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AS DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE: THE NATIONAL PARK 

SERVICE’S IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

AND THE

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 16, 2013 

Serial No. 113–116 

(Committee on Oversight and Government Reform) 

Serial No. 113–48 

(Committee on Natural Resources) 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

http://naturalresources.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

DOC HASTINGS, WA, Chairman 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, OR, Ranking Democratic Member 

Don Young, AK 

Louie Gohmert, TX 

Rob Bishop, UT 

Doug Lamborn, CO 

Robert J. Wittman, VA 

Paul C. Broun, GA 

John Fleming, LA 

Tom McClintock, CA 

Glenn Thompson, PA 

Cynthia M. Lummis, WY 

Dan Benishek, MI 

Jeff Duncan, SC 

Scott R. Tipton, CO 

Paul A. Gosar, AZ 

Rau ́l R. Labrador, ID 

Steve Southerland, II, FL 

Bill Flores, TX 

Jon Runyan, NJ 

Mark E. Amodei, NV 

Markwayne Mullin, OK 

Chris Stewart, UT 

Steve Daines, MT 

Kevin Cramer, ND 

Doug LaMalfa, CA 

Jason T. Smith, MO 

Eni F. H. Faleomavaega, AS 

Frank Pallone, Jr., NJ 

Grace F. Napolitano, CA 

Rush Holt, NJ 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, AZ 

Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU 

Jim Costa, CA 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, CNMI 

Niki Tsongas, MA 

Pedro R. Pierluisi, PR 

Colleen W. Hanabusa, HI 

Tony Ca ́ rdenas, CA 

Steven A. Horsford, NV 

Jared Huffman, CA 

Raul Ruiz, CA 

Carol Shea-Porter, NH 

Alan S. Lowenthal, CA 

Joe Garcia, FL 

Matt Cartwright, PA 

Vacancy 

Todd Young, Chief of Staff 

Lisa Pittman, Chief Legislative Counsel 

Penny Dodge, Democratic Staff Director 

David Watkins, Democratic Chief Counsel 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on October 16, 2013 .......................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Greg Bryan, Mayor, Town of Tusayan, Arizona 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 15 

Ms. Anna Eberly, Managing Director, Claude Moore Colonial Farm, McLean, 

Virginia 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 21 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 23 

Mr. Jonathan B. Jarvis, Director, National Park Service 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 32 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 34 

Ms. Lisa Simon, President, National Tourism Association, Lexington, Kentucky 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 37 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 39 

Mr. Myron Ebell, Director, Center for Energy and Environment, Competitive 

Enterprise Institute 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 43 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 45 

Mr. Denis P. Galvin, Board of Trustees, National Parks Conservation Association 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 50 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 52 

APPENDIX 

Opening Statement of Rep. Gerald Connolly ........................................................ 132 

Additional Statement for the record by The Hon. Pedro Pierluisi ...................... 134 

USA Article, ‘‘GOP asks: Why Were National Parks Shut Down, Anyway?’’ 

submitted by Chairman Issa ............................................................................... 137 

AP News Archive ‘‘Annoyed Tourists Shut Out Of Monuments—Again,’’ submitted by Chairman Issa ..................................................................................... 140 

U.S. Dept. of Interior National Park System Closure Determination and Notice, submitted by Chairman Issa ....................................................................... 142 

A letter to Rep. Cummings from the Military Officers Assoc. of America, 

submitted by Rep. Cummings ............................................................................. 144 

Statement from the Student Veterans of America submitted by Rep. 

Cummings ............................................................................................................. 146 

A Statement by Blount County Mayor Ed Mitchell, submitted by Rep. Duncan ......................................................................................................................... 148 

Donation Agreement Between the NPS and the State of Arizona, submitted 

by Chairman Issa ................................................................................................. 150 

A letter dated Mar. 27, 2013 to NPS and the April 19, 2013 response, 

submitted by Chairman Issa ............................................................................... 168 

Statement by Alan O’Neill, submitted by Rep. Horsford ..................................... 172 

A Feb. 28, 2013 letter from 300 businesses affected by NPS cuts, submitted 

by Rep. Lowenthal ............................................................................................... 175 

Statement of Mary Hountalas ................................................................................ 179 

Oct 15, 2013 letter to Rep. Cummings from the Reserve Offices Assoc. ............. 183 

The Victoria Advocate article of Oct. 13, 2013 ...................................................... 184 

Questions and responses from the NPS ................................................................. 186 

(1) 

AS DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE: THE NATIONAL 

PARK SERVICE’S IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN 

Wednesday, October 16, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

JOINT WITH COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committees met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa [chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform] presiding. 

Present for Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: 

Representatives Issa, Mica, Duncan, Jordan, Chaffetz, Walberg, 

Lankford, Amash, Gosar, Meehan, Gowdy, Lummis, Woodall, 

Massie, Meadows, Bentivolio, DeSantis, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Tierney, Lynch, Connolly, Pocan, Kelly, Davis, Horsford and 

Grisham. 

Present for the Committee on Natural Resources: Representatives Hastings, Young, Gohmert, Bishop, Lamborn, Wittman, Fleming, McClintock, Thompson, Benishek, Tipton, Labrador, Flores, 

Mullin, Stewart, Daines, LaMalfa, Smith, DeFazio, Faleomavaega, 

Napolitano, Holt, Grijalva, Bordallo, Costa, Tsongas, Pierluisi, 

Huffman, Shea-Porter, Lowenthal, Garcia, and Cartwright. 

Also present: Representative Noem. 

Staff present for Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: Ali Ahmad, Senior Communications Advisor; Molly Boyl, 

Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian; Lawrence J. Brady, 

Staff Director; Caitlin Carroll, Deputy Press Secretary; Sharon 

Casey, Senior Assistant Clerk; Steve Castor, General Counsel; 

Drew Colliatie, Professional Staff Member; Adam P. Fromm, Director of Member Services and Committee Operations; Linda Good, 

Chief Clerk; Tyler Grimm, Senior Professional Staff Member; Michael R. Kiko, Legislative Assistant; Mark D. Marin, Deputy Staff 

Director for Oversight; Katy Rother, Counsel; Laura L. Rush, Deputy Chief Clerk; Peter Warren, Legislative Policy Director; Rebecca 

Watkins, Communications Director; Sang H. Yi, Professional Staff 

Member; Krista Boyd, Minority Deputy Director of Legislation/ 

Counsel; Aryele Bradford, Minority Press Secretary; Jennifer Hoffman, Minority Communications Director; Chris Knauer, Minority 

Senior Investigator; Elisa LaNier, Minority Director of Operations; 

Juan McCullum, Minority Clerk; Leah Perry, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel; Brian Quinn, Minority Counsel; Dave Rapallo, MiVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:23 Jul 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88621.TXT APRIL
2 

nority Staff Director; Daniel Roberts, Minority Staff Assistant/Legislative Correspondent; Mark Stephenson, Minority Director of Legislation; and Cecelia Thomas, Minority Counsel. 

Chairman ISSA. The committee will come to order. Today we 

have a joint hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Natural Resources. The committee is entitled—the hearing is entitled ‘‘As Difficult As Possible: 

The National Park Service’s Implementation of the Government 

Shutdown.’’ 

With the indulgence of the chair and ranking member of the Resources Committee, the Oversight Committee’s mission statement: 

We exist to secure two fundamental principles. First, Americans 

have a right to know the money Washington takes from them is 

well spent; and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective 

government that works on their behalf. 

Our duty on the Government Oversight and Government Reform 

Committee is to protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility is 

to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers 

have a right to know that the money government takes from them 

is well spent. Our responsibility is to work tirelessly in partnership 

with citizens and watchdog groups to deliver the facts to the American people and bring a genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. 

This is our mission statement, and during a government shutdown 

more than ever we take that seriously. 

The National Park Service is the steward of the most treasured 

public spaces. Indeed, the Park Service is the caretaker of our national heritage. As such it is always—it has always been called on 

to act in the best interest of the American people and to never 

allow itself to be subjected to political influence or to work in any 

way other than on behalf of the American people and these treasured assets. Yet it appears today the Park Service leadership is no 

longer living up to that mandate. 

First allow me to say I support fully the funding of the National 

Park Service for fiscal year 2013 levels and the appropriation bill 

that would reopen the parks and fully fund as was passed by—on 

a bipartisan basis on October 2nd. Notwithstanding the Senate has 

not taken up that bill, every Republican member of both of these 

committees and three Democratic members did vote for that legislation. 

