[Senate Report 112-105]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       Calendar No. 267
112th Congress                                                   Report
                                 SENATE
 2d Session                                                     112-105

======================================================================



 
                HARRIET TUBMAN NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARKS

                                _______
                                

                January 13, 2012.--Ordered to be printed

 Filed, under authority of the order of the Senate of December 17, 2011

                                _______
                                

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

                              R E P O R T

                         [To accompany S. 247]

    The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to which was 
referred the bill (S. 247) to establish the Harriet Tubman 
National Historical Park in Auburn, New York, and the Harriet 
Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in 
Caroline, Dorchester, and Talbot Counties, Maryland, and for 
other purposes, having considered the same, reports favorably 
thereon with amendments and recommends that the bill, as 
amended, do pass.
    The amendments are as follows:
    1. On page 7, lines 6 through 8, strike ``Public Law 91-383 
(commonly known as the `National Park Service General 
Authorities Act')'' and insert ``the National Park Service 
General Authorities Act''.
    2. On page 12, lines 21 through 23, strike ``Public Law 91-
383 (commonly known as the `National Park Service General 
Authorities Act')'' and insert ``the National Park Service 
General Authorities Act''.

                                PURPOSE

    The purpose of S. 247 is to establish the Harriet Tubman 
National Historical Park in Auburn, New York, and the Harriet 
Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in 
Caroline, Dorchester, and Talbot Counties, Maryland.

                          BACKGROUND AND NEED

    Often referred to as ``the Moses of her people,'' Harriet 
Tubman, born Araminta Ross, was responsible for helping 
hundreds of enslaved people escape from bondage to freedom as 
the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad 
resistance network. Born circa 1822, Tubman changed her name to 
Harriet as a young adult. At age 25, she married John Tubman 
while both were slaves on Brodess Farms in Dorchester County, 
Maryland. Tubman escaped from enslavement in 1849, when she 
slipped away alone on a pitch-dark night through the wetlands 
and tidal streams that characterize Maryland's Eastern Shore.
    Tubman defied capture and the imposing wilderness to return 
repeatedly to Dorchester and Caroline Counties in Maryland to 
conduct family and other enslaved people to freedom in the 
North. Tubman used her skills to go into the slave states of 
Virginia, Florida, and South Carolina to lead hundreds of 
additional slaves to freedom. During the Civil War she served 
her country as a spy, a scout, a cook, and a nurse. In June 
1863 she guided Union troops in South Carolina for an assault 
along the Combahee River resulting in the emancipation of 
hundreds of enslaved African Americans.
    Following the Civil War, Tubman settled in Auburn, New 
York, where she was active in the Women's Suffrage movement, 
working alongside Susan B. Anthony and Emily Howland. An 
intensely spiritual person, Tubman was active in Auburn's 
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and donated land to the 
Church for the establishment of a home ``for aged and indigent 
colored people.'' On March 10, 1913, she died at the home she 
founded for the aged and was buried in Auburn at Fort Hill 
Cemetery. Harriet Tubman was a true American patriot for whom 
liberty and freedom were not just concepts. She lived those 
principles and shared that freedom with hundreds of others.
    While few structures remain in the Maryland Eastern Shore 
area where Tubman grew up, the landscape and wetlands that 
shaped the character of one of the most iconic figures in 
American history remain nearly the same as when she escaped 
into the night seeking freedom. The properties associated with 
her youth would be familiar to her even though the structures 
are gone. A number of closely related Tubman resources exist on 
lands adjacent to the proposed park managed by the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.
    In New York, on the other hand, many of the buildings 
associated with Tubman's life are intact. Her home where she 
lived, the Tubman Home for the Aged she founded, the African 
Methodist Episcopal Zion Episcopal Church where she worshipped, 
and the Fort Hills Cemetery where she was buried, still stand.
    Public Law 106-516 directed the Secretary of the Interior 
to conduct a special resource study to determine the 
appropriateness of establishing a unit in the National Park 
Service to honor Harriet Tubman. The National Park Service 
public process during the resource study found extensive public 
support including private property owners. This support led the 
Park Service to recommend that designation of two 
geographically separate units would be appropriate. The 
Maryland site would include large sections of landscape that 
are consistent of Tubman's time that are historically relevant. 
The New York park would include the tightly clustered Tubman-
associated buildings in Auburn.
    S. 247 would designate two new units of the National Park 
System to honor Harriet Tubman. In Maryland, the Harriet Tubman 
Underground Railroad National Historical Park would be 
established and composed of nationally significant historic 
landscapes associated with Harriet Tubman in Caroline, 
Dorchester, and Talbot Counties. The park would be established 
upon the Secretary of the Interior's determination that 
sufficient land or interest in land has been acquired to 
constitute a park and would provide for interpretation and 
preservation of the landscape through cooperative agreements 
with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the State of Maryland, 
colleges, non-profit organizations, and individuals.
    The Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, New 
York, would be established upon the Secretary of the Interior's 
determination that sufficient land or interest in land has been 
acquired to constitute a park. The historical park will include 
the Harriet Tubman home, the Tubman Home for the Aged, and the 
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and associated land.

