[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE NATIONAL PARKS: WILL THEY SURVIVE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 22, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-66
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia Columbia
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ------
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (Independent)
------ ------
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
PATRICK T. McHenry, North Carolina ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DAN BURTON, Indiana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN L. MICA, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota DIANE E. WATSON, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CHRIS CANNON, Utah C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina Columbia
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Mark Pfundstein, Professional Staff Member
Malia Holst, Clerk
Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 22, 2005................................... 1
Statement of:
Long, Gretchen, past Chair, Board of Trustees, National Parks
Conservation Association; Vin Cipolla, president, National
Parks Foundation; Emily E. Wadhams, vice president of
public policy, National Trust for Historic Preservation;
Denis Galvin, retired Park Ranger, former superintendent of
Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Everglades National Parks; and
J. Peyton Knight, American Land Rights Association......... 38
Cipolla, Vin............................................. 55
Galvin, Denis............................................ 66
Long, Gretchen........................................... 38
Knight, J. Peyton........................................ 73
Wadhams, Emily E......................................... 59
Martin, Steven, Deputy Director, National Park Service....... 10
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Cipolla, Vin, president, National Parks Foundation, prepared
statement of............................................... 57
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 24
Galvin, Denis, retired Park Ranger, former superintendent of
Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Everglades National Parks,
prepared statement of...................................... 69
Knight, Peyton, American Land Rights Association, prepared
statement of............................................... 77
Long, Gretchen, past Chair, Board of Trustees, National Parks
Conservation Association, prepared statement of............ 42
Martin, Steven, Deputy Director, National Park Service,
prepared statement of...................................... 13
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 5
Wadhams, Emily E., vice president of public policy, National
Trust for Historic Preservation, prepared statement of..... 61
THE NATIONAL PARKS: WILL THEY SURVIVE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS?
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FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2005
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Cummings and Norton.
Staff present: David Thomasson, congressional fellow; Mark
Pfundstein, professional staff member; Tony Haywood, minority
counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will now come to order.
Ranking Member Cummings is on his way and in traffic, so he
said to go ahead with my statement, so I am going to go ahead
and get started.
Good morning and thank you for joining us.
Today's important hearing, which we are holding during
National Parks Week and on Earth Day, is the Washington
overview for a series of hearings this subcommittee will be
conducting on the challenges and potential solutions facing our
National Park Service.
From our beginning as a Nation, our natural beauty has been
trumpeted within America and around the world. Thomas
Jefferson's enthusiasm led directly to the Louisiana Purchase,
which led to the Lewis and Clark expedition.
From the Hudson Valley artists to the great artists who
highlighted what have become our national parks of the West--
including Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, William Henry
Jackson, Thomas Hill and Ansel Adams--Americans developed a
passion for the beauty of these areas. Today much of this art
is still displayed by the National Park Service. John Muir and
other naturalist writers built upon the base of these prints
and early photographs, which are displayed at public
exhibitions and through prints in people's home.
The creation of the National Park system was a uniquely
American idea. It has been said that Americans, without the
hundreds of years of history of Europe, claimed our parks as
the equivalent of the Grecian, Roman and Egyptian ruins--our
Parthenon, Coliseum and Pyramids.
Even before the actual creation of the National Park
Service to protect these natural wonders, the Water Department
began to protect Gettysburg and other battlefields. These so-
called ``cultural parks'' were merged with the so-called
``natural parks''--when in actuality most parks are both, but
with different primary emphasis. The National Park Service
became the primary protector of the most valued places of our
Nation.
This background is important to understanding America's
longstanding love of our national parks. It is historical,
deep, consistent and unlikely to change.
Park rangers consistently are voted the best-liked
profession. Visitation by Americans is a family tradition that
is often the best way to communicate our love of our country.
Preserving wilderness and access to natural wonders is not
only important to environmentalists more often associated with
liberalism but to Christian conservatives who see in natural
wonders the amazing glory of our Creator. For some, the parks
are a place to wonder, others to reflect, others to teach,
others to preserve wild spaces, others to commune with God,
others to recreate. But we all love our parks. Because of this,
there is tremendous public and political support for our
national parks.
But our parks are in peril. There are numerous reasons.
Most simply, these are difficult budget times for nearly every
public program. In reality, even in this time of tough budgets,
the National Park Service has done better than most agencies
that are funded with discretionary dollars. As legislators, we
face difficult choices: Should there be extra dollars for
health benefits for veterans, for AIDS prevention, schools,
prescription drugs coverage in Medicare, new highways, national
parks?
In the process of weighing these decisions, we must have a
balanced point of view that looks both at the present and the
future. But once the Nation's wild spaces are gone, it is
extremely difficult and expensive to recover or restore them,
and sometimes it is not possible at all.
It is expensive to tear down buildings that would buildupon
important historic sites, but we have done it. But if
Independence Hall or important sites like Angel Island, the
Ellis Island of the West, disappear, the originals are done.
Stands of Sequoia trees can't be replaced in multiple
lifetimes. In Congress, we have an obligation not to abandon
our responsibilities to future generations by solely focusing
upon current problems.
Less dramatically, the Park Service has multiple other
missions as well. NPS not only has the duty to protect our
Nation's treasures for future generations but to intelligently
manage them for the appreciation of current Americans. This
means that roads should be in decent shape. It means that
restrooms should function. Visitor centers should be useful and
visitor-friendly.
A favorite word for national parks in this administration
and many on the Hill is backlog. One of the many goals of these
hearings is to better identify what this precisely means. Is it
uncompleted projects? Wished-for projects? Annual maintenance?
All of this plus more? How is it prioritized?
But the backlog, which exists and always will, is not the
only issue. Visitors want and seek interpretation. They want to
talk to real-life rangers. They want up-to-date and accurate
scientific information. If historical research has discovered
new information, they want it reflected at the park. They are
not taking their families on historic learning experiences to
fill them with outdated or inaccurate information. Films and
signs at visitor centers and throughout the sites, if not up to
the latest standards of technology and information, should not
be decades behind.
The National Park Service is the greatest combination
repository of historic cultural information in America. It has
the actual sites, but much more. Journals at Valley Forge,
rifles at Gettysburg, an incredible collection of artwork, at
Mesa Verde invaluable artifacts from America's earliest days--
just to name a few.
Add grizzly bears in Alaska, bats at Carlsbad Caverns,
bison, birds of all sorts and varieties, fish, frogs to
grasslands, mountains, lakes, dunes and massive wetlands like
the Everglades and Big Cypress, and you have America's premier
collection of natural history as well.
Can these resources be better utilized in our Nation's
education system?
Ultimately, you can fix the backlog, but if there are not
enough rangers or others to clean the restrooms, make sure the
roads are maintained, greet the visitors, do the research and
all the other tasks facing the Park Service, the National Park
Service will not be serving the desires of the American public.
While the Park Service has received increases in funding,
we have added new areas of land to the system. The Park Service
has faced rapidly rising health and pension costs for their
employees. We are seeing national parks like Organ Pipe in
Arizona overrun with illegal immigrants and drug trafficking
such that a ranger was killed in a shootout and one of
Arizona's top hiking trails is closed for safety reasons.
Homeland security demands have been significant. The
favorite targets mentioned by terrorists include many managed
by the National Park Service. The Capitol Mall here in
Washington immediately comes to mind, but also Independence
Hall, the Statue of Liberty, the Gateway Arch, Mt. Rushmore,
and even the land at both ends of the Golden Gate Bridge are
all the responsibility of the Park Service. So while we've
increased spending for the National Park Service, the
challenges have overwhelmed the dollars available.
The administration is taking many creative and innovative
measures to try to stretch these dollars. Just because there is
a decline in the number of personnel does not necessarily mean
that services must decline. Every agency, including the
National Park Service, must become more efficient. NPS works
with the organizations presenting today, and others, to raise
private dollars. Demonstration fees and other fees from camping
to concessionaires add dollars to the system.
The challenge we face in hearings such as this, as it is in
every agency of the Federal Government under every
administration--and we have seen this in this oversight
committee--is getting specific testimony--the challenge is
getting specific testimony on budget challenges. Every
administration in every agency has OMB, the Office of
Management and Budget, reviewing all testimony. I understand
that, and we hope that OMB and this administration will allow
the National Park Service to at least tell its success stories.
We hope that employees will be allowed to speak freely when
questioned and not just have to defend the status quo.
As a strong Republican and an avid supporter of President
Bush, I hope these hearings will be perceived as cooperative by
the administration, but we are an oversight committee. Any
appropriations must originate and go through the Appropriations
Committee, but this committee is and always has been the
primary oversight committee of the U.S. Congress. When
Republicans took over Congress in 1994, we changed it to
Government Reform because it is our specific duty through
oversight to identify what is working, what isn't working, and
recommend reforms. To do that, we must have comprehensive
information, which we will obtain over the course of these
hearings.
Our witnesses today include many of the most informed
people in America on the status of our national parks.
Steve Martin is Deputy Director of the National Park
Service, recently arrived from being the inter-mountain
regional director. He has served as superintendent at numerous
parks, recently at Grand Teton.
Vin Cipolla of the National Parks Foundation, Gretchen Long
of the National Parks and Conservation Association [NPCA], and
Emily Wadhams of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
represent three organizations focused on supporting our parks
at the national level with State and regional affiliates across
the country.
Payton Knight of the American Land Rights Association is
the premiere spokesman for concerns of the people most impacted
by many parks' decisions, those who live in and around them.
Denny Galvin is the former Deputy Director of the National
Park Service, as well as former superintendent of numerous
parks, including Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Everglades. So
we thank you all for joining us today.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Mr. Souder. First, let me do a couple of procedural
matters. Before proceeding, I would like to take care of a
couple of these matters.
First, I would like unanimous consent that all members have
5 legislative days to submit written statements and questions
for the hearing record and that any answers to written
questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the
record. Without objection, it is so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents
and other materials referred to by the members and the
witnesses may be included in the hearing record and that all
members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Our first panel, as is the tradition of this subcommittee,
is the administration; and today it is composed entirely of
Steve Martin, Deputy Director of the National Park Service.
Because we are an oversight committee, it is our practice to
ask all witnesses to testify under oath. So if you would raise
your right hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that the witness responded
in the affirmative.
Mr. Martin will now be recognized for his opening
statement. We ask you to summarize in 5 minutes all opening
statements; and any other statements, as you heard, will be put
into the record. If you go over a little, that will be fine
this morning, and we will allow for the questions too.
Mr. Martin.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN MARTIN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL PARK
SERVICE
Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today; and thanks for that opening statement.
That was great as well.
And, as you mentioned, I will submit a complete statement
for the record.
The stewardship responsibilities of the National Park
Service have grown significantly in both size and complexity
since 1916. Today, we manage 388 parks and other units, with a
diverse array of natural and cultural resources covering 88
million acres.
Visitation at parks last year was about 277 million.
Surveys consistently show that about 95 percent of visitors are
satisfied with the quality of their experience when they visit
a park. We have every reason to believe that the parks and
other units of the National Park Service and the external
programs we manage will continue to be highly valued by the
American public and a critical and important legacy that each
generation leaves to the next.
President Bush has emphasized the importance of our
stewardship responsibility by focusing resources on taking
better care of our parks. We have had much success in reducing
the maintenance backlog and in changing the way we manage our
facilities. The administration and Congress have also supported
steady increases in operating funds; and the administration has
taken steps to improve management on several fronts, setting
the stage for us to do more with available resources.
The President's budget request for the National Park
Service for fiscal year 2006 is $2\1/2\ billion, $2.2 billion
in national park appropriations and $320 million in
transportation appropriations. We received a $64 million
increase for operation of the National Park System for fiscal
year 2005, which increased parks base budgets nationwide.
The fiscal year 2006 budget request would buildupon that
growth by increasing operations by $50.8 million above the
fiscal 2005 level, allowing for increases for paid benefits and
other fixed costs.
As for other sources, we anticipate receiving about $106
million in revenue from recreation fees, national park pass
fees, and transportation fees, and about $38 million in
concession fees. In addition, the National Park Service also
receives a great deal of financial and in-kind support from
cooperating associations, friends groups and other
partnerships.
Many parks benefit tremendously from the work done by
volunteers. Currently, about 140,000 Americans serve as
volunteers in our parks.
The maintenance backlog is a key issue. The fiscal year
2006 budget meets the President's goal of investing $4.9
billion over 5 years to address the deferred maintenance
backlog. The fiscal year 2006 amount toward this goal is $1.1
billion; $320 million of that amount is for park roads funding.
