[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 39, Number 34 (Monday, August 25, 2003)]
[Pages 1069-1072]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 
Thousand Oaks, California

August 15, 2003

    Thank you all for coming. This is a beautiful place to gather. It's 
a little different from Crawford--[laughter]--but the work is just as 
hard. If it looks like I'm kind of sweaty, it's because I am. [Laughter] 
I've been shoveling dirt to make sure the trails are maintained so 
people can use them.
    Before I talk about our park system, I do want to say that the 
people of New York City and New York State and the people of the 
Northeast and Midwest who were affected by last night's blackout were--
kept their calm, were decent to their neighbors, really showed the rest 
of the country and the world the true character of the American people. 
I want to thank all of them for how they dealt with a very difficult 
situation and assure them that Federal, State, and local authorities are 
working hard to get the power up and running to take care of the needs 
of the people. And at the same time, we'll figure out what went wrong, 
and we'll address it. We will view this rolling blackout as a wake-up 
call, a wake-up call for the need to modernize our electricity delivery 
systems, and we'll respond.
    And what we're here to talk about today is how do we make sure our 
national asset, the National Park System, has got a modern 
infrastructure system as well, so that the people who own the park, the 
American people, can use the parks. After all, the parks are owned by 
the people of this country, and we want the park system to work well, 
and we want there to be a modern infrastructure. We want the 80 million 
acres of national park land to be accessible and comfortable to use for 
the American people, and at the same time, we want to respect nature and 
honor God's great gift to our country by conserving these beautiful 
properties all across the country.
    The responsibility to maintain our parks has not always been met in 
America. It's a problem that we will address, and helping me address the 
problem is the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton. You know, I 
picked somebody from the West to run the Interior Department because I 
felt like, in her case, she was sensitive to the needs of the people and 
to the needs of the land. And she's doing a heck of a good job on behalf 
of the American people. And I appreciate you being here.
    And Fran Mainella is with us today. She's the Director of the 
National Park Service. Hi, Fran. When I tell you what we're going to do 
about maintaining our parks, really what I'm doing is telling you what 
she's going to do--[laughter]--in collaboration with the good folks who 
work for the Interior Department, the good folks who wear the hats, the 
people that are out on the frontline of maintaining our parks and making 
sure our parks are accessible to the American people, the park rangers, 
the dedicated employees who are--really make a difference in the 
people's lives. I want to thank you all for your hard work on behalf of 
the American people.
    I had a chance to spend some quality time with such a person, Woody 
Smeck; he's the Superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains. [Applause] 
Woody, it's a good sign when people who work with you cheer for you. 
[Laughter] I can see why. Woody cares a lot about the land. He cares 
deeply about the people who use the land. Woody has got a tough job. He 
manages the largest urban park in America, but it's a park that requires 
collaboration with State officials--and I want to thank the State 
officials who are here--requires cooperation with the local officials, 
and it requires collaboration with private property owners in order to 
make sure the park works the way we want it to work. And

[[Page 1070]]

