[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12540-S12541]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NATIONAL PARKS RESTORATION

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today and come to the floor to 
thank the Senate and the House for the passage of S. 1693, the Vision 
2020 bill, national parks reform. I think it is a great day for the 
Congress and for our national parks. Parks are one of the real 
resources, one of the real treasures that we have in this country that 
I think all of us have feelings for. There are lots of different parks 
and lots of different kinds of parks, but they are all our heritage. 
They are our culture.
  I think we have known for some time that the parks have needed some 
assistance. They are more visited now than ever. They are more 
utilized, as they should be, by Americans than ever. The Park Service, 
on the other hand, thinks that they are at least $10 billion in arrears 
in infrastructure costs and they need to change. I think there is a 
willingness to change on the part of the Park Service. So through hard 
work and bipartisan compromise we forged a bill that will preserve and 
help protect our parks now and well into the next century.
  I have a special place in my heart for parks. I grew up right outside 
of Yellowstone Park near Cody, WY. We have the first park, Yellowstone, 
that is more than 125 years old now, also Grand Teton Park, which is, 
of course, a spectacular and unusual place, Devil's Tower. So parks are 
very much a part of the West. They also are very much part of the rest 
of the country. Right here in Virginia, last week my wife and I went to 
Philadelphia, Independence Park, one of the great treasures of our 
history. So I am very pleased with this legislation and I think it will 
be helpful.
  Let me mention a few of the major provisions of S. 1693. First, it 
requires the Department to develop a strategic plan and comprehensive 
budget for the individual units. It is a large business. The budget is 
$1.2 billion. So there has to, now, in addition to the management of 
resources, be management of a large financial issue. We need plans. We 
need a Park Service that has transparency in terms of its plans and in 
terms of its budget. There needs to be a budget. There needs to be 
assurance that the expenditures are the same as the appropriations 
requests. That has not always been the case.
  We need to establish a process for developing new parks. There are 
criteria for parks and they need to be followed. We have a proposition 
where there would be a study to see if, indeed, that park does square 
with the criteria that we have set forth. Too often, I think, Members 
of Congress have been able to bring parks into the system to be 
supported by Federal dollars when, frankly, they really perhaps did not 
meet the criteria that they should.
  The bill provides for enhanced training opportunities for Park 
Service employees. Many of them have very specialized jobs, very 
specialized work to inventory and to understand what the resources are 
and to protect them. In my experience of working with Government and in 
this Government, I don't know of an agency that has a more dedicated 
staff than does the Park Service. They are people who are really 
committed to what they are doing and committed to the preservation of 
parks and making them useful. We need to help with opportunities for 
training.
  We are providing for increased scientific study and research to 
ensure park resources are inventoried and they are, indeed, protected.
  There are two purposes: The first purpose of the park, of course, is 
to maintain the resources, whether they be cultural or natural 
resources. The second is to provide for its owners, the American 
people, to visit. One of the elements of that, of course, is the 
concessions that provide the services that are necessary.
  We have worked at changing the concessions policy and making it more 
competitive so that new businesses can have an opportunity to provide 
them, to provide them more efficiently, to provide more of an 
opportunity, and to pay some of the income to the park as a means of 
sustaining it.
  We have eliminated the preferential right of renewal so that there is 
competition for those services as they are renewed.
  We have authorized the new national park collectible passport which 
provides an opportunity for supporters of a park to pay a little 
something and to have in their car window or their house window this 
attractive passport that will allow us to help support the parks.
  We provide for increased philanthropic support for individual units 
to help Friends of Yellowstone, for example, to raise money, and they 
raise significant amounts of money for parks.
  We have authorized some studies for the Park Police which is 
necessary. We have some 400 Park Police right here in the Capital who 
have large responsibilities.
  These are some of the changes that we have worked at. This is the 
first time in 18 years that we have had a generic parks bill that is 
designed not to deal with some specific park but rather to deal with 
the whole idea of a system

[[Page S12541]]

that will preserve and strengthen the parks. It is the culmination of 
more than 2 years of work by the subcommittee. We have had hearings 
coast to coast. We have been in Colorado. We have been out in San 
Francisco. There are many different kinds of parks. We had the same 
reaction at the hearings: that there needs to be more resources; they 
need to be managed better; we need to have more support; we need to 
deal with gateway communities; and have better communications. I think 
these things will be strengthened. We passed a bill that, I think, will 
do much of that.
  I want to take a moment to thank some of the people who were 
involved. We hear a lot about the difficulty of passing legislation, 
and it is difficult. Everyone has, legitimately, different ideas about 
how things ought to be done; indeed, philosophies of how they might be 
done. The media, of course, emphasizes the conflicts that we have, and 
we have conflicts. Here, although most everyone will agree with parks, 
there are conflicts about how we resolve these things.
  I am so pleased we had an opportunity to come together with people on 
both sides of the aisle, with people in the administration, with people 
in the Congress. No one got everything they wanted. We had to make 
concessions. We had to make changes, give up some things, add some 
things. But that is the way the legislative process has to work.
  I particularly thank Senator Murkowski, the chairman of the Energy 
and Natural Resources Committee, for all of his guidance on this 
legislation. Without his help, of course, we wouldn't have had this 
bill before the Senate. The chairman went out of his way to ensure that 
negotiations stayed on track. As you know, Alaska has some unique 
things. He helped to make this thing work.
  I also thank Senator Bumpers, the ranking minority member of the 
committee. I know personally that he has worked on some of these 
things. He has worked on the issue of concessions in particular for at 
least 10 years. He made some concessions on this issue. Without him, 
frankly, we wouldn't have a bill, particularly over in the House where 
he worked at it. I just say to the Senator from Arkansas that I really 
appreciate his help and appreciate the attitude that he brought here to 
this debate.
  I thank Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt. It is no secret that we 
don't always agree with a lot of things, like public lands. Bruce 
Babbitt worked as hard as anyone could be asked to work. He came from 
California to work with our staff on this. He helped form a compromise.
  Also, I thank Assistant Secretary Don Barry--these folks worked very 
hard--as well as Bob Bennett. There is a whole list of people. Over in 
the House, Jim Hansen and Chairman Don Young worked very hard as well.
  Finally, I thank the staff, of course, at all levels in the Senate, 
in the committee, particularly my personal associates: Liz Brimmer, my 
chief of staff; Dan Naatz, legislative director; Jim O'Toole, who is 
the director of the committee staff; and Steve Shackelton, a fellow, 
who worked originally with us on the bill.
  I wanted to come to the floor to say a couple of things. One is, I am 
very pleased we passed this. I think it is going to help parks.
  Second, I am impressed with the system when we really do work 
together and cooperate to come up with something that is a compromise 
and reach the goals with which we began.
  Mr. President, I thank you for the time and say, again, I am very 
pleased we were able to bring this to passage in the Senate.

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