interest in it as Americans, 
and have increased our visitations, the park has had increasing 
difficulties. We are believed to have somewhere near $8 billion in 
unfunded and unrealized infrastructure repairs of various kinds. That 
is a great deal of money.
  We also have had some stress in terms of management in many of those 
things. So we worked this year and intend, as a matter of fact, to have 
some field hearings in November; particularly we have one set for 
Denver and one for San Francisco, and we hope then to have one later in 
Florida near the Everglades, to try and bring in as much information as 
we can get on the issues and how they affect people.
  The issues are broken down, as you might imagine, into several 
categories. One of them is finance. That is one of the basic ones, of 
course. As I mentioned, we have an overwhelming amount of unfunded 
programs: $2.2 billion in road and bridge repair; $1.5 billion in 
buildings and maintenance; $800 million in natural resource management 
kinds of things. They are the kinds of things that are very difficult 
to manage in an annual budget.
  So we are looking for some ways to do this a little bit differently. 
We are looking at a number of things. One would be to extend the 
temporary program for fees, where fees have been raised in a number of 
the parks, about 100 I think out of the 375 parks. They have been very 
low. And it has been $10 a car at Yellowstone for a whole carload of 
people for a week. I think it has now gone to $20. And, frankly, we 
found very little resistance to that, particularly if people believe 
the money they are spending going to that park will be used to make 
that park a better place to visit.
  In addition to fees, of course, it will be our responsibility, Mr. 
President, as Members of Congress, to keep the appropriations growing 
some for that. We had an increase in appropriations this year. We need 
to continue to do that.
  In addition to entrance fees, we are looking at ways for people to 
contribute, private individuals to contribute to parks. Many want to do 
that. There are park foundations in individual parks. We need to find 
some ways for Americans who chose to, to be able to contribute more to 
the maintenance of parks.
  We are also looking at a way for corporate investment as well, 
without commercializing parks. We do not want ``Pepsi-Cola'' painted up 
on the wall of Yosemite. But there isn't any reason why there cannot be 
corporate donations made. For example, one of the corporations made a 
donation to build the walkway around Old Faithful. It is a wonderful 
addition. And there is a very small and unobtrusive sign there that 
indicates the sponsors of that. I think that is a good idea. I think we 
can continue to do that.
  One of the things we are looking at is a way for bonding. 
Interestingly enough, the larger parks, like Yosemite, like Yellowstone 
are basically small cities. They have to have sewers, they have to have 
streets, they have to have housing, the kinds of things that take long-
term investment. And it is very difficult to do it, as I mentioned a 
moment ago, out of annual appropriations.
  So we are trying to find a way that the park could do some bonding in 
the private sector. I do not know whether these can be Government 
bonds, I do not know whether they can be tax-free bonds or taxable 
bonds. But in order to do that, we have a couple of problems I hope we 
can overcome.
  One is the scoring system here in the budget of the United States. As 
you know, we do not have a capital budget. And so if you issue 300 
million dollars' worth of bonds, that would all go into the annual 
budget. That is a difficult thing. We will have to try and overcome 
that. We hope that there are some ways to do it.
  The other thing, of course, that is necessary to do bonding is to 
have a dependable and steady stream of revenue to pay off the bonds. We 
think we can do that. So those are a couple of the ways that we are 
seeking to do some things that would be good for parks.
  In addition, many of the larger parks, as you know, the services--let 
me go back and say, I think most people would agree that the main 
purpose of a park is to maintain the resources, whether it be cultural 
or whether it be natural resources.
  But the second and equally important part of it is to have a pleasant 
visit for Americans, who own those parks. To do that, by and large, we 
have had concessions that have been run by the private sector. I 
certainly support that idea. I think that is the way to do it. We have, 
unfortunately, kind of gotten out of sync in terms of doing the sort of 
contracting that is necessary.
  We went through a while, a big debate a couple years ago as to 
whether the Government ought to own the facilities. I think we have 
overcome that and decided that is not what we want to do. So we need to 
go back to longer term contracts for some very large facilities.

[[Page S12075]]

  I think there is about $700 million in gross revenue that comes from 
concessions in the whole Park System, which is a very sizable amount.
  On the other hand, parks are not all big-profit operations because 
Glacier Park, for example, in Montana is only opened a portion of the 
year. And the season is rather shortened. So we have to deal with 
questions like: How long should the contract be for sizable 
investments? Should there be the right of renewal? Should there be some 
sort of proprietary ownership in these facilities at the time the 
contract exchange comes? So we are working with those things. I am 
positive that we can find some solutions.
