[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2007, Book I)]
[February 7, 2007]
[Pages 117-119]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in Shenandoah National Park in Luray
February 7, 2007

    Laura and I and the Secretary really appreciate the good folks here at Shenandoah 
National Park for their hospitality and their hard work in making this 
beautiful part of our country accessible to citizens.
    Today I had the honor of spending time talking to a group of 
concerned citizens about our National Park System. We've got about 80 
million acres in our Park System. There's millions and millions of 
visits a year by our citizens to take advantage of and participate in 
the special beauty of our parks. All you got to do is look out here.
    We spent time talking about our understanding that these parks are 
national treasures, that they are fantastic places in which to learn 
things and to get exercise, that our parks are a way to teach our fellow 
citizens about the history of the country. After all, Laura and I live in the White House, which is managed by the 
National Park System. Our parks are important, and the people who work 
in the parks are important.
    I asked Dirk Kempthorne to join my 
administration because I know that he is committed to the National Park 
System. He's a man from the West who has been able to enjoy the beauty 
of the parks in his own home State of Idaho.
    One of the things we talked about is how we can make sure the 
commitment that we all think is necessary to our Park System is really 
honored in the appropriations requests that we make to Congress.
    Our parks will have its 100th anniversary in 2016. And we felt like 
a vital goal for this country would be to prepare those parks, to guard 
the parks, to conserve the parks, to make the parks relevant to the 
American people in honor of the 100th anniversary. And so 
Dirk and I and others

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in this administration have come up with what we call the National Parks 
Centennial Initiative. It's a bold program that calls upon the 
Government to do its part, as well as our citizens, to become invested 
in a campaign to really enhance the parks.
    The funding starts with a billion-dollar request over the next 10 
years that I've sent up to Congress. It's really to enhance the 
operating missions of our parks. I'm looking forward to working with 
both Republicans and Democrats to get this initiative passed. I think if 
any Member of Congress were to ask a Park Service employee or those who 
know a lot about the parks, our fellow citizens who give of their time 
to make sure our parks are vital, they will find out that this request 
is a really important request.
    Secondly, we're issuing what's called the President's Challenge, and 
that is to--we're asking the private sector to donate up to a billion 
dollars over the next 10 years to help this Park System be vital and 
strong, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our Park System. And as 
they--fellow citizens contribute, whether it be through foundation, 
corporation, or individually, the Federal Government will match those 
contributions. In other words, this is a collaboration of the Federal 
Government and individual programs.
    I've asked Dirk, after today, to go 
around the country and to learn from our fellow citizens and learn from 
the park rangers and learn from the foundations that care about our Park 
System how best to spend this money, how best to honor the centennial 
that we'll be celebrating in 2016. In other words, we really do want 
individuals to feel that they own a piece of this strategy. After all, 
the parks do belong to the people.
    We believe that we've got a fantastic chance to enhance habitats in 
the Park System. Laura, for example, really cares 
about the bird population of the country, and the Park System has a 
fantastic--as do I, by the way, not as much as you do. [Laughter] But 
it's a chance to make sure our Park System enhances bird migratory 
patterns, for example.
    We want to spend time making sure that we enhance educational 
opportunities in our Park System through new technologies. The iPod is 
hip amongst some of the younger citizens here in the country, people we 
want to encourage to come to the parks, so we need to make sure that we 
can combine that technology with educational opportunities, as somebody 
goes walking through our parks. We want to talk about--and we will 
continue to talk about expanding park accessibility through a junior 
ranger program that Laura has been very much 
involved with.
    We're going to hire 3,000 seasonal park rangers, and that's going to 
make the job of the folks who, for example, run the Shenandoah Park much 
easier, and more importantly, make the customer service--in other words, 
the citizen service--richer for somebody who comes and uses our parks.
    We want to upgrade our facilities and historic buildings. We're 
going to add and--ask people in their different Park Systems to become 
recruiters of volunteers so that more and more people get involved with 
this fantastic national resource of ours.
    So, Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you 
very much for the hard work you've done leading up to the budget 
proposal we've made. I want to thank you in advance for the hard work 
you're going to do, to travel our country to get input from our fellow 
citizens. And I thank all the people in our country who care about our 
Park System for your direct involvement and your sincere concerns about 
making sure the Park System is modern and restored and rehabilitated.
    I urge our fellow citizens to use the parks. I urge you to bring 
your families to the parks. I think you'll find that the people who work 
in our Park System are genuinely decent, kind people who want

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you to enjoy the great beauty of the National Park System.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 1:10 p.m. in the Harry F. Byrd, Sr., 
Visitor Center.