I understand that this is a confrontational time. This is a time 

in which issues other than the Park Service and its assets are 

being argued. We’re not here to argue that today. We’re here simply to discover whether or not the Park Service has met its legal 

obligation on one hand under the lack of an appropriations bill, and 

on the other hand has done everything it can to mitigate damage 

to the American people. 

During the lapse of appropriations, it is proper for nonessential 

park personnel and services to be suspended; however, it is clear 

that the lack of money does not mean that one park in America is 

required to close. 

As we speak to Director Jarvis today, I regret that he would not 

come voluntarily and had to be subpoenaed and served by the marshals. This is not the normal way that we do business with any administration official. 

3 

Why did the Park Service barricade the Lincoln Memorial? Why, 

when I asked the police standing duty there personally, did they 

tell me that every policeman was on duty, they were essential, and 

their job was to keep people out? I repeat, an open-air monument 

was guarded by the same number of people to prevent Americans 

from getting in as would allow them to safely go in and out on a 

daily basis. 

Why were veterans turned away from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? Why were Honor Flights initially told that they must cancel their planned visits? Why were members of the Americans’ finest generation, in their eighties and nineties, turned away and told 

they could not visit what would be undoubtedly, in many cases, 

their last time to those monuments? 

Why were private businesses and nonprofits operating near parkland shuttered? Why, in fact, did the Park Service spend money to 

stop commerce rather than spend no money and allow commerce to 

go forward? 

Why is the Park Service closing roads that run through parkland, but are used for local traffic? Why, in fact, would America 

ever expect that a public road necessary for ingress and egress and 

safety of a city, a town, or private residence ever be nonessential? 

We will hear from the Director today whatever he wants to say 

would justify stopping the public from using a public road. I doubt 

that I, in fact, will agree with him, but I certainly would like to 

hear his statement for why, in fact, these punitive measures were 

taken at no savings to the American people. 

Why, in short, is the shutdown so different than 1995 and 1996? 

The lessons learned in 1995 and ’96 should be the basic starting 

point for can we do better at a time without fundings and limited 

authority, rather than many facilities have successfully stayed 

open now being closed. One anonymous Park Service ranger told 

the Washington Times, ‘‘We’ve been told to make life as difficult for 

people as we can. It is disgusting.’’ If true—and I have no reason 

to doubt the truthfulness of that quote—it is indeed disgusting and 

despicable that the Park Service would do this. 

But, Director Jarvis, you’re not here for the first time. During sequestration we found a pattern of if someone said they could live 

with existing staff that they had already had attrition to cover sequestration, that wasn’t good enough. They had to send an alternate report. In fact, many of your lieutenants found that they were 

almost punished for thinking in advance and preparing for the possibility of that lower amount of the sequestration. 

During the Occupy program, you became before one of our committees and made it very clear that you were going to reinterpret 

the First Amendment to include, basically, people sleeping in the 

parks, defecating on the lawn, creating a health hazard for the people of the District of Columbia, and, in fact, would do nothing about 

it. You likened it to previous events, rather than likening it to people who were simply sleeping in the park. We disagreed with you 

then, and we disagree with you now. 

But I hope today we will have a healthy dialogue, and it gives 

you an opportunity to tell us why you have performed, and the 

Park Service under your leadership has performed, less well on beVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:23 Jul 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88621.TXT APRIL
4 

half of the American people during this shutdown than the one we 

had more than a decade ago. 

Chairman ISSA. With that I recognize the ranking member. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I will 

start today by asking a very obvious question: What in the world 

are we doing here? 

Today is the 16th day since House Speaker John Boehner shut 

down the United States Government. He could end the shutdown 

this morning, like right now, by simply allowing the House of Representatives to vote on legislation to reopen the government. This 

bill has already passed the Senate, and it has more than enough 

votes to pass the House, but Speaker Boehner refuses to bring it 

to the House floor without the support of a majority of his own political party. In other words, if Speaker Boehner brought this bill 

to the House floor today, it would pass with about two dozen Republicans and most, if not all, Democrats. 

Since he does not have 51 percent of the Republican Party, 

Speaker Boehner refuses to allow any vote on this bill. That is why 

we are still in this government shutdown. That is why people say 

Speaker Boehner is holding our country hostage. And that is why 

the American people correctly blame House Republicans for shutting down the government. Their approach puts the ideology of one 

political party ahead of the interests of our entire Nation. Even 

worse, if this issue is not resolved in the next few hours, we will 

begin defaulting on our debts, something our Nation has never 

done before. 

As House Republicans drive our Nation towards the fiscal cliff, 

credit-rating agencies are warning that the full faith and credit of 

our Nation is now at risk, and investors are dumping Treasury 

bills. 

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are truly concerned 

about the shutdown, allow us to end it. Stop this madness right 

now. Let us bring a clean Senate bill to the House floor, and let 

us pass it. You can still vote against it, but don’t bring down our 

entire government just because you do not want to allow a vote. 

Rather than allowing us to take this reasonable course of action, 

House Republicans today want to focus on restricted access to the 

World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. So let me address this 

issue directly. 

The World War II Memorial is a stunning and beautiful monument, but it is made of marble and fountains. Do you know what 

a more significant tribute to our veterans is? Do you know what 

really honors our Nation’s heroes for their service and for their sacrifice? Providing them with the benefits they earned after suffering 

injuries in combat; paying them the pensions they need to cover 

their rent, their utility bills, their food; and guaranteeing the assistance they rely on to stay off the streets and in some cases to 

simply stay alive. That is how we make good on our promises to 

veterans. We take care of them like they took care of us. They gave 

their blood, their sweat, and their tears; in some instances, all they 

had. 

Yesterday a nonpartisan coalition of 33 veterans groups held a 

rally at the World War II Memorial, and Garry Augustine, the executive director of the Disabled American Veterans, explained the 

5 

importance of these benefits of veterans across the country. This is 

what he said: ‘‘For many, those payments may be the primary and 

only source of income.’’ 

Also yesterday John Soltz, an Army veteran who started 

votevets.org after serving two tours in Iraq, said this: ‘‘If you lost 

both your legs in Vietnam, and you’re on prosthetics, and you’re 

100 percent connected disabled, you don’t get a disability check because the Republicans have hijacked the government over 

Obamacare.’’ 

I will conclude by reading from a statement issued on October 

3rd by two of the most distinguished World War II veterans ever 

to serve in Congress, Republican Bob Dole, Senator Bob Dole, and 

Democratic Representative John Dingell, who were both instrumental in creating the World War II Memorial. This is what they 

said: ‘‘As two proud World War II veterans, blessed also to serve 

this great Nation in Congress, we consider it our bipartisan work 

together in helping to create a National World War II Memorial to 

be among our greatest accomplishments and a true honor to our 

brothers-in-arms. If this Congress truly wishes to recognize the sacrifice and bravery of our World War II veterans and all who have 

come after, it will end this shutdown and reopen our government 

now. The current shutdown has slowed the rate at which the government can process veterans’ disability claims. And as the VA has 

stated, it is negatively impacting other services to our Nation’s veterans. Piecemeal or partial spending plans do not adequately ensure that our veterans, and indeed all Americans, have access to 

the system of self-government established to serve and protect 

them.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, we’re out of time. I understand that the Senate 

will make one more attempt this morning to resolve this issue on 

a bipartisan basis. I just hope and I pray that Speaker Boehner 

will finally put our Nation first, that he will put this bill on the 

floor and allow us to vote so we can avert default and reopen our 

government before it is too late. 

With that, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the chairman of the full Committee on Resources 

Mr. Hastings. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 

you and your staff for the cooperation as we put together this joint 

hearing. 

Now, back to the issue at hand. The issue at hand: ‘‘As Difficult 

As Possible: National Park Service’s Implementation of the Government Shutdown.’’ To anyone trying to follow or make sense of the 

National Park Service’s policies during this unfortunate government shutdown, I would say good luck. The policies have been arbitrary, inconsistent and ever-changing. Their actions appear to be 

motivated by two things: one, an attempt to make the shutdowns 

as painful and as visible as possible; and, two, because of one and 

the backlash, an attempt to squash the ensuing bad PR. That’s no 

way to run a government agency and no way to treat the American 

people across the country who visit, live, or work on our national 

parklands. 

6 

The actions of the Obama administration have sullied our great 

National Park System. In their most egregious act, the National 

Park Service erected barricades around open-air parks and memorials, areas that are open 24/7, 365 days a year. This is in direct 

contradiction to what happened during the last government shutdown 17 years ago. 

