[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Page 22020]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    CALIFORNIA DESERT PROTECTION ACT

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, ten years ago this fall, President 
Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act into law, 
preserving 7.7 million acres of stunning landscape for generations to 
come.
  With the passage of this legislation, the largest parks and 
wilderness bill to impact the lower 48 States was enacted, thereby 
establishing Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley National Park and 
the Mojave National Preserve.
  Protecting these beautiful lands stands as one of my proudest 
legislative accomplishments to this day.
  The California Desert is home to remarkable archaeology, beauty and 
wildlife--some of the last remaining dinosaur tracks, Native American 
petroglyphs, abundant spring wildflowers, and threatened species 
including the bighorn sheep and the desert tortoise, an animal known to 
live for as many as 100 years.
  And each of the parks created by the act has its own unique beauty. 
Joshua Tree, encompassing parts of both the Mojave Desert and the 
Colorado Desert, contains magnificent rock formations and forests which 
blanket the high country throughout the park. The abundant yellow 
creosote bushes of the eastern side of the park are mirrored by the 
rugged Joshua Trees to the west.
  The Death Valley landscape, marked by a diverse range of salt playas, 
alpine forests, and jagged rocks, is a land of extremes--one of the 
hottest, driest, and lowest places on Earth. At Dante's View, a visitor 
may look down into Badwater, the lowest place in the western hemisphere 
and, on a clear day, look west to Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the 
lower 48 States.
  Mojave National Preserve, with its granite, limestone, and 
metamorphic rocks, has a remarkable geological diversity, as well as 
the largest Joshua Tree forest in the world. Many of the preserve's 
peaks are a vivid pink at the top, the result of a volcanic explosion 
more than 18 million years ago in Arizona that sent deposits flying 
through the air and flowing across the land to the Mojave Desert.
  The California Desert Protection Act ensured that these lands would 
be preserved for years to come. In total, the act raised the protection 
level for 9 million acres of parks and wilderness.
  Since 2000 the wilderness area has been expanded even further with 
the purchase of nearly 600,000 acres of land primarily in and around 
the Mojave National Preserve. The transaction, the largest conservation 
acquisition of private lands in U.S. history, combined Federal Land and 
Water Conservation Fund appropriations with funding from the Wildlands 
Conservancy to buy discounted land owned by the Catellus Development 
Corporation.
  This expansion protected 200,000 acres of critical habitat for the 
endangered desert tortoise, 150,000 acres for bighorn sheep, the 
largest cactus gardens in the world at Bigelow Cholla Gardens and 
rights-of-way for 165 trails and access roads leading to 3.7 million 
additional acres of land used for hunting, hiking and camping.
  Visitors have taken advantage of these abundant recreation and 
research opportunities in the California Desert. Last year, 2.8 million 
people traveled to Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks and the 
Mojave National Preserve. In turn, these visitors provided an economic 
boost of approximately $100 million at nearby hotels, restaurants, and 
other local businesses.

  Now, as we celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the California Desert 
Protection Act, the preservation of our national park system has never 
been more important. Population growth, especially in the western 
United States, is placing increased pressure on our public lands. That 
is why it was so critical that we acted 10 years ago and why it is 
urgent that we continue to preserve our Nation's natural treasures 
today.
  Unfortunately, there is much evidence that our national parks are not 
receiving the funding or attention they deserve. A recent survey of 12 
national parks by the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service 
Retirees found that six parks had either reduced or planned to reduce 
visitor center hours or days of operation. The survey also found that 
all twelve parks had recently cut full-time or seasonal staff 
positions.
  One of the parks surveyed, Death Valley, reduced its law enforcement 
positions from 23 several years ago to 15 at the time of the study. 
More than 600 miles of backcountry roads are inadequately secured 
leaving natural resources, wildlife and visitors less safe.
  Meanwhile, the backlog of maintenance projects in our parks has grown 
to a range of $4 billion to $6.8 billion, according to the Government 
Accountability Office. Throughout our national park system, roads, 
bridges, and historic structures are falling into disrepair, trails and 
campgrounds are poorly maintained, and visitor centers are becoming 
outdated.
  Additionally, a recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency 
designated eight national parks, including Joshua Tree, as containing 
excessively high levels of ozone. It is alarming to know that the air 
at some of our national parks is harmful, especially since the problem 
of poor air quality in these regions was identified for action under 
the Clean Air Act in 1977.
  Our national parks are America's natural treasures. They make the 
beauty of our Nation accessible to all Americans and, indeed, visitors 
from around the world. We have a responsibility to preserve these 
places for the enjoyment of generations to come.
  Enacting the California Desert Protection Act was an important step 
toward that end. Now, we must continue to work to ensure that the parks 
we have already established, and those we may yet protect, have the 
resources they need.

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