It depends on full funding by Congress and the administration's
proposal for the highway reauthorization bill.
Through 2004, the National Park Service has undertaken over
4,000 facility improvement projects. Visitors are now seeing
improved trails, more accessible campgrounds, better visitor
centers, better roads, stabilized historic structures, and
reduced environmental threats. With more funding per cycle for
maintenance, we are ensuring recent improvements will be
maintained.
In addition to funding, the National Park Service has
developed a comprehensive asset management strategy that has
enabled, for the first time in its history, the Park Service to
inventory its assets and measure the condition of its
facilities. During the last 3 years, we have produced a
comprehensive inventory of our assets that includes 19,000
buildings. We anticipate having comprehensive condition
assessments for all 388 units by the end of 2006. This will
enable the Service to target funds to the highest priority
needs.
On homeland security, since the September 11th attacks, the
National Park Service has placed a priority on addressing
security and law enforcement needs at icon parks, parks along
the border and national park units that include critical
infrastructures such as dams. Our law enforcement personnel are
actively engaged in stemming the tide of drug cultivation,
smuggling, illegal immigration, and tending to homeland
security measures. We work closely with the Department of
Homeland Security and other Federal, State, local and other
agencies to coordinate these activities.
We're also doing a number of things in management
improvements. Some of those things will have a huge impact long
term on our ability to continue to provide good customer
service to our visitors.
One area is concessions. Seven years ago, when Congress
passed the new concessions law, the National Park Service
Concession Program was in poor shape. With the help of business
consultants we have made the program much more business-like
and we have begun to professionalize our work force. Since
2001, we have awarded 322 contracts, and by the end of the year
we expect to have the total--we expect that total to be 447,
which will reduce our backlog to about 100 contracts.
We are also improving the way we manage partnership
construction projects, projects such as visitor centers, that
outside organizations are helping us with. We need to ensure
that these projects fit our needs. We have implemented a
comprehensive project review process that includes service by
training, project tracking and accountability.
In a third area, the National Park Service continues to
make progress toward its goal of developing a scientific base
of knowledge about park resources through the Natural Resource
Challenge. This initiative has expanded existing inventory
programs, developed efficient ways to monitor the vital signs
of natural systems, and expanded natural resource conservation
activities in parks. Park managers now have key information on
the status and trends in park ecosystem health.
We are also undertaking improvement of our business
practices in several ways. The National Park Service continues
to expand the use of the Program Assessment Rating Tool to
inform budget formulation and program management decisions. We
have developed a parks scorecard, which is an indicator of park
financial health used to aid in identification and evaluation
of base budget increases. And we have developed a core
operations analysis that integrates management tools to improve
park efficiency.
Under another part of the President's management agenda we
continue to pursue competitive sourcing, which provides a means
for the National Park Service to evaluate its business
practices and identify more effective ways to deliver service.
Mr. Chairman, in summary, we are working harder and more
effectively to meet the challenges of managing the National
Park Service and the other programs the Service is responsible
for. We appreciate the interest and the support of this
subcommittee in our endeavors.
That concludes my statement, and I would be happy to answer
any questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Martin follows:]
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Mr. Souder. One of the things that I've talked about
personally as we've discussed this hearing and one of the
things that our subcommittee does in our primary oversight
areas has been--because we do authoring and oversight on
narcotics, but it's true of multiple hearings that we've done
in this past week and some that we have coming up on a number
of diverse issues beyond narcotics.
Earlier this week, we did a hearing looking at Medicaid/
Medicare funding in cases like Terry Schiavo with HHS. We have
one coming up with the Office of Faith-Based. We have HHS
questions, Department of Education, things where we have
oversight is to get documents, because that's what we do, we
review. You mentioned a number of these, and I would like to
make a verbal request to also give a--we will put it in writing
so you have a written request--among these--and we will work
precisely, what is the best way to do this and how.
But toward the end of your testimony you said you had
developed a park scorecard, which is an indicator of park
operational and managerial health. We would like to see what
that scorecard is, how you make that decision, and how
measurements are done. I think it is admirable to try to do
that.
We're having this same discussion--and it has become a
matter of discussion in the narcotics area. We are having--
Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of
HHS, Department of Homeland Security will all be testifying in
the next 3 weeks; and one of the questions is, is when they
made proposals to transfer, did they have such scorecards and
on what basis are they making requests to do this.
Because when we are being asked, as Congress, to look
around and how to fund, it's helpful to know how decisions are
being made. For example, the administration was proposing
moving from HIDTA to OCEDEF--which are two lingo names inside
the drug task force area--but had no scorecard to identify or
measure. Therefore, basically, although it hasn't been
officially announced, they're not getting their request; and
it's going to stay the way Congress designed it.
And as we look at these different parks and do the type of
analysis, I think, A, it's good to have a parks scorecard. We
would like to have a copy of that and then talk about it, and
that may lead to other questions that come up as we move
through the hearing process.
Similarly, you mentioned that you have a core operations
analysis to see how that is working. At some of the parks I've
visited, I've had different people describe, as they were
developing it, it was kind of a new phenomenon to try to put
these type of business-type criteria in a lot of the parks. But
as we try to work with the type of budgets we have, we need to
see how--and that's particularly what this committee does in
reforming operations as whole--and all the different
subcommittees--is look at how these processes are being set up.
Are the agencies doing it in a wise management way? How are
they making this decision? And, quite frankly, how is Congress
tinkering with them? It's not like we don't do earmarks and we
don't cause chaos in your life as well.
Also, could you tell me--you said that in this inventory of
comprehensive asset inventory, which I believe the first time--
you have a lot of cultural assets at Golden Gate, and I
remember them going through trying to do an asset inventory
like this. You said they have all--you expect to have them all
done at the end of 2006, and you have preliminary on 388. We're
not really interested in seeing all the asset inventory of
every park, but if you could give us some examples of how the
inventory assessment is being done, where you think--and what
do you think is being accomplished through the asset inventory
management.
Some part of this--from who I have talked to at the parks,
part of this is you have so many structures there, having to
determine which ones are going to be the priority in fixing and
so on. Could you describe where you're going to use the asset
inventory and how you see that being utilized and, also, what
will be the most useful things for this committee to look at as
far as asset management?
Mr. Martin. In answer to the first part, we would be happy
to share both the scorecard, which is a certain level of
analysis and snapshot at the big picture, kind of being able
to, at a glance, look at what is going on within all of the
parks. And the core of operations is actually where we work
with park staff to change, you know, kind of how we view
priorities and how we view efficiencies and ways to save costs
and other things. So we would be happy to, in much more detail,
share that with you and your staff and can bring people in from
the field or from our other offices.
The whole concept of asset management is something that we
have been working on for a number of years; and I think this
most recent effort is, I would say, the most sophisticated and
has been the most broadly embraced by the field. It's something
that I think, you know, as you look back at our efforts to take
care of an aging infrastructure and also a very significantly
important infrastructure with our historic facilities, we had
to begin to get a grip on how do we manage this? How do we seat
priorities? How do we invest literally hundreds of millions of
dollars that are going into maintenance and improvements and
service? And are we doing it in the right way?
We have actually--as the process has evolved, we have
gotten better at it; and I think we are still improving.
But in a given park, you go in, and first you just start
with a building inventory, and then from that you actually--you
know, working with park staff, working with outside groups, you
do an analysis of what is the priority for maintenance, how do
you organize this, what is your most important asset, if you
can do that, or certainly set a band of most important.
And then for all of them you go in--at Teton, where I was
working, we got a group of people, including some engineering
graduate students, to come in, and maintenance employees who
had worked on these building for a few years, to go through and
actually make a list of what kind of condition is this building
in, what is the different building components, from the utility
systems to the roof.
It begins to then generate a data base that says, you know,
these are the needs of the Park Service for the next few years
and these are the needs of these key priority assets for the
next few years. So we can begin not only to look at, you know,
what has been termed as the backlog, but, really, how do we
develop a program to maintain these assets for the long haul.
Because that is really what we're all about.
And also to make decisions on should we build a new
facility, is the lifecycle cost of this building, if it is not
a historic structure, so onerous that maybe the best thing to
do is build a new one, or is this even an asset that we need.
And we're finding in many cases that we have things that should
be trimmed out of our building inventory because they're not
useful, they're no longer functioning as they were designed,
and it makes the most sense to do that.
So it's a complex and I think a very good system. Like I
said, it's really interesting because it's an initiative that
this administration has been very supportive of, but it's also
interesting to see the level of support by our chiefs of
maintenance and other staff in the field, and I think over the
next 3 years it will continue to help us make these decisions.
Mr. Souder. As we move into the field and do more formally
what I have kind of done informally in the last years in
visiting parks and probably--I mean, our intention is to finish
with the hearing and focus in on, OK, here we have now
prioritized things, these things are going real well, these are
things that we need to focus on more.
I want to kind of plunge into the weeds of this area for a
second before I go back and ask you some tradeoffs in what type
of things we will look at, and let's talk about Grand Teton for
a second. I want to give you a couple of examples--I'm not
panicking you. I'm not headed anywhere specifically. I'm just
going to use it as an illustration. Because when I visited
Grand Teton and I told them this next piece of information,
they immediately worried what my goal was. I didn't have a
goal.
Years ago--since I'm older now, many years ago, we stayed
at White Grass Ranch, which is basically going to seed now. You
can go through the area. I think it had asbestos. And I think
that you made decisions to keep one ranch, but let others, as
Grand Teton park went, go to more natural states like they
originally were. This one wasn't torn down, but it's falling
down gradually.
I also was taken over to a--what would be, let's just say,
a less sophisticated tourist--it wasn't a tourist ranch like
White Grass, which was more or less a Rockefeller-funded type
of a setup than was added to the park, one that was more a
squatter, and then he had a couple of tourists. It was in
terrible shape, and it was a question of should that stay or
not stay. And the State Historical Society felt that it should
stay because it was an unusual representation of that type of
camp, unlike the other types of camp, and yet it was, in the
visitor question, is Grand Teton a cultural or a national park?
Similarly, there are whole ranges of questions like that,
and what I'm kind of, by giving those two particular examples,
asking is, in this asset inventory, how do you factor in
variables of--and is it built into your system to factor in the
tradeoffs of cultural/natural, the tradeoffs of things that may
exist outside the park in a given State, or even from a
national perspective of this is very unique, we have 100 of
these in the system, so here is the balance.
First off, just giving an asset inventory is a big step,
then getting some criteria. But are these the type of value
judgments that are in, or does it tend to be more mechanical of
the cost, and then kind of a gut feeling for the tradeoffs? How
does it----
Mr. Martin. That's a great question, and it's something
that we work on and struggle with, work with our partners and
work with, you know, the outside groups like you mentioned, the
historical societies and others, to make those choices.
The asset management system is largely set up to have
decisions like that made outside of it. You would make those
kind of decisions that you're talking about through your
general management planning. We do evaluations and inventories
of historic buildings. We have a process that we've started--I
wouldn't say real recently, but it's relatively new in Park
Service terms--of looking at cultural landscapes. And the
protection of resources is an evolution, you know, like many
things within our culture, and so we're learning more about
some of these assets, that we're now finding, you know, this
historic resource might be really important, and it might even
be important, interestingly enough, for telling a natural
resource story. So we make those evaluations all the time, but
largely they're done outside of the specific, more, I would
say, you know, kind of process looking at engineering and
deployment of funds.
Now, the process, though, accepts those kinds of decisions.
So as you rate the importance of your assets, as you determine
what is our highest priority need, what is the most threatened
of our resources, then you would incorporate those decisions
into that. So it accepts that kind of information. But,
generally, if it's significant information on what and how to
save this building and should it be decided, that is done
through one of our other planning efforts that includes quite
often, you know, the NEPA compliance and other things. But it
is compatible with that, and I think it will help us and
allocate resources where they are most needed when we receive
them.
Mr. Souder. You alluded to the Individual Parks Management
Plan. Is there a standard approach that a park management plan
needs to be updated a certain number of years, or is that at
the recommendation of the superintendent that this is becoming
outdated? Since that is the kind of critical this-is-where-
we're-headed-over-the-next-period-of-time, then you're putting
these other park scorecard core analysis and inventory
management, how does a park--when I see these--Yosemite, for
example, has been a real wonderful discussion on a park
financial plan. How does it cycle through?
Mr. Martin. We try to keep those planning--the nature--what
we call either master plan or general management plan current.
It does vary on the cycle of those. Some of those have been in
place for a long time and have been amended where it makes more
sense to just tweak it, as opposed to making wholesale changes.