The Obama administration’s barricading of these sites is not 

something that they are required to do; it is something that they 

are choosing to do. Furthermore, they appear to only be barricading 

the highly visible sites; for example, the Lincoln Memorial and the 

World War II Memorial are barricaded. The people are currently 

free to walk around the Washington, D.C., World War I Memorial 

and the Japanese-Americans Memorial, both open sites. 

Thus far we have heard excuses from the Obama administration 

ranging from trash collection and maintenance to security concerns. Yet one by one it’s been confirmed that these excuses are excuses. The Mayor of Washington, D.C., declared that they will collect trash in the national parks around the city. As for security, it’s 

been reported that there are just as many National Park Police 

working along the National Mall now as before the shutdown. So 

from my perspective, there is no reason for these barricades. 

To add to that, the National Park Service’s selective reversal of 

policies has been even more confusing. For example, the administration realized its mistake only after public pressure built. As a 

result, they agreed to allow World War II veterans with the Honor 

Flight programs to visit their memorial and exercise their First 

Amendment rights. Now, while this is very good news for these veterans, it is not appropriate for the National Park Service to be denying these same rights to others who want to visit these open-air 

parks and memorials. 

This administration has also forced privately operated sites and 

businesses to close just because they happen to be located on public 

lands. These are businesses that don’t receive a dime of taxpayer 

dollars to operate. But, once again, after intense public and legal 

pressure, the Park Service has suddenly allowed some of these 

sites to reopen, while others, with no explanation, remain closed. 

I hope to hear from our witnesses today why this was allowed to 

happen in the first place and what changed to prompt the Park 

Service’s sudden reversal. 

In addition, the Obama administration first refused to allow 

States to pay to keep national parks in their respective States 

open. But what is now becoming a recurring theme, the Park Service suddenly changed their mind after more than a week, again, of 

public backlash. I do want to point out that during the last government shutdown in ’95, ’96, States were allowed to pay to keep the 

national parks open and were later reimbursed by the Federal Government. There is absolutely no reason why it should be any different this time under this administration. Erroneous claims by the 

Interior Department that they can’t pay and may not be able to reimburse States simply defy history. 

At today’s hearing we expect to get answers, not excuses, and to 

get to the bottom of when and how all these arbitrary decisions 

were made and by whom. 

7 

The past 21⁄2 weeks have also raised broader questions about 

how the National Park Service is run. This shouldn’t be the only 

time we take a look at how the Park Service operates and interacts 

with all States, counties, private businesses, and private property 

owners. The Committee on Natural Resources expects to continue 

its oversight of the Park Service’s actions, as we have with other 

Federal land-management agencies. 

And with that I’ll yield back my time. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the ranking member from Oregon Mr. DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the chairman. 

You know, normally I begin these hearings by thanking my Republican colleagues for holding a hearing, inviting witnesses to testify on important issues before the Congress. But, you know, that’s 

not appropriate today. The Republican majority closed down the 

Federal Government in a vain attempt to repeal or delay the Affordable Care Act; Obamacare, as they call it. Well, we’re 15 days 

into a Republican-initiated government shutdown, and now the Republicans want to investigate why the national parks are shut 

down. 

Our Nation is already threatened with a credit downgrade, close 

to the point of default, because the Republicans have linked their 

shutdown now to the debt limit and could trigger the first default 

in our Nation’s history, and here we are holding a hearing on why 

the Republican government shutdown led to a shutdown of our national parks. Instead of trying to prevent economic hardship, potential financial catastrophe, we’re having a hearing that is at best 

nonsensical. 

I’m going to spend my time talking about how this Seinfeld shutdown, or the shutdown about nothing, has kept hunters out of refuges, crabbers out of the fishing season, loggers off our 

timberlands, and citizens out of our national parks. 

When you decided to shut down the government over 2 weeks 

ago, did you forget the National Park System, which includes memorials, is part of the Federal Government? No, you knew that, but 

you apparently forgot the economic impact our iconic parks have in 

gateway communities, and you forgot that the American people 

value their public lands and the solemn tribute of the World War 

II and other war memorials. 

The title of this so-called hearing is laughable: ‘‘As Difficult As 

Possible: The National Park Service’s Implementation of the Government Shutdown.’’ If you want to spend your time here dissecting individual decisions about what monuments are open, 

which are closed, let me save you some time. Our National Park 

System is surprisingly part of our national government, which you 

shut down. 

And I’m going to demonstrate, if the Republican side would look 

at me, I will show you who is responsible. Right here. Here you 

are. This is who is responsible for shutting down the national parks 

and memorials. Guess what. The Republican-caused government 

shutdown is irresponsible, causing credible economic hardships to 

the public servants you have put out of work. And, yes, it is painful. It is painful for every single American. And that’s why we don’t 

shut the government down on a year-to-year basis. 

8 

This hearing is a sideshow, it’s political theater. Are we meeting 

here today to amplify the efforts of Senator Cruz, Senator Lee and 

Sarah Palin last Sunday on the networks? Do we really need to 

give a platform for a group of people cheering when their leader, 

Larry Klayman, said: ‘‘wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, to demand that this President leave 

town, to get up, to put the Koran down, to get up off his knees, 

to figuratively come out with his hands up while others went to the 

White House waving Confederate flags’’? 

Maybe the majority wants to give a megaphone to groups like the 

Competitive Enterprise Institute. They are here today. They once 

called expanding our Federal estate ‘‘rural cleansing.’’ Really? 

Rural cleansing? Our parks, our monuments, that was rural cleansing? You’d take them away, you’d give them back, you’d sell them? 

Well, you can continue to engage in your irresponsible talk and 

try and make the Park Service and our Park Rangers the target 

of your own ineptitude and intransigence, but we’re not going to 

play that game. 

I would yield the balance of my time to Representative Grijalva. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. 

Let me just concur that we seem to be here at this hearing functioning in an alternative universe. We have the Republican majority and their leadership that created the shutdown. We have the 

Republican majority and their leadership that can’t manage the 

shutdown. And we have the Republican majority and their leadership that can’t get us out of the shutdown. So what do we do? We 

have a hearing. Today the majority holds this feeble hearing to 

scapegoat Director Jarvis and blame him for the fact that they 

can’t cope with reality. 

The national parks, as Mr. DeFazio said, are part of our government. People love them people, people depend on them, economies 

depend on them. But—and the—to avoid reality of the shutdown 

or the responsibility for that is to neglect the job that we have as 

Members of Congress, and thus far this majority has neglected it 

consistently. 

And with that I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman from—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to recognize the chairman 

of the National Park Subcommittee on Natural Resources, the gentleman from Utah Mr. Bishop. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Jarvis and our witnesses. I don’t know whether it was on purpose or whether it just 

happens to appear that way, but it seems to be our policy towards 

our public lands has been vindictive and petty and politicized. I 

wonder why the cooperation of the ’90s does not exist. 

But what is very clear is that there is a better way. What we 

have seen are that the States are willing to step up and help people when Washington fails; not just when Congress fails, but when 

the agencies fail at the same time. I’m very proud that when your 

Department ordered the national park—the Federal lands that are 

administered and run by the State of Wisconsin to close down, the 

Governor basically said no, that he would run those regardless. I’m 

proud of the Governors in Arizona and Utah and South Dakota and 

9 

Colorado, who have stepped up to pay to have those parks functioning. 

What we have simply found is that when the States and local 

governments are involved in the management of our public lands, 

it is a better process. If you look in the State of Utah, the Sand 

Flats, which is a wonderful recreation area, this time BLM property, that the BLM could not manage, didn’t have the resources to 

manage, nor the desire. And when a near riot broke out one time 

in the recreation area, they decided to work with the county to 

come up with a county-managed plan, which is now a wonderful 

recreation area that not only provides opportunities for people to 

recreate, but is done without a cost to the taxpayer at the same 

time. 

The Coral Pink Sand Dunes in southern Utah is land that has 

been given back to the State of Utah, even though there is some 

Federal land there, and is managed—as one newspaper reported, 

1 of the 10 wonders—10 unheralded parks in the Nation. It’s a 

great opportunity simply because local government was given the 

opportunity to be involved in the management process. 

In our hearings we’ve already shown how the forests in Idaho 

and Washington on State land are far more productive, have far 

less wildfires, and are much healthier than the Federal land that 

is right next door. The same thing happens on Park Service land 

and BLM land. And what we need to realize is that this shutdown 

has illustrated there is a better way, and that better way is the involvement of State and local governments in the management of 

our public lands so that this kind of situation does not necessarily 

have to happen. And what we need is to look forward in that. 

