[Senate Report 108-236]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                       Calendar No. 446
108th Congress                                                   Report
                                 SENATE
 2d Session                                                     108-236

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  HARPERS FERRY NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK BOUNDARY REVISION ACT OF 2004

                                _______
                                

                 March 9, 2004.--Ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

   Mr. Domenici, from the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 
                        submitted the following

                              R E P O R T

                         [To accompany S. 1576]

    The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to which was 
referred the bill (S. 1576) to revise the boundary of Harpers 
Ferry National Historical Park, and for other purposes, having 
considered the same, reports favorably thereon without 
amendment and recommends that the bill do pass.

                         Purpose of the Measure

    The purpose of S. 1576 is to revise the boundary of the 
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to include approximately 
772 acres of Federal land and to authorize the Secretary of the 
Interior to acquire approximately 368 acres for addition to the 
park.

                          Background and Need

    Originally established in June 1944, Harpers Ferry National 
Historical Park (NHP) has had three previous boundary 
expansions. In 1988, the National Park Service (NPS) was 
directed by Congress to study lands adjacent to the Harpers 
Ferry NHP to determine whether they had historical significance 
and merited federal protection. In addition to the Special 
Boundary Study, in 1993 the Congressionally chartered Civil War 
Sites Advisory Committee issued its Report on the Nation's 
Civil War Battlefields, which reaffirmed the importance of 
Harpers Ferry. The findings of these two reports have guided 
specific efforts to protect lands identified in the study.
    The Harpers Ferry area first experienced tension between 
development and preservation interests when proposed housing 
developments threatened the historically significant School 
House Ridge Battlefield. Over time, outreach by the NPS has 
helped to educate community members about the historic and 
other values of properties that could be acquired. The NPS also 
completed a study that resulted in a proposal for a new park 
boundary and acreage ceiling increase based on a broad public 
outreach effort. According to surveys conducted by the Park 
Service, 94 percent of respondents now strongly support this 
effort.
    Harpers Ferry NHP today consists of 2,505 acres of land, 
the current statutory ceiling acreage for the park. The park is 
unable to acquire additional land parcels of historic value 
without new legislation. S. 1576 authorizes an expansion of the 
acreage ceiling to 3,745 acres, which allows the NPS to acquire 
an additional 1,240 acres. The new ceiling is sufficient to 
allow the NPS to acquire all the historically sensitive lands 
and incorporate them into the park, and would provide a 100-
acre margin to allow for survey and land acquisition 
modifications.

                          Legislative History

    S. 1576 was introduced by Senators Byrd and Rockefeller on 
September 3, 2003. The Subcommittee on National Parks held a 
hearing on S. 1576 on October 2, 2003. S. Hrg. 108-225. At the 
business meeting on February 11, 2003, the Committee on Energy 
and Natural Resources ordered S. 1576 favorably reported.

            Committee Recommendation and Tabulation of Votes

    The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in open 
business session on February 11, 2004, by a unanimous vote of a 
quorum present, recommended that the Senate pass S. 1576.
    The rollcall vote on reporting the measure was 23 yeas, 0 
nays, as follows:

        YEAS                          NAYS
Mr. Domenici
Mr. Nickles
Mr. Craig
Mr. Campbell*
Mr. Thomas
Mr. Alexander
Ms. Murkowski
Mr. Talent
Mr. Burns
Mr. Smith*
Mr. Bunning
Mr. Kyl*
Mr. Bingaman
Mr. Akaka
Mr. Dorgan*
Mr. Graham of Florida*
Mr. Wyden*
Mr. Johnson*
Ms. Landrieu*
Mr. Bayh*
Mrs. Feinstein*
Mr. Schumer*
Ms. Cantwell

    * Indicates voted by proxy.