In a region like the intermountain region, at any given
time, of our 88 units we will have 10 or 15 that are undergoing
different levels of overall general management planning. And it
really--it varies. If you have a park that is a new park unit
that doesn't have one, that is a high priority because we need
to work with the communities and work with our partners and
also analyze the interests of Congress and others in the
establishment of it. Are we meeting those challenges? And
others, it is because the plans have become outdated.
Like I mentioned, it is a continuum, it is a changing
cycle, and they need to be updated just because of recognition
of different resource needs, different operational needs,
different visitor needs. So there is not any, you know, we do
them all every 5 years, because in some ways the other thing
that we found is that as we interact more--which we are very
supportive of--with our public and others, it takes longer and
it is more expensive to do them.
So we do an assessment. OK, do we need this? Do we have the
right guidance? Are we making the right decisions? And then you
would move forward into the planning. But there are ways of
amending, doing minor changes as well trying to keep ourselves
relevant, keep us in compliance with the Environmental Policy
Act, and keep us in close connection and cooperation with our
neighbors.
Mr. Souder. Do you have a backlog of management funds?
Mr. Martin. Yeah. We have some needs in those areas, but
part of that is that it is also--like a lot of things, you
know, I think we have adequate funds to meet the key needs that
we have right now.
Mr. Souder. Could you also--this is kind of a side part of
that, but a member from our park subcommittee asked this
question, I believe, the last time, which is now 2 years ago, a
National Heritage Area study that Congress had requested, I
believe. If you could update this for our records that we
have--I think you can process 8 a year, and we were backlogged
20 the last time I heard, or 30, which would mean 3 to 4 years
after Congress passes a bill for a study, we didn't get the
study, and so sometimes we're actually then passing the
heritage era before the study is done. Could you get the latest
data on that, of approximately how many studies can be done a
year, and what is the backlog on the number of studies?
Mr. Martin. We'll get that to you.
Mr. Souder. I yield to Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
for holding this hearing.
I will submit my opening statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. I'm just curious. You talk in your testimony
about surges with regard to homeland security, and I was just
wondering how do you--is there--do you expect the Federal
Government to reimburse you for those special circumstances
where homeland security is involved?
Mr. Martin. Well, we've--I guess I'm not quite clear. You
said that----
Mr. Cummings. You said that the law enforcement capacity to
surge in response to homeland security threats, to other
emergencies that may affect iconsites in the park system, and I
just want to know how does that----
Mr. Martin. Right now, we have funding that allows us to
respond within the park units to the critical homeland security
needs. There has been an emphasis, we have received some
additional money, and then we have also put a focus on it
because we feel it is a really key national priority.
Mr. Cummings. And what form does this usually take, in
other words, these surges, these problems?
Mr. Martin. You know, there is, I would say, a broad focus.
We work with homeland security. If there is, you know,
something that is brought to our attention or if we go to an
elevated security level, we help with protection of the icons,
dams. We have a lot going on along the borders. We are working
with Border Patrol. So I would say it is pretty all-
encompassing for the breadth of the sites that we're
responsible for.
But right now we don't get reimbursed from that for
homeland security. That is money that we have within our budget
or is absorbed within our budget.
Mr. Cummings. And when it is absorbed within your budget,
does that affect anything else? I mean, maybe you have money
hanging around, but they tell us there is not much money
anywhere. And I'm just curious as to how that affects--does
that affect staffing, for example?
Well, first of all, how much money are we talking about.
Mr. Martin. Well, again, it's really varied. I can get the
exact amounts of money, but we've put roughly--and again, I
will get you the accurate numbers--but we've put roughly a
hundred million into infrastructure improvements, and we've put
roughly now around $40 million into reoccurring, and some of
that has been appropriations that we have gotten for those
purposes, for strengthening borders, working with icons and
doing other things. But I will provide you with the exact
numbers.
Mr. Cummings. So what I'm trying to get to is do you have
some--so even before the fiscal year begins, you're already
contemplating those kinds of things? Because it seems logical,
logical that if you have a budget, and I assume the budget is
what you need, and I'm assuming you're not asking for more than
what you need since we're in such dire straits----
Mr. Martin. Right.
Mr. Cummings. But I'm trying to figure out what it is. Am I
missing something?
Mr. Martin. I think--right now, we have the money for what
would be considered routine operations, and we program that
out, and not just on homeland security, but that's--and, again,
through some of the budget tools that we are looking at, it is
enabling us to fairly distribute that over our, you know, what
we consider our core and most important needs.
Then, you know, the things that you can't anticipate, then
you would reprogram. If we go into--if the Nation goes into a
heightened state of emergency, then we're going to participate
in that and we're going to do our part. And I think, like
others, you know, we're going to find ways to make that happen.
Again, I think it's something that, you know, you can't
program for all contingencies, but we feel that we have the
funds and the ability to meet, you know, our core
responsibilities as they pertain to the homeland security
within our budget, and we allocate that. And, again, recently
we've received some additional funds for that, and I think that
we're meeting those base needs.
Mr. Cummings. Tell me--and you may have addressed this
earlier--about understaffing. Do we have an understaffing
problem anywhere?
Let me tell you why I'm asking that. A young lady--I can't
remember her name offhand--was fired here in the Washington
area because she complained about insufficient security at the
monument--at one of the monuments or monument sites, I think,
if I remember correctly. Why are you shaking your head?
Mr. Martin. No, I was trying to understand the----
Mr. Cummings. A young lady who was a member of the Park
Service, she was fired. It was a big story----
Mr. Martin. Yeah, OK.
Mr. Cummings. Do you remember it now?
Mr. Souder. He's new.
Mr. Cummings. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were new.
It was a big story, front page of the Washington Post.
Mr. Martin. Yeah.
Mr. Cummings. I'm not going to get into all the details of
her situation, but one of the things that she claimed was the
fact that--with regard to homeland security and the fact that
we needed to have a better situation with regard to those kinds
of things, that we were--that there was understaffing. And
eventually some higher-ups said you shouldn't have gone and
told the public about the understaffing, and she basically
said, well, I think I have a duty because, if something
happens, then the public may be harmed.
Now all I want to know is about staffing. One of the
reasons I asked you the earlier questions is I'm trying to
figure out, is there a financial problem when it comes to our
situation, the climate of our country since September 11th?
We've got--let me finish.
Mr. Martin. Yeah.
Mr. Cummings. We've got so many people who are trying to
enjoy the parks. They are looking for things to do with their
families that are inexpensive. We saw what happened down at--
although this is not related to you--in the Olympics a few
years back where folks were injured because somebody--some
demented person came and blew people up and that kind of thing.
And so what I'm trying to get to is, where are we with regard
to staffing? Does the climate post-September 11th call for more
staffing? Do you have the resources to do that? And should the
public feel safe when they go to our parks?
Mr. Martin. Not only should they feel safe, but I think
that they are safe.
I believe that since September 11th we have stepped up to
those needs, and I think--and that's one area where we have
increased both our physical needs, you know, making sure we
have adequate structures and other things in place to meet
those needs, as well as staffing. So I feel that, you know,
things are going well.
On the other--it's interesting when you talk about needing
a place to go, I think that parks are great places to visit. A
study that was done a couple years ago showed that over a 2-
year period about 30 percent of people in the United States
visited parks. So it is something that is happening. So, yes,
we are doing that.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
You may be familiar with this, referring back to a CNN
piece that appeared on their Web site--this is back July,
2004--and it says, according to a study conducted by the non-
profit National Parks Conservation Association--are you
familiar with that?
Mr. Martin. Yes. Maybe not that study, but I'm certainly
familiar with the organization.
Mr. Cummings [continuing]. The entire Park Service operates
on about two-thirds of the budget it needs, about $600 million
short. And that about--and this is what they said, I'm not
saying this--and that about $50 million of that shortfall stems
from duties related to homeland security at the so-called
icons. So you disagree with that?
Mr. Martin. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. How so?
Mr. Martin. Well, I feel that, No. 1, that we are meeting
our responsibilities when it comes to protection of our parks,
protection of our visitors and our icons, as well as the
others--and, again, I think we have many, many important sites.
And I think that as we do some of our operations analysis,
we're--you know, we're finding that to meet the core
operational needs of the service that we're coming up with some
different numbers; and we can provide you with some of those if
you'd like some additional information.
Mr. Souder. What we will do is we will work on a list of 10
icons, ask what has been plussed up and where the rangers--that
will be the simplest way to do it because they transfer
rangers----
Mr. Martin. And we have that information available, and we
can get back to you fairly quickly.
Mr. Cummings. Let me just finish this up, because I'm
curious about this. I'm going back to this CNN piece. And by
the way, the lady's name was Chief Teresa Chambers. I just want
to give you this quote, and I want to see what your response--I
know you're new, but I just want----
Mr. Martin. And I'm somewhat familiar with that, so----
Mr. Cummings. You are now?
Mr. Martin. Yeah, I understand what you----
Mr. Cummings. It says, in a memo Chambers wrote that the
budget crisis put new hires in doubt, potentially bringing the
Park Police staff to its lowest level since 1987 and seriously
undermined her officers' ability to protect the icons.
She goes on to say, my professional judgment, based on 27
years of police service, 6 years as chief of police and
countless interactions with police professionals across the
country, is that we are at staffing and resource crisis in the
U.S. Park Police, a crisis that, if allowed to continue, will
almost surely result in the loss of life or the destruction of
one of our Nation's most valued symbols of freedom and
democracy.
And again, in fairness to you, that is back in July, 2004.
So I assume that even back then, based upon your knowledge, you
would not have agreed with that statement; is that right?
Mr. Martin. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. And now assuming--let's play the devil's
advocate--and this is not you, me--assuming--you want to read
your note?
Assuming that it's true--let's assume it's true. Has
anything happened since then to make things--to increase the
amount of money available for the Park Service Police?
Mr. Martin. Again, I can't speak to the specifics on their
budget but would be happy to provide that to you.
That branch of the Park Police is one that is largely
focused on the east coast and west coast, and certainly highly
in this area. Coming where I did out of the Park Service, we
had minimal interactions with them. We did that through our
park ranger. We did our law enforcement through the park
ranger. But I can provide that information for you.
But what I do know and what I have been briefed on, and I
think I have some firsthand knowledge, is that we're continuing
to evaluate that. We are looking at the Park Police's budget.
We are analyzing, again, both the physical security and the
staffing security at these areas to ensure that those--that our
homeland security needs and the needs of our icons are being
met and the needs of all of our parks.
Again, I really feel, you know, I visited 40 of our areas
last year, 40 of our Park Service areas, and I really feel that
we have been doing a good job in that area. And not that we
aren't continuing to analyze, we are continuing to get
additional information and we're continuing to improve, because
a lot of this is not only new to the Park Service but it's new
to the country. But I really feel like we're addressing those
issues. But we can provide you specifics on exactly what has
been going on within their budget over the last couple of
years. I just don't have those figures off the top of my head.
Mr. Cummings. In many of the parks you have to pay a fee,
right?
Mr. Martin. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. You may have addressed this a little earlier,
but, again, I'm going back to people with families. You know,
it's expensive, if you've got a family these days, for somebody
who is making--maybe a family is bringing in, say, $80,000,
it's tough. And families are consistently looking for things to
do with their children. And I'm just wondering how do you all
address the issue of fees. How do you do that? I mean, do you--
--
Mr. Martin. The fees are not, at this point, anywhere near
what it costs to run a park. I would say that they're one of
the greatest values that's available to the American public.
And it's interesting, as we do our surveys, you know, I think
it's right around 95 or 96 percent of the people who come to
the parks are just--just rate us overall as things are good,
and that includes, you know, the fees and other things.
Not all of our parks charge fees. Many of our areas are
open without fees. And everything from, you know, local areas
to many of our bigger natural units don't. But many do. And
it's been a great way for us--and especially recently, with
what Congress is providing, not only do we collect them, but
those fees go directly back into areas that improve visitor
services, that improve our operations for the people that are
coming.
So it's a relatively small fee. Many of our areas have $3
to $6 entrance fees per person, $15, $20 a carload. So it's,
you know, those are really important moneys, but it's been
always kept at a level where it's not a deterrent to
visitation.
Mr. Cummings. Is it increasing? I mean, is the number of
people coming to our parks increasing?