  I also want you to know that one of, I think, the key issues we are 
talking about with concessions--I mentioned to you this is a large 
commercial business. It is a commercial business. We think we ought to 
take a look at the idea of contracting with an asset manager out of the 
private sector who is a professional at managing hospitality things to 
do this. That is not really the role of a park ranger in terms of 
training and background.
  As you know, Mr. President, I have been working as hard as I can to 
see if we can't move these commercial functions of the Government over 
into the private sector, at least give them an opportunity to bid on 
it. So that is one of the things that we are seeking to do.
  I do not think that we are going to solve the financial problem out 
of the concessions by any means. But we ought to be able to do two 
things. We ought to be able to have good facilities that are kept up; 
and we ought to be able to have a small stream of revenue come to the 
parks. We think that might be one of the possibilities for doing 
something with the bonding revenue.
  We are looking at improved management. The Park Service, after all, 
is a large agency, I think, with some of the most dedicated employees 
of any agency in the country. The people you talk to that work for the 
Park Service are really, really dedicated to doing what they do. They 
like to preserve the parks. They like to work in the parks. But they 
did not always have the opportunity, for instance, to be trained.
  We are going to look at some university exchanges where folks could 
get some additional training and help them do their jobs. But I think 
more than anything it has become a large agency, and what we need is a 
strategic plan.
  Any business of that size, any operation of that size needs a 
strategic plan that has some forward ideas as to how to solve problems. 
Frankly, that is kind of why we are where we are. There has not been 
any plans presented to the Congress. And the Congress has not taken the 
initiative to prepare plans to accommodate these problems that we now 
have, and problems of increased visitation. The highways, for example, 
in Yelowstone Park are way behind in preparation and care. So we need a 
strategic plan in the agency.
  Probably at least as important then is each park, and each park 
manager, needs to have a strategic plan that contributes to the overall 
plan and one with measurable objectives and measurable goals so that 
you do not just have a plan that everybody thinks is wonderful but you 
have one that at the end of the year you can take a look at the plan 
and say you accomplished what you were going to or you did not. If you 
did not, there ought to be a reason why you did not. So we think we can 
do some good there.
  Let me tell you that we are working very closely with the Park 
Service. And a new park director is now in place, Bob Stanton. His 
background as a career park official has been that he was the head of 
the parks here in this area. It was the first time, by the way, that 
the park director has been approved by the Senate. That was just 
changed so it is an appointment that has to be approved. So we are 
working with him. The Secretary of the Interior has talked favorably 
about some of the changes that need to be made.
  Finally, one of the things we are doing is trying to take a look at 
the criteria for new parks. I think it is fairly well defined in terms 
of setting aside things that are important either historically or 
culturally or from a natural resource standpoint.
  But, unfortunately--I think unfortunately--we have continued to add 
more parks that do not necessarily fit that criteria. They are often 
recommended by Members of Congress who have an equivalent of a State or 
a county park in their area that they would like to have the Federal 
Government pay for. So they move it into the Park Service when it could 
just as well be a State park. And we find ourselves short of money to 
handle the 375 parks we have now, and continuing to increase with parks 
that may or may not fit the criteria.
  So we are not as concerned about the criteria. I believe it exists 
there. But we are concerned and hopefully will change the process in 
which the criteria moves through the Congress so that there is an 
opportunity to do that.
  So, Mr. President, these are the things that we are doing. We have 
purposely worked on it all this session. We did not intend to bring a 
bill this session, but we do intend to have one prepared for January. I 
think it is one of the things that most Americans are supportive of. 
Not everybody is going to be supportive of every proposal we have to do 
it, but I think there is general support for strengthening parks. There 
needs to be.
  Certainly we have more and more people wanting to participate in 
them. So you have to recognize that as caring. So we will be moving 
forward on that. I think it is something that Congress ought to 
undertake, and be very proud to undertake.
  There is great controversy over many of the environmental issues that 
go around. But there is not much controversy over this one. If we talk 
about what are the needs, are we going to try and fulfill those needs, 
most everybody says yes. Now, when you get to how you do it, obviously, 
there will be differences of view and debate. That is why we are here.
  But, Mr. President, I am excited about this opportunity. We call our 
plan ``Vision 2020,'' so that we can take a look at parks so that our 
kids, 20 years from now, and others, will be able to enjoy them with 
the same intensity that we have been able to.
  We look forward to having our proposition ready by January. I hope 
many of the Members of the Senate will join with us in seeking to 
resolve this important question and problem.
  Mr. President, I thank you for the time and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WYDEN. I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to proceed for up to 
15 minutes in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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