What I find is so frustrating, though, in due respect, is that this 

situation in which we find ourselves is not necessarily unique to 

the shutdown. This has been happening for those of us who live in 

the Intermountain West for years. When the Park Service harms 

outfitters and guides by insisting that their insurance payments 

have to go up from a 1- to a $5 million policy, prohibiting them 

from doing issue; when a park in Washington bans an annual 

church picnic and concert for veterans because the noise that would 

be established would be too loud for the cultural and historic aspects of the rest of the park; when Park Service personnel says a 

murder victim in Nevada cannot be found, and the family wants 

to hire somebody to go in and look, and it takes them 15 months 

to raise the money to pay for the special use permit, and then when 

they go and they find that body within 2 hours after the Park Service said it was impossible; or an Air Force staff sergeant who was 

drowned as that same park, and the Park Service refuses to allow 

a private company that is an expert in underwater recovery to go 

and find the body, it takes 10 months for the family to finally get 

a lawyer and go to court, and then when it’s allowed, that body is 

found within a matter of days; when on a wild and scenic recreation river, the Park Service decides to ban all sorts of paddling 

and oars so that the only—and obviously electronic motors—so the 

only thing you can do for recreation, I guess, is fish watching; when 

the Park Service writes a statement about the Keystone pipeline 

being an endanger to its parkland, and the closest land is 30 miles 

away, what we have found is there is a pattern not just in this 

10 

shutdown, but a pattern that has recurred year after year and has 

been exacerbated in the last few. I find that disgusting and disheartening, to say the least. 

There is a better way. The States have stood up and shown that 

they can be better managers of the land. And if we really want to 

have a long-range policy for public lands in the future, we have to 

incorporate cooperation with States and local government and 

allow them to have a greater say in the management of our public 

lands. Federalism is the solution to our problems, and it may even 

be the salvation of this country. 

I thank the gentleman from Washington, and I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentlelady from the District of Columbia, an 

area very much affected by this shutdown, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Indeed the District of Columbia is a double-whammy victim of this shutdown. And blaming the National Park Service for closing the parks is like voting for capital punishment and 

then blaming the hangman as executions proceed. Locally the District cannot meet the payment coming up for its charter schools. 

We cannot pay for disabled children in group homes because our 

local funds are held here. This in addition to the national parks 

which fund our tourist economy, that has collapsed. 

So the District of Columbia’s local funds shouldn’t even be here. 

And certainly, certainly our local economy, dependent on the opening of all of our monuments, should not now be collapsed because 

Republicans have shut down the Federal Government. 

And I yield the remainder of my time to Mr. Holt of New Jersey. 

Mr. HOLT. I thank the gentlelady. 

Earlier this morning I spoke with my hundred-year-old mother, 

and she asked what we would be doing today in Congress. And I 

said I was going to hope to find that the Republican side found 

some backbone and got their act together to get the government operating. And she said, ‘‘It sounds like you’re going to have a long 

day.’’ 

Well, over the last 2 weeks, the Republicans seemed surprised to 

find out that the Federal Government actually does things to help 

people, but they can’t agree on what to do about it. So today they 

found something they can agree on, which is blaming someone else 

for what they’ve done. 

So the Federal Government does perform very tangible functions, 

and when it’s disrupted in a disrupting way, an abrupt way, you 

know, you find people affected in ways that weren’t predicted. 

The solution is quite simple. They could bring a vote to the 

House this morning, it would pass, everything would be fixed, the 

barricades would be down, the hard-working members would be 

back to work. 

With that, I yield time to Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the gentleman. 

We are in a Kafka novel. The Federal Government is shut down. 

We’re on the brink of the first default, the creditworthiness, sovereign debt of the United States, and we’re going to have a hearing 

to pillory Director Jarvis because he shut down national parks 

after the Republican majority shut down the government. Imagine 

their shock that there would be consequences that their favorite 

11 

place to picnic is closed, and that the National Park Service is, in 

fact, enforcing it. And we saw that shameful moment where a 

member of the Republican Caucus actually berated a National 

Park Service ranger for doing her job. 

This is a Kafkaesque moment, and the solution isn’t to have a 

hearing to pillory someone for doing his job. The solution is to reopen this government without condition, to avoid default without 

condition, and get on with the business of governance before we destroy all confidence in this legislative body. 

And with that I yield to my colleague Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much. 

I wonder how many Republicans really thought about the farreaching effects of this shutdown. Nationwide the shutdown has 

furloughed more than 20,000 National Park Service employees, 21 

of them work for the War in the Pacific National Historic Park on 

Guam, that small island in the Pacific. I wonder, how many 

thought about that? So only 2 employees remain on duty there to 

provide security and emergency services, and we have 600 visitors 

daily. 

The shutdown has negatively impacted Guam’s tourism economy 

for something that could have been avoided entirely by passing a 

clean CR. We have failed in this Congress our National Park Service employees and our Nation. And I have made this point repeatedly at House Armed Services and will continue to do so until this 

Republican-led shutdown is completed. 

And I’ll end my remarks saying let’s shut down the shutdown. 

And I yield my time to Representative Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. I want to thank you, Director Jarvis, for appearing 

before the committee today. As you know, my district is home to 

two great national parks, and I know firsthand how devastating 

the shutdown has been for our local economy, for hundreds of 

school children who haven’t had access to the parks, and for our 

dedicated park employees who have been furloughed. Overall, millions of Americans have been impacted. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady’s time has expired. Would you 

please conclude? 

Ms. TSONGAS. Well, I think that if you really care about opening 

the national parks, about putting our government workers back to 

work, that we could have a vote today on a clean CR that would 

fund government and avoid a default for the first time in this country. 

Chairman ISSA. All Members may have 7 days in which to submit opening statements for the record. 

And as I recognize the panel, I would admonish all Members that 

House rules prohibit questioning the intent or the character of another Member of the House or the Senate. So as we go through this 

hearing, you may quote from statements made, but the intent of a 

Member or adverse intent is not admissible. 

Additionally, I now ask unanimous consent that the USA Today 

article, last night, ‘‘GOP Asks Where the National Park Shutdown’’—or ‘‘Why Were the National Parks Shut Down Anyway’’ be 

entered in the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

We now recognize our panel of witnesses. Mr. Greg Bryan is 

Mayor of Tucson—Tusayan, not to be confused with the other simiVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:23 Jul 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88621.TXT APRIL
12 

lar name in Arizona. Ms. Anna Eberly is the managing director of 

Claude Moore Colonial Farm. Mr. Jonathan Jarvis is Director of 

the National Park Service. Miss Lisa Simon is the president of the 

National Tour Association. Mr. Myron Ebell is director of energy 

and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. 

And Mr. Dennis Galvin is a member of the Board of Trustees of 

the National Parks Conservation Association. 

Pursuant to the rules of the Oversight Committee, I would ask 

that all members rise, raise their right hands, and be sworn. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

Please be seated. 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

We have a large panel today. And in order to—on both sides of 

the dais. And in order to allow time, I would ask that your limit 

your opening statements to 5 minutes. Your entire opening record 

plus any other submissions you think pertinent to your testimony 

will be placed in the record. 

And with that, I now recognize Mayor Bryan. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF GREG BRYAN 

Mr. BRYAN. Thank you, Chairman Issa, Chairman Hastings, 

Ranking Members Cummings and DeFazio, and Congressmen here. 

And also like to recognize Congressman Gosar for his assistance in 

many ways as well. 

I come before you today wearing two hats. I’m both the mayor 

of our small town of 558 people, 3 years old, Arizona’s newest community, and also that of a general manager of a rather nice 250- 

room hotel. And our little town is located on the southern boundary 

of Grand Canyon National Park. We exist for one reason. We exist 

because Grand Canyon National Park brings 4–1/2 million people 

a year to visit it. Without the park being there, there’s no reason 

for our community. We’re a tourism industry, we’re dependent 

upon the tourism industry, and without that park open, we basically are shut down. 

We have a good relationship with our park. We appreciate Governor—excuse me, Superintendent Uberuaga and his team that 

recognize that those workers, those rangers are there because they 

choose to serve and to share this beautiful wonderful resource. And 

we know that this shutdown has impacted them in many ways as 

well as our community. They recognize that relationship and want 

to protect that relationship. At the same time we feel like we have 

sincerely been—significantly been impacted by the decisions to 

close down the government and our national park. 

The month of October is a very wonderful month. It’s a beautiful 

month to be in Grand Canyon. When we started out, it was 90-plus 

percent occupancy at the end of September, reservations on the 

books, ready to come. Our river outfitters had, I believe, seven or 

eight trips worth $900,000 ready to go down the Colorado River. 

13 

Today I’ll tell you that at least in one hotel we’re in the low 40 percent and dropping. We’ve lost over $400,000 in one place alone. 