Mr. Martin. After September 11th there was a flattening, in
some areas, actually, a decrease; and what we're seeing in the
last year or two is that it is going back up. Again, I think it
is just that readjusting, you know, like many things within our
society. But what we're seeing now is our visitation in our
parks is going back up again. Again, it varies site to site,
but the overall trend is more people are coming, and it will be
real interesting to see what goes on this year. But we're
anticipating to see a trend in the increase of visitation.
Mr. Cummings. This is my last comment, Mr. Chairman.
I just had occasion to go to Topeka, KS, with regard to the
Brown decision and saw what was being done there by the Park
Service. They did just a phenomenal job. I'm not saying that--
not just what they have done with refurbishing the schoolhouse
and what have you, but it was a tremendous event there. And I
know the Park Service was very much responsible for making that
happen, so I just want to pass on that compliment to your
folks. I don't want them to think that those things go
unnoticed.
The thing that I also am concerned about is that people
know about the parks, and I'm wondering how what is done to get
that word out. I know that for myself, growing up in the city
of Baltimore, as a child I probably went to one of our parks
that you oversee one time in my first--not only as a child but
in my first 30 years of life. So I'm wondering what is being
done to make sure that word gets out to our inner city areas,
our urban areas, and making sure that people everywhere know
about this wonderful bargain that you just spoke about. It is
one thing to have opportunity; it's another thing to know about
it and to feel welcomed.
So I thank you very much for your testimony. I'm sorry I
missed the beginning of it.
Mr. Martin. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Since this is the initial overview hearing, and as we kind
of build the layout, we will followup with some specifics on
what visitation statistics and trend lines--would it be good to
have a 5-year or 10-year? Also, to the degree possible that you
can split natural parks and some of the cultural/historical and
then particularly the recreation areas, things like Santa
Monica and Golden Gate and Gateway, which have huge attendance,
which are more urban parks.
San Diego Missions Park, for example, illustrates part of
the challenge we face in the park system. It's set up as a
missions park but probably 80 percent of the utilization right
now are Hispanic families picnicking in areas that weren't set
up for picnicking, but it's some of the only open green space
in a major open area. How do we adapt to the different cultural
groups? How do we adapt to demands that weren't necessarily
seen for this space? And then will they utilize and appreciate
the history that's around them as you do that? And how many
parking lots do you put in to accommodate that? But we're
seeing different usage.
Also, one of my personal interests, but we have not figured
out to how to address this, but it's critical as we look at the
demonstration fees, as we look at more contracted-out services
from the hotels to the--where you eat is contracted is out,
where the hotel is contracted out, where the gift store is
contracted out. If you're going to hike a mountain, or at least
climb a mountain, there will be a mountaineering service that
you will pay a fee, if you want to ride on a horse. Now these
fees aren't outrageous. They're cheaper than almost anywhere
you will go.
But one of the things that we have looked at--and there has
been broad agreement in appropriations and authorizing to try
to do something like this, but we haven't figured out how to do
it in a fair way, and it's something I've been raising for
roughly 6 years--and that is is that basically low-income
people are exempt from that charge. Now, could you take it as
a--not a deduction, but a credit on your tax form? Is there
something that you can show when you are in the actual park?
How do you do that without discriminating against individuals--
which we ran into with the school lunch program.
But there is a willingness, because the number of
individuals who will be impacted by this is small, and
therefore it's a cipher in the budget. But psychologically it
would be a major thing and might increase attendance in
targeted groups. Because the challenge of the Park Service is
always that parents are often more enthusiastic than the kids,
that as you get older, you are more appreciative, the higher
your income goes, the more you're appreciative, and the more
your group gets mainstreamed, the more you are appreciative.
So, initially, any immigrant group gradually comes in--this is
not new. It's been going on this way for a long time. What
creative ways can we do that?
I would also like to know--and we won't have time to pursue
this here, but it's something I'm going to be working at--is,
in addressing the maintenance backlog and the challenges of
general ongoing, how do you analyze what gaps you have in the
park system? This has been a pet concern of mine, not really
formulated here. But even when you look at Lewis and Clark, as
you look at American heritage, you say, look, this is a site
that maybe we ought to be looking at. If we look at African
American heritage, this is a site we ought to be looking at;
Hispanic heritage. As we authorize the Lincoln Commission, are
there things that--related to Lincoln--that we don't have in
the system? As you look back at how to maintain what you have,
it is a philosophy of saying what you need to add, and that's
what I was alluding to.
I'm going to ask you two other--I'm going to ask you one to
finish up so we can get to the second panel, and that is on
roads.
In 2001, only 35 percent of park roads were considered to
be in good condition. And I want to know if it has gone up or
down, and how much money do you receive from the Highway Trust
Fund for maintenance of these roads? And what is the funding
level necessary for the maintenance of the roads?
Mr. Martin. I would say that is a key area in addressing
our backlog and our needs to improve our facilities in the park
and obviously something that's very important to visitation. We
are in an interim where we are getting incremental amounts
similar to what we have gotten in years past. And that number,
I think it is in the neighborhood--if not, we can provide you
the exact amount--around $170 million. We are within the
President's budget. There is a request for $320 million, which
would take us over that next 5 or 6-year period. We feel that,
within our partnership with Federal highways and others, that
with that amount, we can make a huge dent in our needs. And
also, that is the amount that we can spend wisely. And that is
the other thing; these are long-term commitments and goals. And
so it is not only getting the funds, but, you know, what do you
have the capacity to do? Yellowstone is a great example. You
can only do a couple of road projects a year even though they
have a tremendous need because it's during a visitation period.
But we feel that target number would put us well on the way to
improving that road condition.
Mr. Souder. This highlights a couple of things that we will
be looking at in the funding question, and that is a
fascinating thing, particularly in the snowy areas and heavy
visitation in the summer, how much can you actually do? That
was an interesting example. In effect, most Members don't even
realize it in the highway bill, that the National Park Service
gets a huge amount of dollars. I think that is a fairly safe
statement to make and that when we are trying to work out a
tight budget and trying to get roads in our own districts that
we can hold a press conference about, the National Park Service
isn't high on any of our personal agendas unless it happens to
be a park in your area. You are saying the President requested
$350.
Mr. Martin. $320.
Mr. Souder. Roughly $170 is incremental in the way we're
doing the budget now. Do you know in the bill--I presume there
are some differences between the House and Senate figure in the
proposed bill, if you could get that. The bottom line is,
looking at a bill, currently under funding, you are receiving a
lot less. For planning, you have a problem compared to the gap
what you are requesting compared to what we are likely to fund.
Now raising the point that Mr. Cummings made earlier that I
have been talking to different committees about is in plus-up
for homeland security. Here is the fundamental problem, the
dollar figure that you use in your opening statement, while
significant in dollar terms--and I have been doing letters with
Mr. Lewis and other members to try to increase that each year,
working with the appropriators and compared to a lot of places;
the Park Service, like I mentioned, is doing OK. But OK means
the figure you actually gave us looked like about 2\1/2\
percent increase; that your personnel costs are certainly going
up more than 2\1/2\ percent. You are transferring and having
to, in effect, rob Peter to pay Paul to cover, particularly in
times of terrorist alert. You're now short on your road budget,
that there is only--the question is--the tough question is what
is being reduced when you are having to meet these increasing
pension and health care costs? What is being reduced so we can
make a case here? We need to understand what is being reduced.
And that part of this is homeland security. I personally
believe there ought to be a carve out in homeland security like
there is in roads. If the government says that there is a
heightened thing, and these are the things that may be hit, we
don't necessarily want a ranger that is supposed to be
protecting campers in Yosemite transferred to protect the
Washington Monument. That's a homeland security question, not
necessarily a traditional park service question. And why
wouldn't that be handled in the homeland security budget like
roads are handled in the roads budget? Similar in narcotics--
and I know--and this is one of the things we are going to look
at as we get into these parks. This is not easy, as I see from
these different parks, but it has to be addressed. You have--I
mean, one thing you are trying to work to professionalize the
park rangers, who historically have not had some of the
challenges that they today face in urban parks and on the
border. But using Morgan Park as an example, you can see the
place littered with water bottles, or if it is black, it is a
drug milk carton that was used. You see tire tracks being put
across areas to pop tires of people trying to run either drugs
or illegal immigrants in; a danger in being able to hike the
trials. Big Bend is at times overrun in Texas.
At South Padre Island, they say they have all sorts of
things going up on the beaches. You can't even use the beaches
on South Padre Island National Seashore, according to their
rangers and superintendent. Needles coming up. It is a
different type of a challenge when you are facing armed groups
that are trying to invade certain areas of the territory
because they are being pushed into these open spaces from the
border. And we have to figure out how--and there are all these
debates. Border Patrol, DEA, do you want them wandering
through?
We are even having cultivation as we heard in one of the
parks out west and particularly in the forest areas of
narcotics in those parks. And it is likely to grow. In fact,
yesterday, in talking to the head of Colombia National Police,
as we take out the coca planting, guess where they're going?
They're planting them in the national parks of Colombia. You
fly over the national park in Peru, and in areas along the
Amazon basin, what they're doing is planting coca. They are
stripping the trees, not for lumber. They're stripping it to
plant coca and for cocaine labs. We have an interesting
phenomenon here. As we have other problems intervening in the
park, how in the world can you do your traditional functions
unless we either figure out a direct way to fund these in the
park project or figure out, should some be in homeland security
or some be in narcotics like we do highways? First, we have to
fund the highways. Anything else you want to add?
Mr. Cummings. I hope you will take the testimony--you know,
one of the things I found interesting about these hearings is
that, unfortunately, people have to leave. They are very busy.
I am not trying to get you to stay here because I know you have
to do things. I am going to have to leave shortly myself, but
let me say this, that they give their testimony and then they
leave. It would be nice--I want you to take a look at the
National Parks Conservation Association's testimony because I
don't want you to, in other words, I want you to hear about
what some of their concerns are. But I think it would be nice
to take that with you, because I think that way you can--when
you go back to your people, not only can you take our concerns,
but you can take their concerns and probably all the testimony
of our witnesses who are going to come up.
Mr. Martin. And I appreciate that. And I think that we, you
know, we do work together, and I think that's one of the things
that as we met before this that the tone of the hearing is
that, you know, what a great legacy to get to work together on.
And I think we have, you know, great possibilities. I also
believe that we are in a time of fiscal constraint. And I think
that we have to--that makes for some stressful times. I think
we are committed. The administration is committed. And it is
represented in our budget from last year and in our proposal
for this year that Congress is committed to all working
together. So we have a responsibility to do well with what we
have. And we have responsibilities to work with others to
ensure the protection of the parks. And we appreciate the
opportunity to do that. And we will take the testimony of the
others and the reports and the continued dialog. Many of the
people who will be on the next panel are ones that we work
regularly with and have shared great partnerships and great
successes with. So I will take that to heart and appreciate the
interest, because you know, I think those of us who spent our
career doing this are passionate about this task. And I think
it is something that is a great legacy of the country.
Mr. Cummings. Were you finished?
Mr. Martin. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. I think the chairman pretty much hit the nail
on the head. The problem is, something's got to give. Something
has to give. I mean--and I try to tell people this. We have to
have balance in this country. We have to fight terrorism, but
we better take care of the people in this country, too. You
have to have a balance. And it's not your fault that there may
not be enough money. But when I ask the questions and then the
chairman--I mean, he went through a lengthy description of
various parks and the problems that are taking place at those
parks. And those are just the ones he mentioned. You begin to
wonder whether the personnel piece is coming to a critical
moment. In other words, it's going to take personnel to do the
things he is talking about, and you almost seem like you have
to have some policing here. And I don't want a situation where
our parks are overrun with drugs. I don't want a situation
where, as he stated, people come for a nice picnic and then--I
mean, they come for one purpose and come to find out, the park
is being used for a whole other purpose inappropriately, and it
just doesn't work. What happens then is actually, you have a
counterproblem going on because then people will come, and they
will say, wait a minute, I thought we were coming to the place
we came to 5 years ago. We have these wonderful memories.
And do you know what they are going to do? They are going
to turn around and not only are they not going to come back,
but they are going to tell their friends and neighbors not to
come back. That is what I am concerned about. Some kind of
way--what we're trying to do is help you help the people who
want to come to the parks. And if there's not--if there are
insufficient funds to do those things, we are going to have to
fight harder to try to get that money there. The American
people simply--I would say about my district and I will close
with this, Mr. Chairman--I say in my district--I live in
Baltimore. They are not trying to get to Disney World. They're
just trying to get to Kings Dominion. They are trying to get to
a decent place for a reasonable price and have a good time.