                          LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

    S. 247 was introduced by Senators Cardin, Gillibrand, 
Mikulski, and Schumer on February 2, 2011. The Subcommittee on 
National Parks held a hearing on S. 247 on May 11, 2011 (S. 
Hrg. 112-124). On November 10, 2011, the Committee on Energy 
and Natural Resources ordered S. 247 favorably reported with 
amendments.
    During the 111th Congress, the Committee considered similar 
legislation, S. 227, sponsored by Senators Cardin, Clinton, 
Gillibrand, Mikulski, and Schumer. The Subcommittee on National 
Parks held a hearing on S. 227 on January 15, 2009 (S. Hrg. 
111-92).

                        COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION

    The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in 
open business session on November 10, 2011, by a voice vote of 
a quorum present, recommends that the Senate pass S. 247, if 
amended as described herein. Senators Barrasso, Risch, Lee, 
Paul, and Corker asked to be recorded as opposing the measure.

                          COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS

    During its consideration of S. 247, the Committee adopted 
two amendments, which correct references to the National Park 
Service General Authorities Act.

                      SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS

    Section 1 contains the short title, the ``Harriet Tubman 
National Historical Parks Act''.
    Section 2(a) defines key terms used in this section.
    Subsection (b) establishes the Harriet Tubman Underground 
Railroad Historical Park in Caroline, Dorchester, and Talbot 
Counties, Maryland as a unit of the National Park System.
    Paragraph (3) authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to 
acquire land and interests in land within the authorized 
acquisition areas as identified on the map by purchase from 
willing sellers, donation, or exchange. The boundary of the 
park is to be adjusted once acquisitions are made.
    Subsection (c)(1-3) directs the Director of the National 
Park Service and the Director of the United States Fish and 
Wildlife Service to enter into an agreement to allow the Park 
Service to provide for public interpretation of historic 
resources within the boundary of the Blackwater National 
Wildlife Refuge, including interpretative tours to sites and 
resources outside of the boundary of the park relating to the 
life of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
    Paragraph (4) authorizes the Secretary to enter into 
cooperative agreements to mark, interpret, and restore 
nationally significant historic or cultural resources relating 
to the life of Harriet Tubman or the Underground Railroad 
within the boundaries of the park. The Secretary may enter into 
a cooperative agreement with the State of Maryland to design, 
construct, operate, and maintain a joint visitor center on land 
owned by the State. The Federal cost share shall not exceed 50 
percent.
    Subsection (d) provides that a general management plan for 
the park shall be prepared no later than three years after the 
date on which funds are made available. The Secretary shall 
coordinate with the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, the 
Harriet Tubman National Historic Park, and the National 
Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.
    Subsection (e) authorizes appropriations of such sums as 
are necessary.
    Section 3(a) defines key terms used in this section.
    Subsection (b) establishes the Harriet Tubman National 
Historical Park in Auburn, New York as a unit of the National 
Park System.
    Paragraph (4) authorizes the Secretary to acquire land and 
interests in land within the areas identified on the map by 
purchase from willing sellers, donation, or exchange.
    Subsection (c) allows the Secretary to provide 
interpretative tours to sites and resources outside of the 
boundary of the park relating to the life of Harriet Tubman.
    Paragraph (3) provides that the Secretary may enter into 
cooperative agreements to mark, interpret and restore 
nationally significant historic or cultural resources and to 
conduct research relating to the life of Harriet Tubman. The 
Federal cost share shall not exceed 50 percent. Further, the 
Secretary must submit to the Attorney General any cooperative 
agreements involving religious property or property owned by a 
religious institution. No agreement will take effect until the 
Attorney General finds that the proposed agreement does not 
violate the Establishment Clause of the first amendment of the 
Constitution.
    Subsection (d) provides that a general management plan for 
the park shall be prepared no later than three years after the 
date on which funds are made available. The Secretary shall 
coordinate with the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad 
National Historic Park and the National Underground Railroad 
Network to Freedom.
    Subsection (e) authorizes the necessary appropriations.