The impact to our community has been in the millions of dollars 

within a very short time. All this because elected Members of Congress and the President can’t come to grips with passing and getting a budget going. In the meantime we in the front line feel kind 

of like cannon fodder. We feel like we’re the ball bouncing back and 

forth, and we’re the ones that are paying the bill. 

Suddenly our source of business, our source of income for our little community is closed, October 1st. We immediately began to ask 

questions with regard to how we can do it, how we can get our 

park back open. In 1995, same thing happened, and within a reasonably short period of time, there was an agreement worked out 

between the National Park Service, Department of Interior, and 

our Governor Fife Symington. That application, that policy could 

have been easily put into place. We don’t understand why it wasn’t. 

It could have been pulled out, dusted off, changed to apply today, 

and then applied. 

But we went in—out and asked, and we offered to put up funds. 

Within a very short time, our little town of 558 people put up 

$200,000 out of our coffers as a community. Within a few more 

days, we had well over $200,000 committed from the business community in our area and across the State. We were willing to put 

up and fund the expenses at no cost to the National Park Service 

to keep portions of the park open. 

We weren’t asking for a full opening; we were asking for partial. 

We were asking the Highway 64, a primary conduit through the 

national park, comes up from I–40, it connects you between Albuquerque and Los Angeles, heavily traveled, tour buses, RVs; our 

connection, Highway 64, runs through the town of Tusayan, goes 

into the park, and turns east to connect to a Highway 89, which 

then goes into many other national parks and monuments. 

The first couple of days it was left open. We thank Superintendent Uberuaga for that. But the plan that was used was 

failed—was doomed to fail from the beginning. We were allowing 

people to traverse through the park, everything else was closed, 

but the parking spaces alongside the road were barricaded. It’s 

kind of like offering a piece of candy to somebody and saying, you 

can’t open it. You can’t open it. They’re going to find a way. Their 

frustration was there. Therefore, the buses, tour buses, RVs and 

personal cars were parking either on the shoulders or in the road 

to take a look at this great, magnificent World Heritage site. 

We understand that, and we agree with the Superintendent 

when he closed it because it was unsafe. We feel that—and we had 

offered—Coconino County Sheriffs Department said they would assist, and they have concurrent jurisdiction inside the park; offered 

to help patrol and keep it safe, open up the parking spaces, allow 

people to at least view. We offered to put up Porta Potties to help 

keep things reasonably clean. We were told no. 

We asked why we couldn’t apply the thing—the agreement in 

1995. It’s against National Park Service or Department of Interior 

or administration’s policy. We never quite got it clear. We were told 

that either all the parks open, or none of the parks open. We have 

concerns about that. And we believe that when a national park is 

14 

closed, that the individuals in the community, if they come forward 

and are offered to help and to support, ought to be able to open 

that. 

We really appreciate the work of Governor Jan Brewer in her efforts to reopen the park, and we’re very ecstatic last Saturday 

morning, in a beautiful blue sky, to open up, with the Superintendent’s help, Grand Canyon National Park for business again. 

We look forward to having some changes after the shutdown is 

done and come back to you and request some options with regard 

to clarifying a policy that says we be able to and a community that 

wants to stand up, take responsibility, be accountable when the 

government won’t and pay the bills. We think the policy ought to 

be clarified to allow that to take place. 

I can tell from you being on the front lines, when you have a 

family come in from South Africa, or Australia, or Brazil or China, 

in many cases planning for 10 years to bring their children and experience that, and you got to tell them at 7 o’clock at night after 

they’ve driven all that way, can’t go in national park. They can’t 

see it. Well, why not? With tears streaming down the children’s 

face, we got to tell them, because our government has shut it down. 

We need to find different ways of doing this. And we would really 

appreciate the time afterwards to talk about a potential for the future of creating a clarity to the policy that would allow a national 

park to be run—not run, but assisted and expenses covered by local 

community. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you, Mayor. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Bryan follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Ms. Eberly. 

STATEMENT OF ANNA EBERLY 

Ms. EBERLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, for your invitation. I’m really honored to be here. I’m the 

managing director of the Claude Moore Colonial Farm in McLean. 

I’m representing our staff, volunteers, and visitors here. 

The farm is a living history site that shows the life of a poor family in 1771 struggling to survive while fight for freedom is growing 

around them. The farm is also a privately operated national park 

unit of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. 

I’ve been involved with the farm since 1972, first as a volunteer, 

then as an employee of the Park Service, helping to establish the 

farm, which opened to the public in 1973. Due to cuts in national 

park funding in 1981, the farm’s public programs were going to be 

eliminated. And subsequently the farm became privately operated 

by the nonprofit organization Friends of the Farm. At the same 

time, I resigned my Park Service position to manage the farm for 

the Friends and have been there ever since. 

I came here today because I thought it might not only help the 

farm, but maybe even help other groups like us. Along with many 

other national park partners, we’ve been severely affected by the 

recent closing of our site as part of the continuing government 

shutdown. Fortunately, we were allowed to reopen on Wednesday 

of last week, but most others have not been so lucky. We still don’t 

know why we were closed, nor do we know why we were allowed 

to open a week later. The farm has never been included in government shutdowns as there are no Park Service employees at the 

farm, nor have there been since 1981. 

During the previous shutdown almost 20 years ago, it made 

sense that if NPS personnel couldn’t be paid to staff the parks, the 

parks couldn’t open. No one was happy about that, but people understood. This time the NPS chose to close areas to the public that 

don’t depend on NPS personnel. Locally that included us, a ball 

field at the end of our road leased to Fairfax County and rented 

to children’s sports groups, the scenic overlooks on the north end 

of the parkway, and, of course, the closing down of the veterans 

memorials on the National Mall. 

I realize that in the proverbial heat of battle, someone could 

make decisions that have unintended consequences, but wasn’t 

anyone watching the news? Couldn’t someone have come forward 

and admit they have made a huge mistake? As the managing director of the farm, I’ve had to deal with people that are unhappy. Fortunately, not very often. And I have a choice. I can be defensive, 

or I can immediately reach out and say, I am so sorry that your 

experience at the farm wasn’t perfect. How can we make this right, 

and how can we make sure we never do it again? Within a few 

emails or phone calls, that person has now become a friend of ours, 

not an enemy, and if I can’t bring myself to do that, then I 

shouldn’t be the director of the farm. 

I don’t know who was responsible for the National Park Service 

actions this time. Maybe it was the White House, Department of 

the Interior; maybe the Park Service acted entirely on their own; 

or maybe no one is in charge there. But the results of the National 

22 

Park Service looks foolish and inept and not worthy of managing 

the immense natural and cultural resources entrusted to them. 

As a lifelong Virginian, my big park is Shenandoah, which is a 

wonderful place, one of the very few unspoiled natural areas close 

to lots of people. Out of the entire year, October is the month. Everybody goes there to look at the leaves. The people who work for 

the concessions in the park and the businesses that depend on the 

visitors in that area are in terrible trouble. Their season is basically over by the end of this weekend. 

Virginia acquired much of that land and then gave it to the Federal Government to become part of the national park system. I’m 

sure there are people in Richmond now, just like in the western 

parks, saying, well, if you can’t open it, maybe we can. 

For the farm worker on your farm, being treated with destain 

and contempt by the National Park Service is nothing new, and the 

details are in my written testimony. And if you’re interested, I 

have all the documents to back up everything I wrote. 

The volunteer staff and public who care about the farm just want 

to get on with running the farm and doing the very best job that 

we can. What we do is hard enough, and we’re just asking for fairness, honesty, and a partner that doesn’t stab us in the back at 

every opportunity. 

I don’t know what the future holds for the farm. As our original 

1981 NPS agreement is up for renewal in 2016, I have been told 

the process now of developing a new agreement will take at least 

3 years, and agreements now only last for 5 years. That means almost as soon as we sign a new agreement, we will have to start 

negotiating the next one. In addition, the loss of the NPS maintenance contribution to the farm this year will have to come from 

somewhere. And, of course, we will have to make up the revenue 

that was lost because of the recent closure of the farm. But we’re 

hopeful that we can find a way through these latest difficulties, 

and that the farm will emerge stronger and more committed than 

ever. 

We have only turned to our Congressman Wolf and Congressman 

Moran a few times over the years to help us in working with the 

national park service. The opportunity to come before so many of 

you was just too good a chance to pass up, and I’m happy to do 

anything I can to help fix it. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. And thank you for your service, both 

public and private. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Eberly follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Director Jarvis. 