They are not looking for a filet mignon. They're just looking
for some hamburger. And so it is scary to me if we get to a
point where the one thing that one of the many things that this
country has to offer with our taxpayer dollars to offer to
families then begins to erode--you know, erosion, by the the
way, just doesn't happen overnight; a little piece there, a
little piece there, a little piece there, and next thing you
know, we don't have have what we had a few years ago. And
that's what we have to be concerned about, that we maintain the
quality and maintain a reasonable fee structure so the families
will feel welcome. I wish you the best.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Martin. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. If the second panel could come forward. Welcome
all of you. And the first thing we do is to swear you in as you
heard earlier. Our standard practice is to ask our witnesses to
testify under oath. Would you each raise your right hand?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
Thank you all for coming, and we will start with Ms.
Gretchen Long, who is the past chair of the Board of Trustees
of the National Parks Conservation Association which already
has been thoroughly praised this morning.
So thank you for coming today.
STATEMENTS OF GRETCHEN LONG, PAST CHAIR, BOARD OF TRUSTEES,
NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION; VIN CIPOLLA,
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL PARKS FOUNDATION; EMILY E. WADHAMS, VICE
PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC POLICY, NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC
PRESERVATION; DENIS GALVIN, RETIRED PARK RANGER, FORMER
SUPERINTENDENT OF YELLOWSTONE, YOSEMITE, AND EVERGLADES
NATIONAL PARKS; AND J. PEYTON KNIGHT, AMERICAN LAND RIGHTS
ASSOCIATION
STATEMENT OF GRETCHEN LONG
Ms. Long. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you today. I am as you say the former Chair of
the Board of Trustees of the National Parks Conservation
Association and continue as a current trustee. It is indeed a
privilege to be here today as the subcommittee delves into the
extraordinary challenges that do face our national parks.
Since 1919, the 300-member nonpartisan National Parks
Conservation Association has been the leading voice of the
American people in protecting and enhancing our National Park
System for present and future generations. I personally have
had the privilege of visiting more than 200 units of the
National Park System from walking the Freedom Trail in Boston
where I grew up to hiking quite recently in Big Bend in Texas;
from the marvelous canoeing trip in Gates of the Arctic to
visiting the home of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King in
Atlanta. And I, like millions of Americans, have sought
inspiration, recreation, education and relaxation in national
parks, places that are truly superlative examples of our
country's magnificent resources and heritage and help us to
teach our children and our grandchildren about who we as
America are and what values we have that we struggle to uphold.
We are grateful, Mr. Chairman, that you have dedicated this
unprecedented series of oversight hearings to the condition of
our national parks. We also very much appreciate your
leadership in co-sponsoring the National Park Centennial Act
which can do much to rectify the fiscal woes of the national
parks.
Over our 86-year history, NPCA has found that the most
pervasive challenge facing America's parks is the failure of
successive Congresses and Presidential administrations to fund
them adequately. The national parks face two deficits, an
annual operating shortfall that exceeds $600 million and the
debilitating backlog of deferred maintenance projects estimated
between $4\1/2\ million and close to $10 million. In addition,
funding for the acquisition of nationally important lands has
been drying up. To bring attention to these challenges, NPCA
recently released, Faded Glory, Top 10 Reasons to Reinvest in
America's National Park Heritage. This report, which has been
provided to the subcommittee for the record, shows the
debilitating effect of underfunding of the parks, some
crumbling historic buildings, unsafe roads, theft of historic
artifacts, loss of critical habitat to invasive and other
worrisome threats.
I will only highlight a few of the 10 reasons in my oral
testimony: 90 percent of Americans say they are drawn to the
national parks for educational benefits. Yet parks today have
roughly one interpretive ranger for 100,000 visitors. This is
about more than merely about touring a park, it is about the
education of the next generation of Americans. When I took my
children to national parks, we counted on park rangers who
would teach us the history of the place, but no longer can we
expect to see the face of a helpful ranger. I visited Lowell
National Historic Park on a Saturday last month, and I was
disappointed that, when I walked through the Boot Cotton Mill,
I could not find a park ranger to answer my questions about
textile factories or talk about America's experiences in the
Industrial Revolution.
Harper's Ferry National Historic Park, a short drive from
here, must deny a ranger-led tour to three out of every four
school groups that request it due to staff shortage. Here is,
in relation to our previous discussion, the impact of the needs
to meet other requirements affecting--having adequate staffing.
At Everglades National Park, the Park Service last year had to
cut ranger-led education programs from 115 per week to fewer
than 40 per week. The more rangers disappear, the more our
society loses a key tool for understanding ecology and for
inspiring the next generation of Thomas Edisons or Martin
Luther Kings in creating the next generation of leaders and
scientists.
Recognizing this problem, Congress intervened last year to
increase operational funding for the parks. Despite the
significance of that intervention, it barely kept the parks
even in budget terms and did nothing to reduce the annual
funding deficits the parks face.
Visitor safety: It is also affected by underfunding. For
example, backcountry ranger patrols in many parks are being
reduced. As the former chair of the Board of the National
Outdoor Leadership Schools, I know that risk management is a
critical part of any backcountry experience and the backcountry
rangers are a critical part of any large park's operation.
Rangers who meet hikers in the backcountry provide information
and advice about such things as avoiding conflicts with bears
or warnings about dangerous weather. Ironically, search-and-
rescue operations cost parks far more than the funding of
adequate backcountry patrols. But many park managers are being
left with no choice other than to reduce patrols and wait until
the next emergency strikes.
Then, as discussed earlier, there are the roads.
Approximately two-thirds of the more than 5,000 miles of
roadways in the national parks are in poor-to-fair condition,
according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The road
repair portion of the backlog exceeds $3 billion. In addition,
the Department of Transportation estimates the Park Service
will need $1.6 million over the next 20 years to meet transit
demands. Yet the park roads and parkways program funded under
the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st century provides only
$165 million per year. The administration's proposal to fund
the parks at $320 million, if enacted, can do more than any
single piece of legislation likely to pass this year to begin
to address this enormous shortfall.
Near my home in Wilson, WY, in Grand Teton National Park,
the park will unveil a new transportation plan this summer
which includes new bicycle paths that are necessary to improve
visitor safety after two tragic deaths of cyclists that were
forced to travel on the narrow edges of roads. The roads
constitute much of the infamous backlog of deferred maintenance
projects. This backlog will require a significant leap in
funding like the one proposed in the Centennial Act if we are
ever to hope to solve this chronic problem. If recent funding
trends continue, the picture I have described will only worsen.
The current proposed increase for fiscal year 2006 will likely
lead to more service cutbacks in the parks unless Congress
substantially increases funding above the President's request.
This is partly due to the traditional failure to budget
sufficiently for the mandatory annual adjustment for government
salaries. Unbudgeted costs of living adjustments have cost the
National Park System approximately $50 million over the past 2
years.
While the Park Service proposal for fiscal year 2006
attempts to account for most of the anticipated increases, the
budget request for fiscal 2005 provided only 46 percent of the
funds needed for staff pay increases. As a result, parks absorb
those unbudgeted salary adjustments shrinking the funds that
they rely on to cover toilet paper for the rest rooms, visitor
brochures and seasonal rangers to protect and to educate
visitors.
The Park Service's budget woes are exacerbated by
underfunded homeland security demands. According to recent Park
Service testimony, security now costs $40 million annually. The
Park Service receives no compensation from the Homeland
Security Department for these costs. These increasing stresses
on Park Service budgets not only jeopardize many of our more
traditional parks but also innovative programs like the
National Underground Network to Freedom. Congress created this
unique park service-led partnership program in 1998 to preserve
historic sites and promote partnerships to educate the public
about the Underground Railroad, the informal network used by
slaves to escape to freedom. However, this exciting initiative,
which has the potential to add to the interest in and relevance
of the parks for millions of Americans, is in serious jeopardy
with insufficient funds to pay staff and with the modest
$300,000 grant program eliminated from the President's proposed
budget.
Hand in hand with the need for funding is the need to spend
those funds wisely. That is why NPCA has placed such a
significant emphasis on providing the Park Service with the
tools to develop business plans and to implement new approaches
to operate more efficiently, such as we have done in a recent
recommended plan on fleet management. Nearly 100 parks have now
developed their own business plans, which we initially
originated, but they need to do more. Park managers of every
rank and position need a firm grasp of park systems laws,
regulations and policies and need training in the art of
professional management. And they need the tools to maximize
the effectiveness of their dealings with concessionaires,
volunteers, gateway communities, philanthropies and other
partners. In 11 years, America will celebrate the 100th
birthday of the National Park System and Park Service. While
Congress established Yellowstone in 1872, no unified
professional government agency for parks existed until
President Wilson signed the National Park Organic Act in 1916.
Mr. Souder. You are way over time.
Ms. Long. Am I over the time? Let me finish with this. The
creation of the park system requires bold vision, and we are
grateful for that vision. If we are to maintain our
responsibility and our legacy to realize the full potential of
our national parks and to guard against their further
deterioration, we need to consider, as your hearing is
considering, ways in which we can strengthen and improve the
National Park Service.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Long follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Next witness is Mr. Vin Cipolla, president of the National
Parks Foundation.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF VIN CIPOLLA
Mr. Cipolla. Mr. Chairman, my name is Vin Cipolla, and I am
the president and CEO of the National Park Foundation. The Park
Foundation was chartered by Congress in 1967 to encourage
private philanthropic support of America's national parks.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today before the
subcommittee to comment on national parks today and into the
future.
The mission of the National Park Foundation is to
strengthen the enduring connection between the American people
and their national parks by raising private funds, making
strategic grants, creating innovative partnerships and
increasing public awareness. The National Park Foundation
operates above what we call the bright line of congressionally
appropriated funds by contributing direct monetary support,
goods and services to the National Park Service that add to but
do not replace Federal appropriations. Over the past 8 years,
NPF has enjoyed substantial growth, over $239 million in
contributions and $217 million in total grants and program
support to national parks across the country. The foundation's
growth has been achieved with fundraising and administrative
costs kept to a minimum. Money Magazine recently recognized the
NPF as one of eight charities best at maximizing the percentage
of donations going directly to programs supported.
As I know you are aware, national parks have a long
tradition of private philanthropy. National park philanthropy
began with an innovative approach to preservation, purchase
vast tracts of land and donate them to the Federal Government.
A hundred years ago, simply converting land from private
ownership to public ownership was all that was necessary to
protect it for future generations. Today, whether it is funding
new junior ranger programs that connect with today's youth,
supporting volunteerism programs that empower citizens to care
for the land, assisting with multilingual outreach efforts
inviting new Americans to the national parks or backing park
programs that bring classroom lessons to life, the National
Park Foundation is bringing new and different approaches to
preserving and protecting national parks.
Just as the needs of parks have changed over time, so has
philanthropy in this country. The opportunity before us is to
bring these two traditions together. We have built on the
conventions of public, private partnerships by developing
innovative approaches to improve visitor services, increase
volunteer opportunities, offer more educational programs and
engage the community with their parks over the long term. The
role of private philanthropic support is to fund inventive,
cutting-edge programs in these areas and to ensure evaluation
of those programs to determine their effectiveness. There are
many levels of this support from the local friends, groups
supporting individual parks to national partners like the
National Park Foundation giving system-wide support to parks.
Private philanthropy has traditionally been held in the hands
of a few individuals and corporations whose commitment is
strong, consistent and valuable. We view the future success of
private support not only in the capable hands of Congress in
these traditional partners, but also in the hands of the 80
million-plus national park visitors and enthusiasts. The future
of philanthropic support is both diversifying the opportunity
you experience in national parks and also in diversifying the
opportunity to support our parks.
Along with our Board of Directors, I am committed to
expanding the base of individuals that support our national
parks directly. We want to engage these millions of park
visitors and enthusiasts and take their love of these special
places to the next level to ensure that their interest in
financial support is manifested in direct support to national
parks. We will use many of the new communication technologies
available to reach the American public and connect them with
their parks.
I am new to the National Park Foundation. I am in my third
week on the job, but not to the world of nonprofits,
entrepreneurship and innovative technology. Ensuring the future
of the national parks through the generosity of Americans with
use of this new technology will be one of my top priorities in
starting here at the National Park Foundation. The fabric of
our Nation is strengthened and enriched through the unique
cultural, historical and scenic beauty of our national parks.
They inspire us and challenge us to understand more deeply
American history, the American way of life and the natural
processes that surround us. They can be powerful tools of
education for our children and offer the very best of these
United States to all who seek them out. Support for national
parks ensures the very best of returns, not those of monetary
value, but those values of preserving and protecting uniquely
American principles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your ongoing
support of national parks and the National Park Foundation and
thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cipolla follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. Our next witness is Emily
Wadhams, vice president of public policy at the National Trust
for Historic Preservation.