                   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 Congressional Budget Office 
completes its costs estimate, it will be posted on the Internet 
at www.cbo.gov.

                      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. 247.
    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. 247, as ordered reported.

                   CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED SPENDING

    S. 247, as ordered reported, does not contain any 
congressionally directed spending items, limited tax benefits, 
or limited tariff benefits as defined in rule XLIV of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate.

                        EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS

    The testimony provided by the Department of the Interior at 
the May 11, 2011, Subcommittee on National Parks hearing on S. 
247 follows:

Statement of Steven E. Whitesell, Associate Director for 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. 247, a bill to 
establish the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in 
Auburn, New York, and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad 
National Historical Park in Caroline, Dorchester, and Talbot 
Counties in Maryland.
    The Department supports enactment of S. 247, with two 
technical amendments attached to this testimony. The Department 
testified in the House of Representatives on March 24, 2009, 
and in the Senate on July 15, 2009, in support of similar bills 
introduced during the 111th Congress.
    Harriet Tubman is truly an iconic American. Born circa 1822 
as an enslaved person in Dorchester County, Maryland, she 
courageously escaped her bondage in 1849, returned on many 
occasions to Dorchester and Caroline Counties to free others 
including members of her family and remains known, popularly 
and appropriately, as ``The Moses of her People.'' She was a 
leading ``conductor'' along the Underground Railroad guiding 
the enslaved to freedom at great risk to her own life. Her 
accomplishments were admired and extolled by her contemporaries 
including the abolitionist leader and former slave Frederick 
Douglass. In 1868 Douglass wrote to Tubman:

          Most that I have done and suffered in the service of 
        our cause has been in public, and I have received much 
        encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the 
        other hand, have labored in a private way. I have 
        wrought in the day--you in the night . . . The midnight 
        sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of 
        your devotion to freedom and of your heroism.