Woody, you're doing a heck of a good job, and I appreciate your service 
to our country.
    We've got some mayors with us today, and I'm honored you all are 
here. Andy Fox and Greg Hill and James Bozajian are here with us. The 
local mayors of Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach and Calabasas, 
California, are integral players in making sure the park system works. I 
asked the question, how are the local people--they were responding well 
to your initiatives that Woody has laid out? And he said, 
``Absolutely.'' He said the cooperation is fantastic. So Mayors, I want 
to thank you for coming, but more importantly, I want to thank you for 
doing your job in a way that makes your citizens proud.
    I'm also am so proud that my friend Elton Gallegly is here with us. 
He is the congressman from this area. He cares a lot about this park. He 
cares a lot about the people who live in this congressional district. 
And Elton and I are going to work hard to make sure the appropriations 
process reflects our desire, our common desire, to maintain the park 
system of America. And Elton, thank you for coming.
    One of the things that makes the park systems go and really function 
well is the volunteer effort all around our country, and you've got a 
fantastic volunteer effort here. I met two such people today. Melvin 
Caradine, he is a volunteer here. He leads tours. He shares his 
knowledge with the people who come to visit. And Ralph Waycott, he is 
the volunteer coordinator for the Rancho Sierra Vista Nursery. I don't 
know if Ralph was a botanist in college or not--[laughter]--but it sure 
sounded like it. [Laughter] He knows a lot about what he's talking 
about.
    He and Melvin really represent the best of the country, when you 
think about it--people who are willing to take time out of their lives 
and to, in this case, make the park system work and make our fellow 
citizens feel comfortable and knowledgeable when they come to the parks. 
I'm told there's a couple hundred volunteers who come here on a regular 
basis to help make sure this park works, and I want to thank you. And I 
urge others that if you're interested in serving your community, 
interested in serving your country, volunteer at a park. Make it work 
better. Help restore it. Help the hard-working employees and dedicated 
folks that are in charge of our parks; help make their job easier. And 
so for those of you who are here who volunteer, thanks a lot for what 
you do.
    What's interesting about this place is, there are over 33 million 
visitors who come here. That's a lot. [Laughter] There are a lot of 
people who use this park, and that's good. That's the way it should be. 
And I can see why they come. It's a beautiful spot. Fantastic trails--
it's a good opportunity for people to care of their physiques--
[laughter]--by taking off in the hills and a getting yourself a good 
walk on a daily basis. But 33 million people use this.
    The truth of the matter is, God designed this park's beauty, but men 
and women make sure it remains beautiful. And that's an important part 
about conservation: It's man's ability to make sure that God's beauty is 
maintained and preserved and that when people use it, they use it in a 
respectful way. The park rangers and the landowners and the local 
businesses have made it so that people from all over the world can come 
here and use this place. Because of wise stewardship, this park has 
flourished. This is good for all of us, to understand what works.
    You see, Gale mentioned we've got 388 national park areas. Now, this 
includes historic sites and battlefields and recreation areas and 
monuments and shores. But all of them are a point of pride for the local 
communities surrounding the particular site, and they need to be a point 
of pride for our country as well. And after all, our park system is the 
crown jewel of America's recreation system.
    In the past, though, the sites have really, in some cases, been 
ignored. And that's the reality, and that's the truth. For many years, 
our Federal Government did not even have the basic information it needed 
to set priorities about what should be repaired or not repaired, because 
we had a haphazard system of dealing with the people's asset. We just 
kind of--as we say down there, catch as catch can, without a national 
strategy to maintain this incredibly important asset.
    And so I've set out to do something about it. And the first thing 
we've got to do is, we've got to get a commitment from the appropriators 
in Congress to spend enough money

[[Page 1071]]

to maintain our parks. And so I'm calling on Congress to spend $5 
billion over the next 5 years. I made that call 2 years ago. I've said, 
``If you're interested in helping us maintain the park system, put some 
money out there so that we can actually do the job.'' And Congress 
responded for the last 2 years by appropriating $1.8 billion to meet the 
needs to make sure our parks are modernized and maintained and get the 
needed repairs to make the parks accessible to the people. In this 
year's budget, this year's request, I put in $1.1 billion and then plan 
on asking 2.2 total for '05 and '06, so that we spend $5 billion on 
maintenance projects and repair projects in the park system all across 
the country.
    And I expect Congress to respond. We've got a national asset that in 
some cases needs needed repairs, and now is the time to get after it on 
behalf of the American people. This is a problem, and now let's address 
the problem. And I think they'll respond.
    In the first 2 years in my administration, under Gale and Fran's 
leadership, we've undertaken 900 park maintenance projects, and that's a 
good start. We're making progress. We'll do another 500 this year and 
400 next year. Slowly but surely, we're beginning to deal with the 
backlog of much needed maintenance.
    And these are projects that--I'll talk about some of them we're 
doing here, under Woody's supervision, but for example, there's repairs 
to a visitors center at Cape Cod National Seashore. I mean, when 
visitors show up for the Cape Cod National Seashore and its beauty, we 
want there to be a visitors center that's worth going into. We want the 
toilets to flush. [Laughter] We want the potholes to be taken out of the 
parking lot. Whatever the problem is, we need to address it so that the 
people, when it comes to using their own park, are able to do so in a 
comfortable way.
    We've got a new wastewater system being developed at Yellowstone 
National Park, and that's important. We've got a new lighting and 
electrical systems on the U.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. At the 
Redwood National Park, we're removing abandoned roads to protect the 
park and to improve the watershed. There are just practical things that 
need to be done on a park-by-park basis in order to do our job on behalf 
of the American people.
    In order to have a strategy, we felt it was important to develop a 
national system to take a national inventory so you can set priorities. 
If the information is scattered and haphazard, you'll have a haphazard 
and scattered response to a problem. And so I tasked Gale and Fran with 
the idea of setting up a national database that will track maintenance 
needs on a asset-by-asset basis. And so the Interior Department and the 
parks department have tasked the park superintendents to conduct an 
inventory of buildings and trails and monument roads and assets and let 
us know the condition on a park-by-park basis. And the data will be 
centralized in Washington. So far, 384 out of the 388 park 
superintendents have responded. We're chasing down the other four--
[laughter]--to make sure we get inventories.
    And then when you get an assessment of what is needed, we can set 
priorities. And when you set priorities, it is more likely that the $5 
billion will be spent wisely on behalf of the American people to 
maintain their park system.
    In the Santa Monica Mountains, Woody was telling me that--first of 
all, he was one of the first to apply to the system, first to input into 
the system. He determined that the buildings were in good shape but the 
trails were eroded and needed work. He sent out a priority list to 
Washington, DC. I think we've sent back $2.4 million of trail 
maintenance money, if I'm not mistaken, which has improved a lot of the 
trails for the people who use the trails.
    And as importantly, you've made it possible for people to see the 
beauty of the land, to access the beauty without destroying the land. 
The more modern the trail system, the more repaired our trail system is, 
the less likely it is that people will trample the beauty--that they'll 
stay on the trails, and so you'll be able to have people take wonderful 
hikes or bike rides throughout this beautiful countryside without the 
fear of damaging the countryside.
    Woody accessed the system; he put out a plan; and the Government 
responded. And we expect other park superintendents to do