STATEMENT OF EMILY WADHAMS
Ms. Wadhams. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
offer the views of the National Trust For Historic Preservation
on the condition of our national parks and the need to support
the National Park Service's substantial historic and cultural
inventory. My name is Emily Wadhams. I am the National Trust
vice president for public policy.
We are concerned not only about the funding for the
national parks themselves but also for a host of other National
Park Service cultural resource programs and historic
preservation in the States and communities around the country.
Arguably, the National Park Service has responsibility for the
stewardship of America's most significant historic sites and
museum collections: 62 percent of the 388 park units managed by
the Service were designated as historic or cultural in nature
by Congress, and every one of them contains important
prehistoric and historic places or collections. The Service's
inventory their structures and reports that 55 percent of the
approximately 26,000 buildings and structures under its
stewardship are in poor to fair condition. National Park
Service has relatively little data on the number of
archeological sites in the parks, but for those sites that they
do have data on, less than half are in good condition. To
compound this situation, in 2003, approximately 370 incidents
of vandalism or looting related to those sites were reported.
Only 48 percent of the Service's museum collections which rival
those of the Smithsonian in size and significance have even
been cataloged. Of the park's historic landscapes identified,
nearly 70 percent are in poor or fair condition. The National
Trust has attempted to help by partnering with the Park Service
to restore important but threatened buildings by raising
private sector dollars for a number of parks including the
McGraw Ranch and Rocky Mountain National Park and at White
Grass, where we are supporting and encouraging efforts to raise
funds to save the buildings as a Western Park Service Employee
Training Center. But it is apparent that the National Park
Service does not have the financial resources to document,
repair and maintain these important cultural assets. This
unhappy story of the conditions in the national parks does not
end with the parks themselves.
The National Trust feels compelled to draw your attention
to the array of cultural programs that assist State and local
historic preservation efforts that are managed by the Park
Service, and I will highlight just a few of them: The National
Register of Historic Places, which recognizes historic sites
through a formal designation process. This provides eligibility
for Federal grants, tax credits and is a very key component in
the regulatory review process for Federal agency undertakings.
Funding is inadequate; staff resources are strained. The public
interest in this program is overwhelming. In 2004, there were
145 million hits on the National Register Web site representing
over 4 million individual users. Only a small percentage of
those documents, however, are in digital format due to lack of
funds. The National Trust is working with the Park Service and
the National Park Foundation to find non-Federal dollars to
bring this incredible record into the 21st century and make it
more accessible to the public.
The Historic Preservation Fund, also within the Park
Service's purview, supports important State and tribal
preservation programs and special grant programs. States
receive matching funds to manage the State Historic
Preservation Offices, a unique Federal-State partnership
between the Park Service, the Advisory Council on Historic
Preservation and the States. The FHPO activities range from
historic surveys to heritage tourism programs to assisting
Federal agencies and reviews of their projects on historic
resources to assisting developers with rehab tax credit
projects, which have the economic benefit of leveraging about
$2 billion a year. In 2001, the FHPOs received $46.6 million.
By 2005, that number has diminished to $35 million.
There is a similar Tribal Historic Preservation Office
Program. The number of certified tribes participating in that
program has increased from 34 to 59 in 2 years, but the funding
for this program is embarrassingly low, $3.2 million in 2005,
and has not increased proportionately.
The Historic Preservation Fund also includes Save America's
Treasures Grants, a program in which the National Trust plays a
significant role. The Federal grants require a 50-50 match and
are made to nationally significant, threatened historic
buildings and collections. Thanks to broad, bipartisan
congressional support for SAT over the last 7 years, over $200
million has been awarded in matching grants supporting 726
nationally significant preservation projects in every State.
SAT has leveraged private and public funds of over $23 million
for projects like the south side of Ellis Island, Mesa Verde
and Thomas Edison's lab. Other SAT projects include Akima
Pueblo in New Mexico, Louisa May Alcott's home in Concord, MA,
and Lincoln Cottage in Washington, DC. Lincoln's summer home is
now being restored through a SAT. The National Trust is raising
the match and coordinating the project, and the future plans
include full public access and increased visibility through the
designation of Lincoln Cottages and affiliated areas with the
National Park Service as recommended by the National Park
Service Special Resource Study.
In 2004, Congress appropriated $30 million to Save America
Treasures. The currently proposed budget cuts that in half. The
entire Historic Preservation Fund that I have just gone over
received $74 million in 2004. And the 2006 budget proposes a 27
percent reduction for these important programs.
Mr. Chairman, as we approach the centennial of the National
Park Service in 2016, we strongly support your bill that would
establish finally a dedicated fund to address the maintenance
backlog for the national parks. We applaud your efforts to find
solutions to the chronic underfunding for these places and
programs that define our American heritage. The National Trust
will continue to work with and support the Park Service in any
way we can. As a Nation, we cannot afford to be derelict in our
responsibility as good stewards of our unique and spectacular
cultural national heritage. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wadhams follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Our next witness is Mr. Dennis Galvin, retired park ranger,
former superintendent, former deputy director.
Thank you for coming today.
STATEMENT OF DENNIS GALVIN
Mr. Galvin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be
in front of this committee again. I won't bore you with the
details of my biography, but I have not been superintendent of
Yellowstone and Yosemite, although I have worked in those parks
extensively and in many other parks. I retired as deputy
director in 2002. I was deputy director under three presidents,
President Regan, President Clinton and the current Bush
administration, until I retired.
Many of the issues brought before the committee thus far
are outlined in my testimony, and I want to congratulate you on
your opening statement. I think it simply sums up the dilemma
we face in maintaining a first-rate National Park System. I
have a prepared statement, and I will submit it for the record.
Mr. Martin mentioned the 96 percent approval rating, the 270
million visitors. One in three Americans visited a park in the
last 2 years, all based on surveys. In addition, many parks are
hubs of regional economy so they are very important to local
communities. People say the most-cited reason for their visit
is sightseeing. The attraction of parks is their intrinsic
quality.
Over time, the vigorous protection of these park resources
has enhanced, not encumbered, public enjoyment. I will spend
the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman, discussing budget issues
and how they affect individual parks. But for the record, the
budget of the National Park Service has been decreased slightly
since 2001. Now that is not true of the operations budget, but
it is true of the overall budget. However, due to the emphasis
of Congress and the National Parks Conservation Association, a
great deal of attention has been focused on both the dilemma of
park operations and the backlog. This committee and other
committees have held hearings on that.
Last year, the park-by-park increase for the individual
parks, not for the operations budget as a whole, increased by
6.1 percent, and that was, as far as I know, certainly in
recent history, the largest increase at the park level in the
history of the park. So all involved need to be congratulated
for that.
Let me say a little bit about how individual parks budget
for increases. There is a standing file of increases that parks
can contribute to at any time. And there is also a standing
file in which parks can put their project needs into--they have
acronyms. So parks can catalog their increases at any time.
When a budget is put together, those increases are looked at.
Now sometimes there is an emphasis placed on the budget by a
given administration. One year it might be coral reefs. Another
year it might be homeland security. What the regional offices
and the Washington office do in those circumstances is go into
the standing file and look for coral reef projects or homeland
security projects. And the effect of that over time has been
inattention to this business of fixed costs that you outlined
in your statement, that you talked about in your questions and
that the NPCA witness outlined. And as a result, many years at
the park level, the pay increases and the rising costs exceed
what they get out of the budget, in effect. And even though you
can look over years, and every administration does this, and
say, well, over the last 10 years, we have increased the park
budget by 20 percent; if you look at this record on fixed
costs, you will find at the park level, many times a park is
going backward. What do they do? They lay off people,
seasonals, or they don't hire permanent employees.
The air quality specialists at Shenandoah are a perfect
example, a park that has a significant air quality problem, has
a vacant air quality position. Why is that? I'm guessing, but
it is an educated guess, because not showing one permanent
position allows the superintendent to fill three or four
seasonal positions. So over time, that kind of rational
decisionmaking results in parks not filling critical permanent
vacancies. And many park budgets are 90 percent salaries. They
should be 75 percent, in my experience.
Now, finally, a few words about the backlog. If you look at
the infrastructure at the National Park System, it essentially
was built in two periods of history: in the Franklin Delano
Roosevelt New Deal Era, when the emergency conservation work
and CCCs built the basic infrastructure of parks; and beginning
in the Eisenhower administration with Mission 66, which was a
10-year program after World War II to renew the infrastructure
of national parks. We talked about Grand Teton earlier. That is
a classic Mission 66 park. Except for a few rustic housing
units, everything in that park was built in Mission 66, which
is to say it was finished about 40 years ago.
Let me give you one example of how that history affects a
given asset in a park. The Old Faithful sewage treatment plant
at Yellowstone was built during Mission 66. It's being
reconstructed right now, so it's not a problem. Here's the
dilemma when that sewage treatment plant, Old Faithful, was
closed in the winter. There was no food service and no visitors
to Old Faithful. The design theory behind that plant was, you
close it down for the winter and you switch to a septic tank.
Has no heating inside. And so when winter visitation--now 20
years of winter visitation comes to Yellowstone--you are
dealing with an asset that not only faces maintenance problems,
but it is simply obsolete and can't meet current-day
conditions.
One thing to look at in the facility condition index is OK,
this facility has been maintained properly, but does it have a
modern day function? Is it meeting modern day loads? At the end
of Mission 66, there are 140 million visitors to parks. There
are more than two times that now, and there has been
concomitant investment in park infrastructure.
Another example, I think, of changes in the National Park
System, are that the principal changes that affect
infrastructure have been inheriting large military bases,
industrial complexes. Lowell was mentioned, south side of Ellis
Island, the Presidio, Gateway, which included many military
facilities. When you get those undeniably nationally
significant assets, you get a lot of buildings. The only way to
solve that problem it seems to me is through partnerships and
leasing, because they don't really have--far more square feet
than a park needs or uses.
I will close with a story, Mr. Chairman. One of the great
advantages of being retired is the opportunity to explore these
parks in depth and at leisure. Two years ago, I stood at the
cemetery at Gettysburg and watched a father place his two small
children in front of the Lincoln bust under which there is a
text of the Gettysburg address. He translated the Gettysburg
address for those children into their native tongue. No
statistic will ever capture that moment, but for me, it
illustrates the power and potential of the national parks'
enduring mission and the enormous importance of national parks
as educators of our citizens and protectors of our heritage.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Galvin follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Our last witness on this panel is Mr. Peyton Knight, who is
the executive director of the American Policy Center and
Washington, DC, representative for the American Land Rights
Association. Thank you for coming today.
STATEMENT OF J. PEYTON KNIGHT
Mr. Knight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for your
comments earlier.
I have submitted a written statement for the record. Quite
frankly, America's park system is in trouble. Our Nation's 388
national parks, historic sites, battlefields, landmarks, lake
shores, recreation areas, scenic rivers and trails have an
estimated collective maintenance backlog of between $4.1, $6.8
billion and, according to Ms. Long, could be as high as $10
million or $10 billion. Yet as this crisis continues to
snowball, Congress has not done enough to strike at the heart
of the problem. Will our national parks survive for future
generations? The answer is, no, unless Congress acts
responsibly and reins in the ravenous appetite of the National
Park Service and Federal land acquisition programs.
The Federal Government currently owns almost one-third of
America's total land mass. NPS is assigned for caring for much
of this property. It clearly can't handle its current
responsibility. How on earth does it make sense to give it
more? In order to solve this crisis, Congress must make a
sincere commitment to curb all future NPS programming and
acquisitions and scale back expansion plans that are already in
the pipeline that are only going to add more fuel to the
backlog fire. You simply can't pledge more funding at one end
and continue it with out of control expansion at the other. It
only exacerbates the problem. This reckless expansion threatens
the future of our Nation's National Park System and undermines
the ability of the agency to meet its commitments to future
generations.
According to the National Parks Conservation Association,
public safety and public access rank high among the casualties
of our overdrawn park service. Yosemite National Park in
California desperately needs everything from trail and
campground maintenance to a new sewage system and electrical
upgrades. Yellowstone has decrepit buildings and over 150 miles
of roads that need repair. In Mount Ranier National Park in
Washington, travel to backcountry cabins is impossible because
of neglected bridges and trails. The foundation at the visitor
center of the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii is crumbling and
literally falling into the ground.
