[Senate Report 108-372]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                       Calendar No. 731
108th Congress                                                   Report
                                 SENATE
 2d Session                                                     108-372
======================================================================
 
         REDWOOD NATIONAL PARK BOUNDARY ADJUSTMENT ACT OF 2004

                                _______
                                

               September 28, 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. 2567]

    The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to which was 
referred the bill (S. 2567) to adjust the boundary of Redwood 
National Park in the State of California, having considered the 
same, reports favorably thereon without amendment and 
recommends that the bill do pass.

                         Purpose of the Measure

    The purpose of S. 2567 is to adjust the boundary of Redwood 
National Park to include approximately 36,400 acres that have 
been acquired by the California Department of Parks and 
Recreation.

                          Background and Need

    By the 1960's, ninety percent of the redwoods in California 
had been harvested and many citizens across the country were 
concerned that this magnificent resource would soon be lost 
forever. Amid much controversy, a compromise with the timber 
industry was negotiated, and on October 2, 1968, President 
Johnson signed into law the Act that established Redwood 
National Park (Public Law 90-545; 16 U.S.C. 79b). The new park 
placed 58,000 acres in the care of the National Park Service 
(NPS) and also included lands that would remain under the 
jurisdiction of the State of California. As logging continued 
outside the park boundary, sediment loads increased 
dramatically along Redwood Creek. In March 1978, in response to 
the threatened health of the stream-side redwoods within the 
national park, President Carter signed into law the addition of 
48,000 acres to Redwood National Park.
    In 1994, the National Park Service and the California 
Department of Parks and Recreation entered into a cooperative 
agreement to jointly manage and protect the State and park 
lands within the boundary of Redwood National Park. The State 
of California and the National Park Service retain separate 
ownership of their land and facilities in the parks; however, 
both Federal and State lands are managed and operated 
cooperatively. The three California state parks and Redwoods 
National Park are now collectively referred to as the Redwood 
National and State Parks (RNSP). These units represent 
approximately 45 percent of all the old-growth redwood forest 
remaining in California. The RNSP are designated a World 
Heritage Site and are part of the California Coast Range 
Biosphere Reserve.
    In recent years the California Department of State Parks 
and Recreation has acquired approximately 26,400 acres of 
additional land. S. 2567 would amend Public Law 90-545 to 
expand the boundary of the park and to authorize the California 
Department of Parks and Recreation and the National Park 
Service to manage the additional lands under the terms of the 
existing cooperative management agreement.

                          Legislative History

    S. 2567 was introduced by Senator Feinstein on June 23, 
2004. A companion measure, H.R. 3638, was introduced by 
Representative Thompson on November 21, 2003. The Senate 
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources' Subcommittee on 
National Parks held a hearing on S. 2567 on July 15, 2004. At 
the business meeting on September 15, 2004, the Committee on 
Energy and Natural Resources ordered S. 2567 favorably 
reported.

                        Committee Recommendation

    The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in an open 
business session on September 15, 2004, by a unanimous voice 
vote of a quorum present, recommends that the Senate pass S. 
2567.

                      Section-by-Section Analysis

    Section 1 entitles this Act the ``Redwoods National Park 
Boundary Adjustment Act of 2004.''
    Section 2 amends section 2(a) of the Act of Public Law 90-
545 (16 U.S.C. 79b (a)) by adjusting the park boundary as 
referenced on the map entitled ``Redwood National Park, Revised 
Boundary, numbered 167/60502 and dated February 2003''. The 
referenced map must be on file and available for public 
inspection in the appropriate National Park Service offices and 
also be provided to the appropriate officers of Del Norte and 
Humbolt Counties, California. This section further amends 
Public Law 90-545 by increasing the maximum number of acres 
within the boundary of Redwood National Park from 106,000 acres 
to 133,000 acres.

                   Cost and Budgetary Considerations

    The following estimate of the cost of this measure has been 
provided by the Congressional Budget Office.