STATEMENT OF JONATHAN B. JARVIS 

Mr. JARVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

On October the 1st, the National Park Service began to implement a shutdown of our activities due to the lapse in appropriations. Under the closure determination notice that I issued that 

day, we closed and secured all 401 national parks across the country and furloughed more than 20,000 of our employees, consistent 

with the Antideficiency Act. Approximately 3,000 employees were 

excepted from this furlough to respond to threats to the safety of 

human life and the protection of property. Absent appropriations, 

the National Park Service will continue to implement the approved 

contingency plan that was made public on September 27. 

The closure has had far-reaching impacts across the country on 

families with planned visits, businesses, gateway communities, and 

employees. The National Park System welcomes more than 282 

million people per year and more than 700,000 people per day in 

October. The parks are loved not only because they are beautiful 

and historic, but because they are well managed, protected, and interpreted, and maintained by a professional workforce, a workforce 

that is now largely on furlough. 

The national parks are incredible economic drivers. Visitor 

spending generates an estimated 32 million per day in communities near national parks and contributes 76 million each day to 

the national economy. 

In response to the economic impacts of the closures, Secretary 

Jewell announced on October 10th that Interior would consider 

agreements with Governors who indicate an interest and ability to 

fully fund the National Park Service personnel to reopen national 

parks in their States. This is a practical and temporary solution 

that will lessen the pain for some businesses and communities. 

Turning away visitors is not our culture, nor our DNA. We look forward to reopening all 401 national parks. 

The closure did not apply to through roads in parks that provided primary access between points located outside of the parks, 

such as Rock Creek Parkway. It also did not affect First Amendment activities on the National Mall and memorial parks and at 

Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia due to regulations and court cases specific to these areas. Because these two 

areas are long-standing venues for hundreds of First Amendment 

activities each year, we anticipated that there would be the potential for such activities during the shutdown. 

The National Park Service has maintained law enforcement services provided by the U.S. Park Police and rangers for emergency 

and disaster assistance. We also have maintained our firefighting 

programs, border and coastal protection, and surveillance activities. 

Projects that were funded with nonlapsing appropriations have also 

continued. 

There has been a lot of attention on the monuments, memorials 

on the National Mall. They are among the many places that the 

National Park Service cares for that honor for those that have 

fought and died for our Nation. We are proud of the special relationship we share with America’s veterans, and we know that they 

33 

will be here—we will be here to protect these memorials now and 

in future generations. 

On a normal day there are over 300 National Mall and Memorial 

Park employees on duty. The rangers provide the eyes and ears of 

the U.S. Park Police. They enhance the visitor experience by sharing the history of the war, keeping the grounds and the restrooms 

clean, maintaining the landscape and fountains, and overseeing 

special events. All but a dozen of these 300 employees have been 

furloughed. 

Even though the U.S. Park Police commissioned officers have 

been excepted from the furlough, given the limited staff resources, 

prudent and practical steps were taken to secure the life and property of these national icons. 

We know that the visits to our World War II veterans to the memorials are pilgrimages, and many of them will make them only 

once. Throughout the shutdown, we have worked diligently to try 

to ensure that no Honor Flight group, veteran, or their family has 

been turned away from visiting the veterans’ memorials. Likewise, 

those also engaging in First Amendment activities are welcome to 

visit the war memorials. 

Congress has charged the National Park Service with the preservation and protection of the park’s natural, historic, and cultural 

resources for the benefit of future generations. This requirement in 

law exists whether the parks are open or shut down. With very few 

employees available, we are endeavoring to fulfill our mission the 

best we can. We look forward to the end of the shutdown so that 

we can reopen all of our national parks for the education, inspiration, and enjoyment of the American people. 

Be glad to answer any questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Jarvis follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Ms. Simon. 

STATEMENT OF LISA SIMON 

Ms. SIMON. Thank you, Chairman Issa, Chairman Hastings, 

Ranking Members Cummings and DeFazio, and members of the 

committees. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on behalf of our 

members and the tourism industry. The National Tour Association 

membership includes 702 operators, who package tours to, from 

and within North America. They collectively move 10 million travelers annually and represent $6 billion in annual sales; 74 percent 

work domestically, and 36 percent are bringing international visitors into the United States. They serve both groups and individuals, travelers of all ages, and various special interest groups, and 

the majority of our members are small businesses. The balance of 

our 3,000 members are suppliers of travel components like hotels, 

attractions, restaurants, transportation companies and destination 

marketers, such as national, state and local tourism organizations. 

Tour operators and their customers plan their trips 6 to 18 months 

in advance, so an abrupt shutdown of 401 park units cannot come 

without significant disruptions and costs. 

Since October 1, tour operators and their supplier partners have 

been scrambling to reroute itineraries and find alternative destinations and activities on a daily basis. NTA has had a longstanding 

relationship with the National Park Service, and they generally 

recognize the planning cycle needed in the package travel industry, 

yet with this shutdown, neither NTA nor its tour operator members 

were advised about what park units would be closed during the 

shutdown. It has been difficult to locate information on what’s 

closed, including roads through and around Federal lands. 

In many cases, our members and their customers discovered closures upon arrival or had to send colleagues in advance to find out 

what the situation was. Our association and members incorrectly 

speculated that some of the units would remain open, particularly 

those that had no limited hours, no admission desks, no security 

checkpoints and, generally speaking, no specific point of entry. As 

a result, our tour operators have spent the last 2 weeks constantly 

dealing with a myriad of challenges and finding alternative activities and lodging. 

We surveyed our members 1 week into the shutdown, and 82 

percent across the board reported an impact. Specifically, 85 percent of the tour operators reported rerouting and changing 

itineraries; 46 percent reported cancellations; and 57 percent reported having to refund deposits and fees. Initial estimates of the 

financial loss totaled $114 million just in the first week. 

Some of our members are also the suppliers and destinations 

that are dependent on the national parks in their areas, and they 

reported an immediate decline in business; 91 percent reporting 

cancelled or postponed tours; 56 percent in the first week were already seeing fewer visitors in their areas. 

In addition to the immediate losses, the shutdown will have lasting effects on both the domestic travel industry and international 

visitation. The U.S. Travel Association estimates that we are losing 

38 

$152 million a day. And the closure of the national parks is a big 

part of the reason that we see countries like the U.K., Germany 

and Australia have issued travel warnings for the United States. 

Another illustration is the burgeoning China market. NTA helps 

facilitate the MOU between the U.S. Department of Commerce and 

the China National Tourism Administration by certifying the U.S. 

tour operators who are able to handle that business from China. 

The beginning of October was Golden Week, which in China is a 

major vacation week. NTA tour operators reported not only disappointed customers, but angry visitors, who were unable to visit 

the national parks during their once-in-a-lifetime visit to the 

United States. Many of these inbound China operators were also 

not familiar with what was Federal parks versus State parks, and 

thus had an even greater challenge finding information about their 

planned tours. 

We recognize that it is impossible to predict whether or not there 

will be a government shutdown and that coordinating immediate 

closures of hundreds of parks is an enormous task. However, we 

recommend that there be a better plan that would avoid this situation in the future and enable the most significant park destinations 

at a minimum remain open, and that there be a communications 

plan that pushes out information to the travel trade and to the 

public. With today’s technology capabilities, it should provide 

ample opportunities to better communicate what’s happening. 

Tour operators depend on advanced planning, and we’re seeing 

the consequences of the disruption caused by these closures with 

no specific notice. 

Thank you for allowing me to testify today. I look forward to 

your questions. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Simon follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Mr. Ebell. 

STATEMENT OF MYRON EBELL 

Mr. EBELL. Chairman Issa and Chairman Hastings, thank you 

for inviting me to testify here today at this important hearing on 

the way the National Park Service is implementing the Federal 

shutdown. My name is Myron Ebell, and I am director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group that has been already recognized here today. 

CEI is a nonprofit and nonpartisan free market public policy institute that specializes in regulations. A large part of our work is 

devoted to environmental issues, including management of the Federal lands by the four Federal land agencies. Twenty years ago, I 

spent 4 or 5 years as the Washington representative of the American Land Rights Association, which was started in 1978 by Chuck 

Cushman as the National Park Inholders Association, so I have 

some firsthand experience of these issues. Later, I worked for a 

former member of the Natural Resources Committee from Arizona, 

and dealt with a wide array of Federal lands issues, including all 

the national park problems in Arizona. 