When public access to parks isn't taking a backseat to
scarce resources, the Park Service is actually promoting
spending money to shut people out. The Park Service's Yosemite
Valley Plan would cost close to a half billion dollars and
would actually reduce the number of parking spaces by two-
thirds. Instead of being able to leisurely enjoy the sites and
wonders of Yosemite, this grand plan calls for the park patrons
to be herded on to a fleet of buses and shuffled through the
park on the Park Service's schedule. Under the plan, hundreds
of camp sites that were destroyed in the 1997 flood would not
be replaced and nearly 60 percent of the park's remaining
campsites accessible by car would be removed. The National Park
Service is quickly earning the moniker of our Nation's slum
lord. And Congress's response should not be to award NPS with
more property and more programming.
Rather Congress should seek to scale back the Park
Service's duties until manageable levels are attained. The
National Park Service is already slated to receive $2.2 billion
in the next fiscal year. That is almost $1 billion more than it
received just 10 years ago. The real answer to the Park
Service's maintenance woes is fewer holdings and programs. For
Congress--unfortunately, Congress seems determined to ignore
this solution and drive the Park Service and our national
treasures into further disrepair. For example, the House and
Senate this year are moving to create a National Heritage Areas
Program. Heritage areas are permanent units of the Park Service
and, therefore, lifelong dreams on already scarce resources.
Even more importantly, heritage areas are Federal land-use
mandates foisted upon local communities. Heritage areas are
being sold to Congress under false pretenses. Proponents claim
that these areas are simply temporary funding grants, seed
money that is scheduled to sunset once the area becomes self-
sufficient. Predictably, this has not happened with current
heritage areas. These pork barrel land-use schemes are forever
dependent on Federal funding because they lack local interest.
Ten years ago the late representative Gerald Solomon strongly
warned that heritage areas are targets for increased land-use
control by the Park Service as well as funding drains on the
agency. In Solomon's letter he wrote, ``I urge you to defend
property rights and strongly oppose the America Heritage Area
Participation Program. The environmentalists advocating this
bill have Federal land-use control as their primary objective.
This bill wastes tax dollars that can be more appropriately
spent on maintaining our national parks.'' And he goes on. He
would be appalled to learn that Congress is pushing harder than
ever for a National Heritage Areas Program when the Park
Service's problems have only increased exponentially since he
penned this letter.
When the Federal Government acquires property, it compounds
the current crisis in two ways. One, it adds more property and
burden to the maintenance backlog, but it also removes private
property from the tax rolls, thereby reducing funds that could
help address the current crisis. In spite of this, a provision
currently sitting in the Senate budget resolution would earmark
$350 million guaranteed every year for the next 3 years for the
Land and Water Conservation Fund. That's over $1 billion not
subject to annual appropriations for Federal and State
governments to buy up more private property. Fortunately, the
House budget resolution includes no such nonsense, but
representatives must make certain that the final conference
report is free of this land grab boondoggle. The future of the
National Park Service also depends on how the agency is viewed
by the public. Unfortunately, NPS has shown itself to be a bad
neighbor with a history of hostility toward land owners in
local communities. Through programs like the National Natural
Landmarks Program, NPS has run roughshod over many private
property owners. Though advertised as voluntary benign
designations to inform landowners of the natural features of
their property, as if they weren't already aware, the program
is in fact a feeder system for future NPS holdings and
crackdowns. One day, the Park Service knocks on your door and
hands you a bronze plaque honoring your property. The next day,
you find your property ensnared in a quagmire of planned
progressively stronger land-use prohibitions and sometimes
outright acquisition. In a great number of instances, the Park
Service has been found to be trespassing and snooping around on
private party, evaluating it for landmark designation without
ever notifying the landowner. The most prevalent abuse occurred
in Maine where the Park Service routinely ignored its own
notification rules and refused to inform landowners of pending
designations. In fact, the Park Service was working in
collaboration with environmental organizations and land trusts
targeting private property for future landmarks.
Syndicated columnist and author Alston Chase documented
several examples of Park Service misdeeds under this program.
For example, Jim Shelly, a New Mexico rancher, didn't even
learn that his property was being considered for landmark
designation until a friend noticed it in the Federal Register.
The Nature Conservancy had evaluated Mr. Shelly's land for the
Park Service without his knowledge. Lucy Wheeler of Vermont
became suspicious when she noticed mysterious survey markers on
her land. NPS officials were in fact sneaking around her
property and neglected to inform Ms. Wheeler, because, as they
reported, she was already, ``sensitive.''
Because of this controversy, a moratorium was placed on the
landmark program. However, it has been lifted about 6 years
ago. It is far past time for the Park Service to locate and
notify victims of this debacle and seek their written
permission for inclusion in the program. If the Park Service is
not willing to reconcile its misdeeds, then the Natural
Landmarks Program ought to be abolished.
In summary, if the Park Service is to survive for future
generations, the agency's holdings and programming must be
scaled back. Congress should direct the Department of Interior
to take a careful inventory of its current holdings and
determine which of these properties would best be turned over
to States or sold to private interests. Undoubtedly, there are
many national parks and recreation areas that have no business
on the Federal dole. Some examples would be the Santa Monica
Mountains National Recreation area in California or the Gateway
NRA in New York. These properties might make good city or State
parks, but American taxpayers nationwide should not be forced
to carry this burden. Congress should also make certain that
the Federal Government does not swallow any more of our
Nation's land mass. The No Net Loss of Private Land Act, S.
591, would help in this regard. The bill's sponsor, Senator
Craig Thomas, notes it is time for Congress to protect the
rights of private property owners and instill some common sense
into the Federal land acquisitions. No net loss of private
lands will provide that discipline.
Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman for allowing me to testify
on this important issue. Time is now for Congress to assert
real authority and inject discipline into Federal land
management agencies like the Park Service. Only this can save
our national parks and treasures, and I will be happy to answer
any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Knight follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Let me thank each of you for your testimony
today. And if there are any materials you want to submit for
the record--and I didn't say this at the beginning, most of you
probably know this, our intention is to have a series of field
hearings in between. Each hearing that every committee does
comes out with a hearing book that then becomes a reference for
people to go and look at. So what you put in as supplementary
materials goes into that, and we may be doing a plan--a final
summary report. So it is helpful in the particular data here of
this hearing being an overview of things we might want to look
at or how to look at--and clearly, anybody who isn't exposed to
this and every time I go to any hearing, I learn that, oh, the
Park Service does this, too, that the scope and the breadth is
overwhelming. There is no way this committee is going to get
into these type of things. It becomes a matter of targeting.
Right now, however, we are trying to see the breadth so we
can figure out what type of scope we are going to have and how
to get into it, because fundamentally what we are looking at in
these hearings is much broader than what we deal with usually
in the Resources Committee, which tends to be focused either on
a specific problem that has been raised or in a--I am not
saying they never deal with the broader problem or a particular
bill. But this is a comprehensive look at what systems and
structural changes and strategy changes do we need, and try to
see where, and accommodate different points of view.
Now, let me ask Mr. Galvin--and I know we will have a
continuing discussion with this. And then I want to ask a
couple--I want to ask Ms. Long this, too. Is there specific
information that is not currently publicly available that you
believe this committee might want to seek that would be helpful
in determining scope and data as to some of this information?
And if you can't think of it off the top of your head, if
you can suggest that to us, because as I have clearly explained
to the Park Service multiple times, that all data has to be
made available that is in a public source to an oversight
committee. There is not the option of declining to give it to
us, whether it is e-mails, whether it is letters, whether it is
tentative reports.
For example, those who watched our steroids hearing in this
committee know we can also, even in nongovernment agencies, if
they have antitrust exemption and so on, ask them for briefing
memos. The only claim that is justified is executive privilege.
And even executive privilege or predecisional information is
fairly limited.
Now, this isn't an effort to try to get every document that
is out there. We get overwhelmed. When we were doing the look
at the FBI files, often we would get like a wheelbarrow of
information. There is no way to sort it through. What we are
looking for is relevant information for public policy. This is
taxpayers' dollars. And we are trying first to determine scope.
Mr. Martin seems very willing to share, but our problem is,
is we don't even know what to request in some cases. And I
wondered if you have any suggestions to make here on process?
Mr. Galvin. Well, in the broad scopes of the committee's
purview, I think most of the information related to this
problem is publicly available through the National Park Service
Budget. In the more narrow scope, I think with respect to
Homeland Security, I understand that there are some proposals
to significantly modify the way the National Park Service does
law enforcement, hiring nothing but permanent employees. I
think that would be very relevant to the committee's inquiry
with respect to the impact of Homeland Security on the National
Park Service.
Also, I understand that there is a revision of the
management policies proposed by the Department of Interior.
That may be predecisional. But, generally speaking, I think
most of the big problems are publicly available.
Mr. Souder. To what extent do you think it will be
difficult to get--I mean, you have used the example of not
filling a vacancy and moving to seasonal employees. Does such
data exist at regional offices, at the national, or is this
almost like you would have to get every park's information and
assemble it? Does the National Park Service keep this data?
Mr. Galvin. No. Decisions like that are pretty much made at
the park level, and the record of them is at the park level.
They are essentially decisions made by individual
superintendents, once they get their budget allowance.
Mr. Souder. And are those park records public?
Mr. Galvin. Well, there is a legal requirement that each
park superintendent publish a financial statement every year.
Generally speaking, I would say those statements are not
consistent with respect to tracking positions. But I think
legally they would be required, and at least two separate
pieces of statute.
Mr. Souder. And so if we picked a region and ask for the
parks in that region, how many vacancies do you have----
Mr. Galvin. That could be provided.
Mr. Souder. And how many and how long those vacancies have
been vacant?
Mr. Galvin. That would be trackable.
Mr. Souder. And we would then be able to--and I also don't
want to be overly burdensome for things that aren't relevant,
but obviously these things become very relevant when we are
looking at are you meeting your scope and needs, and we talk
about do you have rangers here, what is up, what is down,
that--are we, in assembling such data, how hard would that be
to assemble?
In other words, if I made such a request like that, I mean,
I know how--we run into this with multiple agencies, how many
Congressmen, multiple Congressmen. I mean, I have been
systemically talking to each member of this committee, and they
are very supportive of the whole direction, as well as the full
committee. So that we have a lot of leeway to work here. At the
same time, none of us are trying to do unnecessary--in other
words, pulling rangers out of talking to visitors so they are
trying to do question responses to Congress. On the other hand,
we have oversight responsibility here. How hard is this data to
pull together?
Mr. Galvin. Well, I don't think the committee needs to pull
it together out of 388 parks. I think a well-designed sample
would provide a valid story. I mean, I think that the condition
of personnel management in parks is pretty much the same in any
region, it is pretty much the same at each park. Small parks
may be even tighter than large ones. But I think you would find
that story, given the past history of the park appropriation,
at every park. That is, they would be surrendering permanent
vacancies to cover seasonal needs.
Mr. Souder. Let me ask you one other kind of technical
question that is my assumption. Looking at other agencies where
we have these kinds of problems, that every agency in the
Federal Government right now--almost every agency is having
difficulties with staffing. The dollars aren't keeping up with
the cost of living. At this point I am not arguing that
government employees are underpaid. We certainly could never
make that argument in our congressional districts. But at the
same time, there has been a lot of cross-pressure because of
the health and pension systems. In the Park Service, since it
is highest rated, there is not--it is very hard for people to
get in, not that many people leave until their time is up. And
I assume, although there has been some transition in park
superintendents lately, that there is more or less an aging
process occurring inside the park system, which means many of
the people are in under the old health care and pension
systems. You don't have the turnover that you have in a lot of
other agencies where they come in for 5 or 10 years, never
really get fully vested in the pension programs, never really
are under the old retirement systems.
What pressure is disproportionately being put on the Park
Service, and is that easy to quantify? Is it there?
Mr. Galvin. Well, on a nationwide basis, I am sure the
budget office could hang numbers on both the old pension system
and the new pension system. My perspective is that the old
pension system is fading as gaffers like me leave under the old
system. But going to the new system, the so-called FERS system,
which has to be financed by the agency, has made a considerable
impact on the ability of parks to provide services per unit
dollar. The percentage budgeted for that particular system is
much higher than it was in the old system, because it has to be
fully funded by the agency. But, yes, the budget office could
certainly provide a nationwide analysis of the impact of that
on parks.
Mr. Souder. Do you believe that drives permanent versus
seasonal?