    Harriet Tubman served honorably during this nation's Civil 
War as a cook, nurse, scout, and spy for Union forces in 
Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida, always at personal risk 
and always advancing the quest for freedom by providing 
assistance to other enslaved people. In June 1863, she guided 
Union troops in South Carolina for an assault along the 
Combahee River resulting in the emancipation of hundreds of the 
enslaved.
    At the invitation of then U.S. Senator and later Secretary 
of State William H. Seward, Harriet Tubman purchased land from 
him in Auburn, New York, where she lived and cared for members 
of her family and other former slaves seeking safe haven in the 
North. In later life, she became active in progressive causes 
including efforts for women's suffrage. Working closely with 
activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Emily Howland, she 
traveled from Auburn to cities in the East advocating voting 
rights for women. Harriet Tubman gave the keynote speech at the 
first meeting of the National Federation of Afro-American Women 
upon its founding in 1896.
    Harriet Tubman was an intensely spiritual person and active 
in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church. In 
1903 she donated land to the Church in Auburn for the 
establishment of a home ``for aged and indigent colored 
people.'' She died on March 10, 1913, at this home for the aged 
and was buried with full military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery 
in Auburn. Booker T. Washington, also born into slavery, 
journeyed from Alabama a year later to speak at the 
installation of a commemorative plaque for her at Auburn City 
Hall.
    Harriet Tubman is an American figure of lore and legend. 
Today, she is an enduring inspiration to those who cherish 
individual freedom and strive for human rights throughout the 
world.
    On January 12, 2009, the Department transmitted the Harriet 
Tubman Special Resource Study to Congress. The study, 
authorized by Public Law 106-516, the Harriet Tubman Special 
Resource Study Act, concluded that the resources associated 
with Harriet Tubman in Auburn, New York, and Caroline, 
Dorchester, and Talbot Counties, Maryland met the national 
significance, suitability, feasibility, and need for National 
Park Service management criteria for potential units of the 
National Park System. After an intensive and lengthy public 
involvement process, the study found that there is extensive 
public support, including support by affected private property 
owners within the boundaries proposed by S. 247 in New York and 
Maryland, for the establishment of the two units. Locally 
elected officials in both states have also expressed their 
support.
    S. 247 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to 
establish a unit of the National Park System, the Harriet 
Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, New York, upon 
determination that sufficient land or interests in land has 
been acquired to constitute a manageable park unit. The park 
would consist of the Harriet Tubman Home, the Home for the 
Aged, the Thompson Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church, which is no 
longer used for religious services, and its parsonage. The 
Secretary would be authorized to enter into cooperative 
agreements and provide technical and matching financial 
assistance to the A.M.E. Zion Church and others for historic 
preservation, rehabilitation, research, maintenance, and 
interpretation of the park and related Harriet Tubman resources 
in Auburn, New York. The Secretary would be further authorized 
to provide uniformed National Park Service staff to operate the 
park in partnership with the Church and to conduct 
interpretation and tours.
    In Maryland, S. 247 would authorize the Secretary of the 
Interior to establish a unit of the National Park System, the 
Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, 
in nationally significant historic landscapes associated with 
Harriet Tubman in Caroline, Dorchester, and Talbot Counties, 
upon determination that sufficient land or interests in land 
have been acquired to constitute a manageable park unit. This 
agricultural, forest, and riverine mosaic largely retains 
historic integrity from the time that Tubman was born enslaved, 
worked in the fields and forests, emancipated herself, and 
helped others there to escape to freedom.
    The Secretary of the Interior would be authorized to 
provide matching grants to the state of Maryland for the 
construction of a visitor services facility to be jointly 
operated by the state and uniformed staff of the National Park 
Service. The Secretary would be further authorized to enter 
into cooperative agreements with various organizations and 
property owners, and provide grants for the restoration, 
rehabilitation, public use, and interpretation of sites and 
resources related to Harriet Tubman. Because a number of 
closely related Harriet Tubman resources exist on lands 
adjacent to the proposed park at Blackwater National Wildlife 
Refuge, which is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 
or on lands scheduled for future refuge acquisition, the bill 
provides for an interagency agreement between the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service and the National Park Service to promote 
compatible stewardship and interpretation of these resources.
    The estimated cost for the annual operations and 
maintenance for each unit would be approximately $500,000 to 
$650,000. The estimated cost for any acquisitions and the 
federal share of capital improvements is approximately $7.5 
million for the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in 
Auburn, New York. The cost of land acquisition and the federal 
share for the visitor center at the Harriet Tubman Underground 
Railroad National Historical Park in Maryland is estimated to 
be up to $11 million. The estimated cost for the completion of 
the general management plan for each unit would be 
approximately $600,000 to $700,000. All funds are subject to 
NPS priorities and the availability of appropriations.
    Mr. Chairman, it is not every day that the Department comes 
before the committee to testify on a bill to establish two 
units of the National Park System to honor an enslaved woman 
who rose from the most difficult and humble beginnings 
imaginable to indelibly influence the causes of human justice 
and equality in our society, and to have such a significant 
impact on our national story. We do so with full understanding 
of the life and contributions of Harriet Tubman and suggest 
that nearly 100 years after her death the time for this 
abundantly deserved honor has finally arrived.
    That concludes my testimony Mr. Chairman. I would be 
pleased to respond to any questions from you and members of the 
committee.

                        CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW

    In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee notes that no 
changes in existing law are made by S. 247, as ordered 
reported.

                                  
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