[[Page 1072]]

so. And when Congress appropriates the money, which I'm confident they 
will, particularly after this moment--[laughter]--that we'll better 
spend the money on behalf of the people.
    As Woody said, for the first time, we now have a system that moves 
us from reactive to proactive, and that's how we're able to track real 
improvements. And that's what we're going to be with America's park 
system: We're going to be proactive and doing what's right on behalf of 
the American people.
    I mentioned the volunteers that make these parks work--and 
particularly, this park work. And I ran into some folks from Woodrow 
Wilson East High School in Los Angeles. Stan is with us. Stan is a 
teacher. Thank you, Stan, for being a teacher. Rosa Gomez and Susan Lam 
and Denise Sanchez are with us as well. Thank you all for coming. I see 
other students from Woodrow Wilson, as well, or Wilson--the Wilson 
Mules, I take it. [Laughter] But we were repairing the trails together. 
By the way, the three ladies I just mentioned are high school grads. 
They're going to college. A couple of them are the first time anybody in 
their family has ever gone to college, which is fabulous.
    But I want to thank them for coming out and working hard on the 
trails. It's a--it's got to be a fantastic educational experience to get 
out in this beautiful part of our country and put something back into 
the system. After all, that's really what makes America great, when 
people realize that patriotism means serving something greater than 
yourself, serving the country you love, doing your part to make sure 
that the community in which you live is as good as it can possibly be, 
loving a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself. Whether it 
be maintaining park roads or helping somebody who hurts, helping 
somebody who's addicted, we can all make a difference in changing our 
country.
    And that's what the Harmans are doing. I ran into Terry and Holly 
Harman. Terry and Holly challenged me to a 6-mile run. [Laughter] I took 
one look at them; I said, ``No thanks.'' [Laughter] But the Harmans are 
here. They love to use the park. They ride their bikes; they run. 
They've enjoyed this park for a lot of years, and part of their 
enjoyment is to make it a better place for other people. I want to tell 
you what Terry said. He said volunteering here has helped him feel 
ownership for the park. You're kind of protective. You realize, in his 
words, ``This is my park too.''
    Well, it is your park. It's the park of every person who lives in 
America, and we've got to remember that. We're stewards of the people 
land. We have an obligation to leave this park a better place than when 
we found it. And there's no doubt in my mind, thanks to the hard work of 
the park employees, to the volunteers who come, thanks to a Congress 
that recognizes that we need to maintain this incredibly important asset 
for our country, we'll do our job.
    Thanks for coming. May God continue to bless our country.

Note: The President spoke at 9:17 a.m. In his remarks, he referred to 
Stan Katase, teacher, Woodrow Wilson High School. This item was not 
received in time for publication in the appropriate issue.