S. 2567--Redwood National Park Boundary Adjustment Act of 2004

    S. 2567 would expand the boundary of the Redwood National 
Park in California to include an additional 27,000 acres. CBO 
estimates that enacting this legislation would have no 
significant impact on the federal budget and would not affect 
revenues or direct spending. The added lands, including the 
25,500-acre Mill Creek property, are already owned by 
California. Like other state park property within the existing 
boundary of the Redwood National Park, these lands would 
continue to be owned by the state and would be managed 
cooperatively by the state and the National Park Service.
    S. 2567 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector 
mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and 
would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.
    The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Deborah Reis. 
This estimate was approved by Peter H. Fontaine, Deputy 
Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.

                      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. 2567.
    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. 2567.

                        Executive Communications

    On July 6, 2004, the Committee on Energy and Natural 
Resources requested legislative reports from the Department of 
the Interior and the Office of Management and Budget setting 
forth Executive agency recommendations on S. 2567. These 
reports had not been received when this report was filed. The 
testimony provided by the Department of the Interior at the 
Subcommittee hearing on S. 2567 follows:

 Statement of A. Durand Jones, Deputy Director, National Park Service, 
                       Department of the Interior

    Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear 
before your committee to present the views of the Department of 
the Interior on S. 2567, a bill to adjust the boundary of 
Redwood National Park in the State of California.
    The Department supports enactment of S. 2567. This 
legislation would enable the National Park Service and the 
California Department of Parks and Recreation to manage a large 
swath of state-owned redwood forest land, known as the Mill 
Creek property, under the same terms that state park lands 
currently within the boundary of Redwood National Park are 
managed. It would thus provide for more efficient and cost-
effective management and protection of a very ecologically 
important resource in the coastal redwood region of northern 
California. There would be no Federal costs for land 
acquisition or development resulting from this legislation, and 
only negligible operation and maintenance costs.
    S. 2567 would revise the boundary of Redwood National Park 
and increase the park's acreage limitation from 106,000 acres 
to 133,000 acres to accommodate the addition of the 25,500-acre 
Mill Creek property and about 900 acres of state park lands 
that have been acquired since the last park boundary adjustment 
was enacted in 1978. The Mill Creek property consists of the 
watersheds of Mill Creek and Rock Creek, tributaries to the 
Smith River, and is contiguous to the Redwood National Park 
boundary. This property has been studied and proposed for park 
status since the early 1900's, most recently in the 1960's as 
the heart of an early proposal to establish Redwood National 
Park. Coast redwoods comprise almost 95 percent of the forest 
type on the property. The land includes about 121 acres of 
ancient redwood forest, and contains 23 species that are 
endangered, threatened, or of special concern. Mill Creek 
supports the most significant run of Coho salmon in the entire 
Smith River watershed and has been identified as critical to 
the recovery of the species.
    The Mill Creek property was purchased by the Save-the-
Redwoods League for $60 million from the Stimson Lumber 
Company, which was phasing out logging operations on the 
property and wanted to sell the land. Funding for the purchase 
came from a variety of state and private sources. The land 
became part of the California state park system in June, 2002, 
and is being managed under an interim plan pending action by 
Congress to add the property to Redwood National Park.
    If the Mill Creek property is included within the boundary 
of Redwood National Park, it will be managed under the same 
cooperative management agreement that the National Park Service 
and the California Department of Parks and Recreation currently 
use to manage the National Park Service property and the three 
state parks within the boundary. The joint Federal-state 
management arrangement at Redwood is unusual within the 
National Park System, but has come to serve as a model of 
interagency cooperative management efforts.
    The Federal-state management arrangement at Redwood stems 
from the origins of the park. The 1968 legislation that 
established Redwood National Park and the 1978 legislation that 
expanded it included three existing state parks within the 
boundary in anticipation of eventual conveyance from the state 
to the National Park Service. For a variety of reasons, that 
conveyance did not occur. The state parks currently own about 
32 percent of the land within the Redwood National Park 
boundary, and about half the acreage of the ancient redwood 
forest in the park. In the 1990's, after years of experiencing 
duplication of efforts and management conflicts, the National 
Park Service and the California Department of Parks and 
Recreation established a framework for cooperative management 
of the Federal and state parks. Congress facilitated this 
effort by providing authority for the National Park Service to 
enter into a cooperative management agreement for the Redwood 
parks with the state agency-and, incidentally, has since 
extended that authority to all units of the National Park 
System due in large part to the success of the arrangement at 
Redwood.
    The Federal-state cooperative management agreement at 
Redwood National Park allows the two park agencies to operate 
the entire 105,000-acre area in a unified manner. In a 
reflection of that unity, while ``Redwood National Park'' 
remains the legal name for the park, the name of the site that 
is used for public information purposes is ``Redwood National 
and State Parks.'' The management decisions of both agencies 
are guided by a joint General Management Plan, adopted in 2000. 
The two agencies share staff, equipment, and facilities to 
fulfill common resource protection and visitor service goals. 
They develop common procedures for activities such as issuing 
special use permits, and common programs for park operations 
such as staff training and media relations. They develop and 
implement schedules so that the two agencies cover for each 
other and avoid duplication. Both agencies benefit from 
efficiencies in the areas of law enforcement, interpretation, 
administration, resource management and maintenance. Facilities 
and space on the new parcel will increase these efficiencies by 
providing centralized staging areas, storage space and offices 
for these joint operations.
    Adding the Mill Creek property to the boundary of Redwood 
National Park, as S. 2567 would do, would enable the National 
Park Service and the California Department of Parks and 
Recreation to extend all the benefits of the cooperative 
management agreement to that property, as well. The result 
would be the more efficient and effective management and 
protection of land that provides a critically important 
contribution to the ecological values that the National Park 
Service protects at Redwood National Park.
    Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I would be happy 
to answer any questions you or other members of the 
subcommittee 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 
S. 2567, 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):