Now, clearly, a Federal shutdown is going to cause many Federal 

facilities to have to close, including parks. Director Jarvis explained 

how rational and well thought-out their program for doing that 

was, but that isn’t the issue. The issue is all of these petty, malicious acts. How can you close down a parking lot at Mt. Vernon 

that you lease to the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association and have nothing to do with? You are spending extra money to come and close 

it down. Does that comply with the Anti-Deficiency Act to close 

down Glen Echo Park along the Clara Barton Parkway, which is 

funded and operated by Montgomery County; to close the Claude 

Moore Colonial Farm, as Anna Eberly has explained; to close Langley Sports Park in Fairfax County, which was—which is leased to 

Fairfax County and operated and maintained by them; to take 

cones and barricades and close off turn-offs on State highways so 

people can’t stop to take photos and look at Mount Rushmore? 

Where does the personnel and the money for that come from? 

These are questions that I think need to be answered. 

Now, I think that the publicity for some of these small-minded 

and almost unbelievable—unbelievably low actions by the National 

Park Service are—the public is starting to notice those, and I think 

they are figuring out an important point, and this is really what 

I want to concentrate on: Americans love their national parks, and 

the National Park Service has spent decades hiding behind that affection that Americans rightly have for those great natural wonders and historic sites. The National Park Service, for anybody who 

has followed its history, is a terrible steward of many of its parks, 

of the environmental conditions in those parks. They are also not 

visitor friendly in many cases. They are not people friendly. They 

are not good neighbors, they—they mistreat their inholders, and 

they act like they own everything and that everybody else can just 

lump it. 

So I hope that this starts a process, this public awareness, this 

opening to understanding that the National Park Service is not the 

44 

same as our great national parks to investigate the problems in the 

National Park Service and to initiate much needed reforms. 

I was—I was somewhat—my anger about what has been going 

on was somewhat relieved by—this weekend when the veterans 

went to the World War II Memorial and picked up the barricades 

and put them in front of the White House. As President Obama 

often says, ‘‘We’re Americans. We can do that.’’ Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Ebell follows:] 

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Chairman ISSA. Mr. Galvin. 

STATEMENT OF DENIS P. GALVIN 

Mr. GALVIN. Mr. Chairman, my name is Dennis Galvin. Today I 

represent the National Parks and Conservation Association, its 

800,000 members and supporters. NPCA has advocated support for 

our National Park System since 1919. Perhaps more pertinent to 

today’s hearing is the nearly 40 years I spent with the National 

Park Service, the last 16 years in Washington. Nine of those were 

as deputy director. I held that post under Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush. 

I am informed that there have been 17 shutdowns since 1976, 

ranging from 1 to 21 days. During my tenure, there were five, including the long shutdown, 21 days of 1995, 1996. I have been 

struck by the similarities between that 1995, 1996 event and today’s. 

Let me say a little bit about preparing shutdown plans. They are 

by force of circumstance hastily prepared by people who hope that 

they will not have to be used. For a highly decentralized agency 

like the National Park Service, which literally stretches across the 

international dateline and today comprises 401 units, it simply is 

not possible to cover every eventuality. Because most closures have 

not been more than a few days, their shortcomings don’t surface, 

but as closures lengthen, questions arise due to circumstances unforeseen or difficult to predict. 

Nevertheless, the trajectory of this closure parallels 1995, 1996 

to a remarkable degree. Did we barricade monuments and memorials then? Yes. Lincoln and Jefferson were barricaded. It was at 

the holiday season, so we had the Festival of Lights going on on 

the ellipse. That was closed and a chain link fence was put around 

it. The much discussed World War II Memorial did not exist then, 

but if it had, I think we would have barricaded it. 

Were State and local economies devastated? Yes. The counties 

around Yosemite petitioned for disaster assistance. Grand Canyon 

and Mount Rushmore were flash points. Governor Symington 

threatened to send the National Guard to Grand Canyon. It is not 

true that the Grand Canyon was opened without conflict in 1995, 

1996. I negotiated many of the agreements that we reached in 

1995, 1996. 

And one thing I will say about the unintended consequences of 

a shutdown, there were only two lawyers to work with in the—in 

the Interior building to negotiate those agreements. So that—so 

that it’s more than just that there aren’t any park service employees around; there aren’t any support employees around, either. And 

when it all concluded, it had been a very bad idea; so bad that 17 

years has elapsed before it happened again. 

It is worth asking why parks moved to the center of the closure 

discussion. They are a miniscule and declining part of the Federal 

budget, 1/15th of 1 percent of Federal expenditures. In 1981, by the 

way, they were 1/8th of 1 percent. So we spend about—about 50 

percent of what we spend in terms of proportions on our national 

parks, but they are an easily accessible symbol. 

Closure may be hard to understand in less visible agencies, but 

a closed campground, a child crying because she can’t visit the 

51 

Statue of Liberty become convenient and graphic metaphors of a 

much larger failure. 

As we discuss the parks today, our other public lands are inaccessible to varying degrees. Agencies such as the Veterans Administration, CDC, the Public Health Service, National Institute of 

Health, NASA work with skeleton staffs. They, too, deserve attention and support. It is time to reopen the government and get back 

to doing the Nation’s business. 

The parks have been in the spotlight during the closure, and we 

hope they remain there when they reopen. The sequester has already resulted in curtailment of services. The reductions are the 

equivalent of about 7,000 seasonal employees or 1,750 permanents. 

This comes on top of the long-range decline in park funding. 

Some years ago, I made a presentation that traced the national 

park idea back to the founding documents of this country. In the 

Constitution, it is found in the Preamble, ‘‘To secure the blessings 

of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.’’ 

Open the government, open the parks, let park rangers go back 

to doing the work they love, and let the rest of us enjoy again 

America’s best idea. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Galvin follows:] 

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55 

Chairman ISSA. And although it would seem irresistible to ask 

Director Jarvis first, Whose land is it? Is it the government’s, or 

the American people’s, in your mind? 

I’m going to waive my going first and recognize the gentleman 

from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, to ask the first round of questions. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Jarvis, 2 years 

ago—— 

Chairman ISSA. That is perfect. Please restart the clock. Thank 

you. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. GOWDY. Some may disagree with that. I want to thank the 

gentleman from North Carolina for giving me his microphone. 

Mr. Jarvis, in October 2011, Occupy protesters descended upon 

McPherson Square, and they decided to stay. Despite the clear language of the law, these protesters camped at McPherson Square, 

with the definition of camping being sleeping or preparing to sleep. 

For 100 days, they camped in violation of the law, and you did not 

make a single, solitary arrest for camping. So Congress decided to 

have a hearing and ask you why you were not enforcing the law, 

and you told us, Mr. Jarvis, that you had a great deal of discretion 

in how and when to enforce the law. You told us that you were, 

after 100 days of not enforcing the plain language of the statute, 

working with protesters to: ‘‘gain compliance,’’ whatever the hell 

that means, with the law and what you called: ‘‘a measured and 

reasoned approach.’’ By the way, Mr. Jarvis, those were your 

words, not mine. 

So the law says, No camping, but the protesters camped anyway, 

and you didn’t do anything in terms of arrest or citations for over 

100 days. 

So, Mr. Jarvis, I want you to fast forward 2 years. Parks are closing, access to monuments is restricted, even access for those who 

helped build the monument in the first place. Now, you didn’t wait 

100 days to enforce the law, Mr. Jarvis, with veterans who wanted 

to see their monument. You didn’t work to gain compliance. Veterans weren’t greeted with a measured and reasoned response, Mr. 

Jarvis. They were greeted with barricades on the very first day. 

Furthermore, they could not exercise their First Amendment 

rights to walk to a monument that they helped build, but yet some 

of our colleagues were allowed to exercise their First Amendment 

right to protest whatever it was they were protesting on the national mall. 

So I am going to read something to you, Mr. Jarvis, and I want 

you to ask me if you recognize who said this. Because of the lapse 

in funding, you are having to deliver difficult news to our visitors 

and partners. The functions we must perform under a shutdown 

are not the reasons any of us joined the National Park Service, but 

they are the duties we are required to perform by law and regulation. 

Do you know who said that, Mr. Jarvis? 

Mr. JARVIS. I believe I said that. 

Mr. GOWDY. You’re right. You did. So can you tell me why you 

would not enforce the law at McPherson Square, but yet you greeted veterans with barricades on the very first day? What regulation 

can you cite to me that required you by law to erect barricades? 

56 

Mr. JARVIS. The contingency plan that was approved on September 27th for the National Park System is in compliance with 

the Anti-Deficiency Act. I, under criminal—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I’m looking for a statute, Mr. Jarvis. 

Mr. JARVIS. The statute—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I’m looking for—— 

Mr. JARVIS. —is the Anti-Deficiency Act. 