                      Section-by-Section Analysis

    Section 1 entitles this Act the ``Harpers Ferry National 
Historical Park Boundary Revision Act of 2004''.
    Section 2 amends the first section of the Act of June 30, 
1944 (58 Stat. 645, chapter 328; 16 U.S.C. 450bb).
    Subsections (a) and (b) of section 1 as amended, authorize 
the Secretary of the Interior toacquire land within the 
boundaries of the Park.
    Subsection (c)(1) adds new language which authorizes the 
Secretary of the Interior to acquire by purchase from a willing 
seller with donated or appropriated funds, by donation or by 
exchange, land or an interest in land within the boundaries as 
depicted as ``Private Lands'' on the map entitled ``Harpers 
Ferry National Historical Park Proposed Boundary Expansion'', 
numbered 385/80126, and dated July 14, 2003.
    Paragraph 2(A) transfers to the National Park Service for 
inclusion in the park the land depicted on the referenced map 
as ``U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Lands'' and revises the 
boundary of the Park accordingly.
    Paragraph 2(B) revises the boundary of the park to include 
the land depicted on the referenced map as ``Appalachian NST'' 
and excludes that land from the boundary of the Appalachian 
National Scenic Trail.
    Subsection (d) increases the acreage ceiling for the Park 
to 3,745 acres.
    Subsection (e) requires that all maps shall be on file and 
available for public inspection in the appropriate offices of 
the National Park Service.
    Subsection (f) requires that land or interest in land 
acquired under this section become a part of the park.
    Subsection (g) authorizes appropriations.
    Section 3 makes minor conforming amendments to the Act of 
June 30, 1944.

                   Cost and Budgetary Considerations

    The Congressional Budget Office estimate of the costs of 
this measure has been requested but was not received at the 
time the report was filed. When the report is available, the 
Chairman will request it to be printed in the Congressional 
Record for the advice of the Senate.

                      Regulatory Impact Evaluation

    In compliance with paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee makes the following 
evaluation of the regulatory impact which would be incurred in 
carrying out S. 1576. The bill is not a regulatory measure in 
the sense of imposing Government-established standards or 
significant economic responsibilities on private individuals 
and businesses.
    No personal information would be collected in administering 
the program. Therefore, there would be no impact on personal 
privacy.
    Little, if any, additional paperwork would result from the 
enactment of S. 1576, as ordered reported.

                        Executive Communications

    On February 11, 2004, the Committee on Energy and Natural 
Resources requested legislative reports from the Department of 
Interior and the Office of Management and Budget setting forth 
Executive agency recommendations on S. 1576. These reports had 
not been received at the time the report on S. 1576 was filed. 
When the reports become available, the Chairman will request 
that they be printed in the Congressional Record for the advice 
of the Senate. The testimony provided by the National Park 
Service at the Subcommittee hearing follows:

Statement of Sue Masica, Associate Director, Park Planning, Facilities, 
      and Lands, National Park Service, Department of the Interior

    Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to present the 
views of the Department of the Interior on S. 1576, a bill to 
provide for additional lands to be included within the boundary 
of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in the state of West 
Virginia.
    The Department supports enactment of this legislation if 
amended in accordance with this statement. S. 1576 would 
authorize the Secretary of the Interior to expand the boundary 
of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to include lands that 
are critical to preserving resources that tell the stories 
there. The Department recommends that the legislation be 
amended to include in the boundary only the transfer of lands 
from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Appalachian 
National Scenic Trail to Harpers Ferry National Historical 
Park, and the donation of 177 acres of private lands from the 
Civil War Preservation Trust. The Department recognizes the 
importance of including in the boundary the remaining private 
lands, but we recommend that the committee defer action on 
authorizing the acquisition of these lands during the remainder 
of the 108th Congress. To meet the President's Initiative to 
eliminate the deferred maintenance backlog, we need to continue 
to focus our resources on caring for existing areas in the 
National Park System.
    Located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah 
Rivers, Harpers Ferry has a history that has few parallels in 
the American drama. The park commemorates a diverse number of 
people and events, decisions, and actions that influenced the 
course of our nation's history over 230 years. In 1944, 
Congress established Harpers Ferry as ``a public national 
memorial commemorating the historical events that occurred at 
or near Harpers Ferry.''
    This bill would add nine parcels of land to the boundary of 
the park to provide permanent protection of resources that are 
integral in commemorating historical events that occurred at 
Harpers Ferry. These include properties on School House Ridge, 
which was the position of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson 
during the strategic battle for Harpers Ferry in 1862; the 
Werner tract, which protects the southern viewshed of the park; 
a portion of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail that 
contains Civil War campgrounds; several small properties that 
protect park viewsheds between Bolivar Heights and the Murphy 
Farm; and Potoma Wayside that protects part of the view Thomas 
Jefferson described in his Journals on the State of Virginia as 
``stupendous'' and ``worth a trip across the Atlantic.'' The 
wayside is also used as the take-out for whitewater rafting 
companies and paddlers using the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers 
near Harpers Ferry.
    In 2001, at the direction of Congress, the National Park 
Service undertook extensive outreach efforts and public 
meetings in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to explain 
the options for expanding the boundary of Harpers Ferry 
National Historical Park. These options were drawn from 12 
years of public debate centered on the expansion of the park 
and were incorporated into documents that were widely 
disseminated to the public.
    During the 2001 public outreach efforts, Harpers Ferry 
National Historical Park worked with the Appalachian National 
Scenic Trail, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, private non-
profit organizations, conservation organizations, state and 
local leaders, tourism and business interests, land developers, 
private landowners, and the public. Four public meetings were 
held throughout Jefferson County, West Virginia, and one or 
more meetings were held with each private landowner identified 
in the report. The National Park Service transmitted the 
results of the outreach efforts to Congress in a report titled 
``Report to the Senate Appropriations Committee of the United 
States Congress on the Public Outreach Program at Harpers Ferry 
National Historical Park, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to 
Explain the Options to Expand the Park's Boundary and Determine 
if there is a Public Consensus for Expansion'' (September 
2002). The report concluded that there exists an overwhelming 
public consensus (94 percent) for expansion of the park. 
Support for the expansion is equally strong among outreach 
participants at the local, regional and national levels.
    The land in the proposed park expansion is largely federal. 
Lands held by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the 
Appalachian National Scenic Trail, which the park currently 
manages through agreements, would be transferred to the Harpers 
Ferry National Historical Park to be administered directly. The 
total federal acreage in the proposed legislation is 772 acres. 
There are also 368 acres of private land in the bill's proposed 
park expansion that the Secretary of the Interior would be 
authorized to acquire from willing sellers. The Civil War 
Preservation Trust owns 177 acres, which they want to donate to 
the Park, with the remaining 191 acres split among six 
individual owners. For the National Park Service to acquire 
these lands, the current park acreage ceiling of 2,505 acres 
needs to be increased to 3,745 acres, which includes a margin 
of 100 acres within the new ceiling for survey and acquisition 
corrections.
    No appraisals have been done on the properties included in 
the proposed park expansion; however, based on recent 
comparable sales of property adjacent to the park, the National 
Park Service believes that the land acquisition costs would 
total approximately $3.7 million to acquire all 191 acres of 
private land. With our proposed amendment, land acquisition 
costs would be negligible since it would be acquired through 
donation or transfer.
    The land in the proposed expansion is mainly forest or 
agricultural farmland that contains a few structures. The 
National Park Service proposes to manage the forested lands as 
protected viewsheds, and the agricultural lands under the 
park's agricultural leasing program with an overlay of public 
trails and interpretive exhibits for public use and enjoyment. 
We originally estimated development costs to be less than 
$500,000 including projects such as building small parking 
areas, restoring battlefields, developing trails, and creating 
exhibits. We also had estimated operational costs to administer 
all the land would add $150,000 annually to Harpers Ferry's 
$5.7 million operational costs, an increase of less than one 
percent.
    With our proposed amendment, development costs would be 
reduced to approximately $350,000 and operational costs would 
be reduced to approximately $100,000.
    That concludes my prepared statement Mr. Chairman. I would 
be pleased to answer any questions you or members of the 
committee may have.

                        Changes in Existing Law

    In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate, changes in existing law made by 
the bill S. 1576, as ordered reported, are shown as follows 
(existing law proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black 
brackets, new matter is printed in italic, existing law in 
which no change is proposed is shown in roman):

                            16 U.S.C. 450bb

                              ----------                              


 AN ACT to provide for the establishment of the Harpers Ferry National 
                                Monument

    [Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized to 
accept donations of land, interest in land, buildings, 
structures, and other property in the vicinity of Harpers 
Ferry, West Virginia, not to exceed one thousand five hundred 
acres, as the Secretary of the Interior may deem necessary to 
carry out the purposes of this Act, and donations of funds for 
the purchase and maintenance thereof, the evidence of title to 
such lands to be satisfactory to the Secretary of the Interior. 
Any Federal land within the area designated by the Secretary of 
the Interior as necessary for monument purposes shall be 
transferred to the administration of the Department of the 
Interior and when so transferred shall become a part of the 
monument: Provided, That the Federal department or agency 
having administration over such land shall agree in advance to 
such transfer.]

