[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 117 (Thursday, July 12, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4932-S4933]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Restore Our Parks Act
Madam President, I come to the floor today also to talk about a bill
called the Restore Our Parks Act and a committee hearing that we had
yesterday before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That
legislation would provide billions of dollars to address the most
pressing maintenance needs at our Nation's national park units.
National parks and monuments are an important part of Colorado's
history and heritage and of our Nation's shared love of our public
lands system.
We know that in 2016, the year the National Park Service was
celebrating its centennial, Colorado's 12 units managed by the National
Park Service saw over 7.5 million visitors who spent around $485
million visiting our national parks in Colorado. However, after years
of increasing visitation popularity, national park units across the
country are showing signs of stress and overuse for which programmatic
funding has not kept up.
National park units in Colorado account for over $238 million of the
$11.6 billion in maintenance needs our national parks now face.
Rocky Mountain National Park, which is one of the Nation's most
visited parks in the country and boasts the highest altitude paved road
in the continental United States, has $84 million alone in deferred
maintenance needs.
Mesa Verde, Colorado's oldest national park and the first established
to protect the works of man, needs $70 million to address its deferred
maintenance backlog.
The list goes on for Dinosaur National Monument, the Great Sand
Dunes, and even Bent's Old Fort.
I have been happy to join with a bipartisan group of colleagues--
Senators Alexander, Portman, King, and Warner, among others--to craft
and advance legislation that fulfills our promise to the public that
the upkeep of our public lands is a priority.
I am also pleased that it is based on a funding model that has worked
so successfully for the Land and Water Conservation Fund--one of the
crown jewels of our Nation's conservation programs.
I would point out that just 20 days ago another group of bipartisan
Senators was holding a press conference to highlight the need to
reauthorize LWCF in the next 100 days before that
[[Page S4933]]
authorization lapses. I was a part of that group. We talked about the
need to have this program reauthorized again before it expires. Now the
deadline is just about 78 days away.
I must also mention that we have yet to fulfill our promise on
funding for LWCF. We need to fully fund that program. It is something I
hope we can do in the near future.
While I believe the structure of the Restore Our Parks bill is
sufficient and that the same will not happen here, we need to ensure
our full commitment to this new effort, so it doesn't suffer the same
fate, by making sure we have the funding promised by Congress.
I urge my colleagues to find a bipartisan path forward to permanently
authorize and to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund
because access to the land we are trying to maintain is as important as
the parks themselves.
I again thank my colleagues for coming together on the Restore Our
Parks Act in recognition of the necessary, overdue fix to address our
park unit's deferred maintenance backlog that has persisted for far too
many years.
Thank you.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back
the remainder of the time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
All time is expired.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Ney
nomination?
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith), the Senator from Arizona
(Mr. McCain), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from
Kentucky (Mr. Paul), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer)
and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) are necessarily
absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 70, nays 23, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 154 Ex.]
YEAS--70
Alexander
Barrasso
Bennet
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Flake
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hassan
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Jones
Kaine
Kennedy
King
Klobuchar
Lankford
Manchin
McCaskill
McConnell
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Perdue
Portman
Reed
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott
Shelby
Smith
Tester
Thune
Toomey
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Whitehouse
Wicker
Young
NAYS--23
Baldwin
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Casey
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Harris
Hirono
Leahy
Lee
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Peters
Sanders
Schatz
Stabenow
Sullivan
Warren
Wyden
NOT VOTING--7
Hyde-Smith
McCain
Moran
Paul
Schumer
Shaheen
Tillis
The nomination was confirmed.
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