[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13665-13666]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CENTENNIAL

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, American historian and author Wallace 
Stegner called our national parks ``the best idea we ever had. 
Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best 
rather than our worst.'' The National Park Service turned 100 on August 
25, 2016. I wish to celebrate a century of recreation, conservation, 
and historic preservation programs.
  Congress created the agency in 1916 for the specific purpose of 
caring for America's special places. The National Park Service was 
given the responsibility not only to conserve and protect parks, but 
also to leave them ``unimpaired for the enjoyment of future 
generations.'' The job got bigger as parks expanded in number and type. 
In the 1930s, military parks and national monuments were added. Then 
came national parkways and seashores, followed by urban parks in the 
1960s. During the next decade, the National Park System nearly doubled 
with the addition of 47 million acres in Alaska.
  I am proud of the national parks and programs in Maryland's backyard. 
Maryland is home to 18 national parks, which attract 6,443,376 visitors 
every year. This national park tourism generates $216,700,000 in 
economic benefit.

[[Page 13666]]

  I am proud of the range of parks in the State, from national 
battlefields such as Antietam and Monocacy in western Maryland to 
Assateague Island National Seashore, which offers visitors sandy 
beaches, salt marshes, maritime forests, and coastal bays on the edge 
of the continent.
  I am especially proud of the recently established Harriet Tubman 
Underground Railroad National Historic Park in Maryland's Dorchester, 
Caroline, and Talbot Counties. The vision for the Tubman National 
Historical Park is to preserve the places significant to the life of 
Harriet Tubman and tell her story through interpretive activities, 
while continuing to discover aspects of her life and the experiences of 
those who traveled on the Underground Railroad through continued 
historical and archaeological research and discovery.
  Unfortunately, few of the structures associated with the early years 
of Harriet Tubman's life remain standing today. The landscape of the 
Eastern Shore of Maryland, however, is still evocative of the time when 
Harriet Tubman lived there. Farm fields and loblolly pine forests dot 
the lowland landscape, which is also notable for its extensive network 
of tidal rivers and wetlands that Tubman and the people she guided to 
freedom used under cover of night. If she were alive today, Ms. Tubman 
would recognize much of the landscape that she knew intimately as she 
secretly led freedom-seekers of all ages to the North. This park helps 
connect people today to America's history while establishing an 
important destination for tourists to come visit, learn, and experience 
Maryland's Eastern Shore.
  For 7 years I worked with my colleagues, Senator Mikulski, Senator 
Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, and Senator Clinton to establish the first 
national historical park to honor an African American woman. Harriet 
Tubman is an extraordinary American, and Marylanders are extremely 
proud to have her as a native daughter. In 2014, I was so proud to 
finally get our legislation enacted, and I am pleased that development 
and planning for this park is well underway.
  Only recently has the National Park Service begun establishing units 
dedicated to the lives of African Americans. Places such as Booker T. 
Washington National Monument on the campus of Tuskegee University in 
Alabama, the George Washington Carver National Monument in Missouri, 
the National Historic Trail commemorating the march for voting rights 
from Selma to Montgomery, and, most recently, the Martin Luther King, 
Jr., Memorial on the National Mall are all important monuments and 
places of historical significance that help tell the story of the 
African-American experience.
  In a similar, overdue spirit, the Smithsonian's National Museum of 
African American History and Culture will be opening this Saturday. I 
attended the grand opening weekend of this extraordinary addition to 
the National Mall. The National Museum of African American History and 
Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to documenting 
African American life, history, and culture.
  On August 25, 2006, the 90th anniversary of the National Park 
Service, then-Secretary of the Interior--and former Senator--Dirk 
Kempthorne launched the National Park Centennial Initiative to prepare 
national parks for another century of conservation, preservation, and 
enjoyment. Since then, the National Park Service asked citizens, park 
partners, experts, and other stakeholders what they envisioned for a 
second century of national parks. A nationwide series of more than 40 
listening sessions produced more than 6,000 comments that helped to 
shape five centennial goals. The goals and overarching vision were 
presented to President Bush and to the American people in May 2007 in a 
report, ``The Future of America's National Parks.''
  Continued and better stewardship was one of the five goals.
  We must be better stewards of national parks when it comes to clean 
water. More than one-half of our 407 national parks have waterways 
deemed ``impaired'' under the Clean Water Act and in need of attention. 
These are parks whose local domestic water supply and protected natural 
resources are dependent upon and often affected by the quality of 
surface water flowing into and through their respective designated 
boundaries.
  As stewards, we must carry out our responsibilities with respect to 
clean water. I am particularly sensitive to this responsibility. One 
hundred thousand streams and rivers, as well as thousands of acres of 
wetlands, provide the freshwater that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. 
Restoration of the Chesapeake Bay watershed is managed by the 
Chesapeake Bay Program, in which the National Park Service serves as a 
Federal agency partner. In order for our restoration efforts to 
succeed, we must ensure clean water flows in the streams that lead into 
the Chesapeake Bay.
  Our national parks are our legacy to the next generation; conserving 
them is our shared responsibility. The 2016 centennial of our parks is 
a prime opportunity for renewing this commitment.

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