SECTION 1. HARPERS FERRY NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK.

    (a) In General.--To carry, out the purposes of this Act, 
the Secretary of the Interior (referred to in this Act as the 
``Secretary'') is authorized to acquire, by purchase from a 
willing seller with donated or appropriated funds, by donation, 
or by exchange, land or an interest in land within the 
boundaries as generally depicted on the map entitled ``Boundary 
Map, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park'', numbered 385-
80,021A, and dated April 1979.
    (b) Bradley and Ruth Nash Addition.--The Secretary is 
authorized to acquire, by donation only, approximately 27 acres 
of land or interests in land that are outside the boundary of 
the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and generally 
depicted on the map entitled ``Proposed Bradley and Ruth Nash 
Addition--Harpers Ferry National Historical Parks'', numbered 
385-80056, and dated April 1, 1989.
    (c) Boundary Expansion.--
          (1) In general.--The Secretary is authorized to 
        acquire, by purchase from a willing seller with donated 
        or appropriated funds, by donation, or by exchange, 
        land or an interest in land within the area depicted as 
        ``Private Lands'' on the map entitled ``Harpers Ferry 
        National Historical Park Proposed Boundary Expansion,'' 
        numbered 385/80,126, and dated July 14, 2003.
          (2) Administration.--The Secretary shall--
                  (A) transfer to the National Park Service for 
                inclusion in the Harpers Ferry National 
                Historical Park (referred to in this Act as the 
                ``Park'') the land depicted on the map referred 
                to in paragraph (1) as ``U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
                Service Lands'' and revise the boundary of the 
                Park accordingly; and
                  (B) revise the boundary of the Park to 
                include the land depicted on the map referred 
                to in paragraph (1) as ``Appalachian NST'' and 
                exclude that land from the boundary of the 
                Appalachian National Scenic Trail.
    (d) Maximum Number of Acres.--The number of acres of the 
Park shall not exceed 3,745.
    (e) Maps.--The maps referred to in this section shall be on 
file and available for public inspection in the appropriate 
offices of the National Park Service.
    (f) Acquired Land.--Land or an interest in land acquired 
under this section shall become a part of the Park, subject to 
the laws (including regulations) applicable to the Park.
    (g) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized 
to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to carry out this 
section.
    Sec. 2. The property acquired under the provisions of 
section 1 of this Act shall constitute the Harpers Ferry 
National Monument and shall be a public national memorial 
commemorating historical events at or near Harpers Ferry. The 
Director of the National Park Service under the direction of 
the [Secretary of the Interior] Secretary shall have the 
supervision, management, and control of such national monument, 
and shall maintain and preserve it for the benefit and 
enjoyment of the people of the United States, subject to the 
provisions of the Act of August 25, 1916 (39 Stat. 535), 
entitled ``An Act to establish a National Park Service, and for 
other purposes'', as amended.
    Sec. 3. The [Secretary of the Interior] Secretary is 
authorized to--
          (1) Maintain, either in an existing structure 
        acquired under the provisions of section 1 of this Act 
        or in a building constructed by him for the purpose, a 
        museum for relics and records pertaining to historic 
        events that took place at Harpers Ferry, and for other 
        relics of national and patriotic interest, and to 
        accept on behalf of the United States, for installation 
        in such museum, articles which may be offered as 
        additions to the museum; and
          (2) Construct roads and facilities and mark with 
        monuments, tablets, or otherwise, points of interest 
        within the boundaries of the Harpers Ferry National 
        Monument.
    Sec. 4. There are authorized to be appropriated such sums 
as may be necessary to carry out the improvements and 
maintenance on the lands and sites donated under the provisions 
of this Act.
    Approved June 30, 1944.

                                
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