                           Public Law 90-545


AN ACT To establish a Redwood National Park in the State of California, 
                         and for other purposes

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, in 
order to preserve significant examples of the primeval coastal 
redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests and the streams and 
seashores with which they are associated for purposes of public 
inspiration, enjoyment, and scientific study, there is hereby 
established a Redwood National Park in Del Norte and Humboldt 
Counties, California.
    Sec. 2. [(a) The area to be included, within the Redwood 
National Park is that generally depicted on the maps entitled 
``Redwood National Park,'' numbered NPS-RED-7114--A and NPS-
RED-7114-B, and dated September 1968, copies of which maps 
shall be kept available for public inspection in the offices of 
the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, and 
shall be filed with appropriate officers of Del Norte and 
Humboldt Counties.] (a)(1) The Redwood National Park consists 
of the land generally depicted on the map entitled `Redwood 
National Park, Revised Boundary', numbered 167/60502, and dated 
February, 2003.
    (2) The map referred to in paragraph (1) shall be--
          (A) on file and available for public inspection in 
        the appropriate offices of the National Park Service; 
        and
          (B) provided by the Secretary of the Interior to the 
        appropriate officers of Del Norte and Humboldt 
        Counties, California.''
    [The Secretary] (3) The Secretary of the Interior 
(hereinafter referred to as the ``Secretary'') may from time to 
time, with a view to carrying out the purpose of this Act and 
with particular attention to minimizing siltation of the 
streams, damage to the timber, and assuring the preservation of 
the scenery within the boundaries of the national park as 
depicted on said maps, modify said boundaries, giving notice of 
any changes involved therein by publication of a revised 
drawing or boundary description in the Federal Register and by 
filing said revision with the officers with whom the original 
maps were filed, but the acreage within said park shall at no 
time exceed [one hundred and six thousand acres] 133,000 acres, 
exclusive of submerged lands and publicly owned highways and 
roads.

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