Mr. Galvin. Oh, absolutely. Because the park superintendent
is just looking at a bottom line; $5 million, $1 million, how
can I deploy seasonals? And, by the way, this is not either new
or partisan. When I ran the roads and trail system in Mount
Rainier back in the 1960's, you know, our classic tactic was to
keep--the fiscal year used to end on June 30th, and we wouldn't
bring on the trail crews until July 1st if we had a big snow
year and were short of money. So delaying seasonals, grabbing
permanent vacancies to cover seasonals is a sort of classic
strategy at the park level.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Ms. Long, I want to thank you as--when you say past chair,
that is really recent past chair.
Ms. Long. That is very recent. That is just a week ago.
Mr. Souder. I want to thank you for your strong support of
your association and your wonderful testimony today, and will
continue looking forward to working with all the regional areas
as we move through the hearings and also continuing to provide
data for us as we work through and how to highlight. We are
even to some degree trying to decide how much of this we do
thematically, how much of this we do geographically, identify
some of the different problems.
The constraint here is, obviously, the number of hearings
and how we want to do this. But I want to thank you. And each
of the groups will continue to work with--you heard me ask, and
there are just a flood of questions that come out. As I told
you at the beginning, my biggest problem is I only have one
plane I can get to Indiana; and, in fact, Mr. Cummings ran into
the same problem. He has a speech in Indianapolis tonight and
he could only get one flight out that was earlier than mine, so
he was taking off to Indiana as well.
But let me suggest a couple of things. I would appreciate
if you can each give me maybe a brief comment here, but to look
at some additional written comments. One is that where park by
park and many Americans--and this is one of the things we are
wrestling with this, is we have the kind of crown-jewel system,
we have then the kind of the--which tends to be favored by the
natural parks. Then you have this huge question of the cultural
parks, of which you kind of have another word of crown jewels
for that. Then you have a whole range of parks. Then you have
parks that kind of the Park Service got involuntarily, which my
friend Jim Ridenhauer says now are called ``park barreling,''
which of course started with getting the first four parks
that--where Congress mandates things that the Park Service
wouldn't have necessarily wanted. And then--but that would be
kind of the traditional park system.
Then we developed the heritage areas, which Mr. Ridenhauer
developed because he felt that the Park Service was getting too
many parks that were under--so it was kind of ironic that the
heritage areas were developed because they didn't want the
Federal Government to own the land. The heritage areas were
developed because they didn't want them fully under the Park
Service.
Now, what has happened is we have had this proliferation of
cooperative type of agreements. In other words, because the
idea was not to add the direct land to the Federal Government,
we have seen this proliferation of--and the most common thing
right now currently, particularly with this administration
saying no net new land most of the time, that is that the Park
Service is given responsibility to coordinate but only be a
partner with it. And partly in the budget, then, you don't have
as much direct control. It is not favored by the Park Service
and the budget advocates, and this ranges from the whole thing
of historic preservation. It gets into much of what Ms. Wadhams
testified about, whether it is Indian, Native American
questions; it gets into building preservation-type things,
trails, a whole range of categories that most people don't even
realize are there that the Park Service works with and goes to
meetings with and provides resources for.
Now, my question is, do you think that this is a healthy
trend, a manageable trend, should be increased, decreased? How
much should this be looked at as its impact on the park budget?
Because it is clearly a bigger and bigger portion and a
potential management nightmare. I don't even know how you begin
to get ahold of it. Any comments here? And would you submit
comments for the record?
Mr. Knight.
Mr. Knight. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
That is the crux of one of the issues, your example about
heritage areas, when you are talking about public and private
partnerships. Well, one example of how this has gone already is
the Rivers of Steel Heritage Area in Pennsylvania. Since its
inception, it has openly been nothing but a lobby on behalf of
the Park Service for a future national or a future urban park
within the boundaries of the heritage area.
There is a bill before this Congress right now, I think the
sponsor is Senator Arlen Specter, which would grant that
heritage area and the Park Service land acquisition authority
to create a 30 or 40-acre urban national park within there.
So when you are talking about these partnerships and what
role the Park Service plays, oftentimes it is a much more
heavy-handed role than they purport. So. And it is part of the
backlog problem as well.
Mr. Souder. Any other comments on the heritage area
questions, or other? One of the challenges--and I think this is
a huge question on the Santa Monica, Golden Gate, and Gateway--
those are the three highest attended areas, I believe, in the
whole National Park Service, and that we are talking in terms
of 14 million versus 3 million.
And then the question is, how do you count Jones Beach? Is
that something that is a traditional national park function?
These are huge questions. And the real challenge to me came
from the Yosemite Park superintendent a number of years ago
when he said: If you take visitation beyond 50 miles, the
percentage of people visiting--maybe it is 100 miles, and this
may have come from--I am blanking on the name of the wonderful
superintendent at Golden Gate. If you take beyond 100 miles,
the percentage of visitation at Golden Gate from beyond 100
miles is greater than the percentage at Yosemite, which is
counterintuitive. You think of Yosemite as people coming for a
big family vacation and you think of Golden Gate as a city
park. But in fact, because conventions come in, because people
go to the city of San Francisco and visit, that means that the
bulk of the people or a higher percent of the people using
Golden Gate are not local than Yosemite.
And it shows how we are, in thinking about our park system,
we kind of think of it in terms of the crown jewels. And in
terms of budgeting, that is not true. In terms of expenditures,
that is not true. In terms of visitation, that is not true. And
how do we adapt and figure out what we actually have as a
national park system here?
Mr. Galvin. Mr. Chairman, if I might. I worked in New York
City when Gateway was established, and it was established
during the Nixon administration; and it was concurrently
established with Golden Gate, where I did not work in San
Francisco, but I have had a lot of experience with Golden Gate.
If you read the hearings leading up to the creation of
those two parks, there was a very strong equity principle
expressed by the administration and the Congress. It sort of
went like this: The people who live adjacent to Gateway will
probably never get to Yellowstone, and therefore they deserve
the services that a National Park Service can provide.
Now, whether or not that principle is correct, it was an
important selling point during the Nixon administration for
those parks. But I think in both cases, and in the case of
Gateway you had a suite of interests from Reese Park to
abandoned--or to military bases that were closing. And the only
convener, in a sense, of that suite of real estate that the
Congress could find was the National Park Service.
Certainly New York Harbor is a nationally significant
resource, as is San Francisco Bay. Both of those parks I think
have served the public extremely well, both in terms of their
original intent, that is, to provide recreational services to
urban populations, but also in the protection of important
historic resources for the Nation at large and natural
resources as well.
Mr. Souder. Well, I thank you each for your testimony. We
are going to submit a series of written questions to each one
of you, if you can respond. I have some particularized that--I
didn't see Ms. Norton come in.
Let me yield to Ms. Norton. Let me at least say one other
thing on the historic; that in the historic, how we would
prioritize--because we are not going to be able with the
dollars to maintain every single historic or structure that
will move toward historic in the Park Service.
And then, second, on what basis we determine what is
culturally significant versus what is naturally significant,
which became a huge issue at Gettysburg when those tradeoffs
with their vistas versus cultural.
And we will want to get that from other groups as well,
because that is another huge question, and see whether we are
going to do that.
Ms. Norton, thank you for coming.
Ms. Norton. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And
although you have heard me say that your tastes this year have
become a bit more eclectic in hearings, I did want to stop by
this hearing, as I stopped by for a few minutes in your last
hearing. I have to go speak to some senior citizens, but I am
very intrigued by this hearing, because the network, of course,
of national parks in our country is unusually broad and
comprehensive.
These parks are such great treasures. And we in the
District of Columbia feel very fortunate at the number of
extraordinary national parks, some within our city in small
plots of land, and the two great national parks in our city,
the National Mall, and Rock Creek Park.
I have been working with some of my own constituents and
people outside of the District who are concerned about the fate
of the National Mall, which of course receives literally
millions of visitors every year. It may not be Yellowstone
Park, it is a smaller plot of land, which means that of course
it has taken its share of beatings. And the Mall doesn't look a
lot--the biggest change in the Mall since I was a child growing
up in Washington are those horrific Navy barracks that were
there during World War II were finally taken away. But in a
real sense, it is not the inviting place to walk that similar
parks across the country are. And some have proposed that the
Mall be put into a conservancy. The difference is that some of
the parks in conservancies, like Central Park, for example, had
wonderful businesses that surrounded them who took on some of
the costs of maintaining the park and bringing the park alive.
But I think the entire Congress has a huge investment in what
happens to the Mall and the way it looks now, and in making it
truly inviting; not simply to look at as you go into one of our
great museums, but as a place to be, to rest, to enjoy.
The other, of course, great park is one that most Americans
would die for, and that is Rock Creek Park. And that is a great
neglected park. It is a kind of wilderness. I have to tell you,
when I was a child, the Rock Creek Park in the District of
Columbia, that wasn't nearly the cultural mecca it has become
today, was a great meeting place for residents on both sides of
the park. The park does not have a lot of crime in it. It has
some, but it isn't known for crime. And yet Rock Creek Park has
been poorly maintained. There is insufficient appreciation of
what it means to have this great wilderness in your own city,
so that you don't have to travel long distances if you really
wanted to see what that kind of nature was like.
I think that both the Congress and locally we have devalued
what it means to have such a great park. Of course, the
District of Columbia has to keep up its own parks. Here is a
national park, it is for the national government to keep it up.
I am all too aware of the great pressures, financial
pressures on the Park Service, but I hope that this hearing
will be counted among the many efforts that I think are going
to begin, Mr. Chairman, this year to try to focus Congress more
on what wonderful treasures these parks are, what is happening
to them before our very eyes. And when you see something
somehow becoming less beautiful before your eyes, you don't see
it nearly the way you would if you went away for 5 years and
came back and you say, my goodness, what happened to the Mall?
Or when I go in to Rock Creek Park, to say, is this the same
Rock Creek Park that we came into for outings all through the
summer and spring? And why don't tourists--why aren't tourists
who come to our city invited on tours through Rock Creek Park
to see that their National Capital has this wonderful
wilderness within it, and, to the great glory of the Congress,
preserved.
They know about the zoo; they go to the zoo. But there is
no invitation to go into Rock Creek Park. Of course, you may
drive through it if you are going to one part of the city or to
Maryland. But all of this, it seems to me, is a waste of one of
the most glorious resources we have here. And so I appreciate
the attention you are drawing to our national parks throughout
the country, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. I thank the gentlelady. One problem is
theoretically this subcommittee has oversight jurisdiction over
70 percent of the Federal budget, which means we cover less of
a percentage of what we could cover than any other subcommittee
in Congress. So we kind of pick and choose, and we are trying
to develop a little wider scope to try to do our different
agencies. And that what you hear and what I have been finding,
because unlike the Resources Committee which is mostly people
who have long been interested in this issue, this committee is
different. The people didn't get on the Government Reform
Committee or the subcommittee because of an issue like this.
Yet there is a passion. And part of this that is really
changing in America, particularly the western Republicans tend
to feel that there is absolutely too much land in the public
domain, particularly of BLM and Forest Service use changed.
And some areas, people have been sitting next to me, have
97 percent in public land. In Indiana it is 3 percent public
land counting city, county, State, and township. And that what
you see is a drive east of the Mississippi that has
precipitated this diversity of the Park Service, as Mr. Galvin
mentioned about New York, and looking as people want more
trails, as people want their historic sites preserved, and they
want them regionally.
You heard Mr. Cummings talk about people in his city not
being able to go to Disney World. They are asking much closer,
how do we accommodate this, how are we going to do this, how do
we accommodate new and expansive subsections of our thing? And
it is a lot tougher in the urban areas in the east, because you
get into all kinds of land rights questions much more,
questions about values of property, the difficulties that we
run into, and some of the Civil War battlefields around
Manassas.
So we will try to get this scope, but what we are
ultimately doing here is saying, do we have adequate resources
to develop the parks and maintain them and protect them for
future generations like they were passed to us?
And then the second question with this is, is there a
vision, like Mr. Galvin referred to Mission 66, is there a
vision of where the Park Service is headed?
In other words, there are two aspects of this. One is, can
we sustain it? And the second is, what are we looking to leave
our kids? What are we trying to protect in our heritage? We
never evaluate, as was alluded to by Ms. Long, we really don't
evaluate. It is like we, other than at the very beginning,
hardly anything ever goes off once it gets in. And maybe we
have to make some of those kind of decisions. But we certainly
need to look at prioritizing and making sure that this system
reflects where we want to go. And, one way or another, we are
going to force some of those kind of discussions.
I thank you each for coming today. And, with that, the
subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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