Mr. GOWDY. I am looking for a citation to the Code of Federal 

regulation or the—or the U.S. Code for why you erected barricades. 

We’ve established you did not enforce the law for 100 days for protesters. Agreed? You agree with me you did not issue a single citation for camping, right? 

Mr. JARVIS. I believe that is correct. 

Mr. GOWDY. Either it is or it isn’t. Is it? Not one single citation 

for camping. 

Mr. JARVIS. I do not remember exactly. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, your previous testimony was that you had not 

issued a single citation for camping despite 100 days of non-compliance. 

Mr. JARVIS. That was 2 years ago. 

Mr. GOWDY. Okay. Well, I can cite you the regulation that you 

did not follow 2 years ago. Can you cite me the regulation that required you to erect barricades to prevent veterans from accessing 

a monument that they built? 

Mr. JARVIS. I can cite the Anti-Deficiency Act. 

Mr. GOWDY. Can you cite a regulation that required you to erect 

barricades? Mr. Jarvis, that is not a complex question. 

Mr. JARVIS. The Anti-Deficiency Act requires that I reduce all 

employees down to only those that are necessary for life and property. That required the closure of all 401 national parks. 

Mr. GOWDY. Mr. Jarvis, why did you fail to enforce the plain language of a statute for 100 days for protesters and yet on the very 

first day, you denied access to a monument that veterans helped 

build? 

Mr. JARVIS. On the very first day of the closure, I implemented 

a closure order for all 401 national parks in compliance with the 

Anti-Deficiency Act and immediately, immediately that day, also 

included as a part of that order that First Amendment activities 

would be permitted on the National Mall—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Do you consider it First Amendment activity to walk 

to a monument that you helped build, or is it only just smoking pot 

at McPherson Square? 

Mr. JARVIS. The First Amendment activities, we are content neutral on First Amendment in the—on the National Mall. 

Mr. GOWDY. That wasn’t my question. Do you consider it to be 

an exercise of your First Amendment right to walk to a monument 

that you helped build? 

Mr. JARVIS. If an individual declares they are there for their— 

to exercise their First Amendment—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Who are they to declare it to? The barricades? 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. GOWDY. Could I ask a final question? Who were they to declare it to? The barricades? 

57 

Mr. JARVIS. To the ranger on the site. On the National Mall, any 

group under 25 does not need a permit to exercise their First 

Amendment, and we set up the policy to allow our veterans in, including all of the honor flights under First Amendment, so they 

were not denied access. 

Mr. GOWDY. Mr. Chairman, I want the record to reflect that no 

statute or code of the Federal regulation was cited to justify the 

erection—— 

Chairman ISSA. The record will indicate that. 

Director Jarvis, in—pursuant to his question, Ms. Eberly looked 

like she wanted an answer to what statute provided for her to be 

closed. Would you please address your answer to her? If it’s AntiDeficiency, go ahead and say it to her. 

Mr. JARVIS. It’s Anti-Deficiency. We—in the case of the Claude 

Moore Farm, along with many similar situations, we had to actually investigate whether or not we were providing direct services 

that would be in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act. Utilities, 

trash pick-up, any of the things that are not related to life and 

property. 

In the case of the Claude Moore Farm, we had been providing 

funding to them in the tune of $100,000 a year every year. So we 

were not going to give it in 2014, and Ms. Eberly knows that, and 

that’s a concern for both of us, but because of our decline in funding. So I had to make a determination whether or not I was going 

to be in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which I cannot violate. 

It is a law passed by this body that I cannot violate. There are 

criminal penalties to my agency to violate that law. So, as we shut 

down, immediately we began to work towards figuring out how to 

get a work-around that would allow Claude Moore, Pisgah Inn, a 

whole variety of these partnership facilities open, and we’ve opened 

over a dozen or more already because we’ve determined that there 

is no violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the fact 

that you discovered you were wrong on day one. 

I now ask unanimous consent that the—this historic news archive from the 1996 period be placed in the record in which it says 

in realtime in 1995, December 16th, 1995, tourists were free to 

wander the halls of the capital, touch the walls of the Vietnam Memorial and climb the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to read the 

Gettysburg address. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. Additionally, I now ask that your document from 

the United States Department of Interior, which is your declaration, National Park Service Closure Determination and Notice, be 

placed in the record, in which in line 7, it says, the Closure Determination and Notice does not apply to private owners of interest 

in real property located within the exterior boundaries and units 

of the National Park Service, et cetera, and line 8, which says, the 

Closure Determination and Notice does not apply to roads that 

pass through units of the National Park Systems and provide access. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

The gentleman from Maryland is recognized. 

58 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Director Jarvis, let me ask you this. 20—you— 

how many employees does the Park Service have? 

Mr. JARVIS. About 24,000. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And you had to furlough how many? 

Mr. JARVIS. 21,328. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what percentage is that of the employees? 

Mr. JARVIS. About—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. About 87 percent? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yeah. Somewhere in that neighborhood, 87, 88, 85 

percent. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so you—those folks, they—they were—it 

was basically mandated that they couldn’t come to work. Is that 

right, pretty much? 

Mr. JARVIS. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, what impact did that have on your decisions and what you did with regard to this—the matter that Mr. 

Gowdy was just asking you about? 

Mr. JARVIS. The monuments and memorials on the National Mall 

do not take care of themselves. Every day I have employees there 

that clean the restrooms, clean up the messes behind the public, 

pick up trash, ensure that the elevators are available for those that 

need to access the chambers of the Jefferson or the Lincoln. They— 

they provide the eyes and the ears for the U.S. Park Police, who 

are not duty stationed to stand and watch over monuments. They 

are there to respond. U.S. Park Police responded to the incident at 

the Navy Yard, they responded to incident with the Capitol Police 

recently. They are a response agency. And our rangers are there 

to prevent vandalism and impact to the monuments and memorials. All of those rangers have been furloughed. So the consequences are that, as much as there’s a lot of talk about open air 

monuments and memorials that are unmanned, they are not unoccupied. 

My responsibility is to ensure that they are protected 24 hours 

a day, and not just with somebody that might come in a late response. We have staff that are there in all of those. So out of 300 

that would normally be on the mall, I have 12. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So—so, therefore, there are consequences, as Mr. 

Connolly says, to all of this. Is that right? In other words, when 

you’ve got to furlough people, you’re going to have some consequences. 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so you cannot cover everything you’d like to 

cover. Is that right? 

Mr. JARVIS. I cannot protect these monuments and memorials to 

the standard that this country expects me to do so. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, I already—now, one of the things that you 

said, going back to the hearing that Mr. Gowdy was talking about, 

that impressed me quite a bit is you talked about how important 

it is to you personally, and you said it again today, that when people come to visit our parks, our monuments, that you took it as a 

personal type of thing, that you wanted them to be able to enjoy 

that, that it was very significant, that it was just as significant to 

you for your—you would want the same thing for your family that 

you want for them. Do you still feel that way? 

59 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. If I may, in 2016, the National Park Service 

will be 100 years old, and I will have worked for this agency for 

40 of those years. I have been a law enforcement ranger. I have 

been search and rescue, firefighter, superintendent, regional director, and now director, under many Presidents, many Secretaries of 

the Interior. What—and I think I represent the agency of public 

servants that are dedicated to providing these places to the American public. 

It pains us to not be able to invite the American public into their 

national parks. This is as painful for the employees that take great 

pride in providing these 401 places for the enjoyment of the American people. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Somebody on the other side said a little bit earlier folks had been treated badly at the parks. And I got to say, 

even before I became a Congressman and the people did not know 

me in these parks, I have never had a bad experience with regard 

to employees. 

And I want to say to the employees that are watching us right 

now that we thank you for your service. We thank you for dedicating your lives to making life better and bringing life to light to 

so many people. 

Now, let me ask you something else. I already talked about some 

of the impacts the shutdown is having on veterans. 

I ask unanimous consent to insert in the hearing record a letter 

the Military Officers Association of America sent to me yesterday. 

They letter states in part: ‘‘Veterans and their families, too, are experiencing reductions in certain services. Even though VA 

healthcare continues uninterrupted under the advanced appropriations, other services have been suspended or severely cut back, including veteran outreach programs, counseling for wounded warriors and student vets on campus, among others.’’ 

Mr. HASTINGS. [Presiding.] Without objection, that will be part of 

the record. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would also like to insert into the record a written statement 

from the Student Veterans of America. This statement says: ‘‘The 

current government shutdown has created an overwhelming sense 

of uncertainty for students, veterans. With the Department of Veterans Affairs resources like the GI Bill, hotline unavailable, many 

veterans are wondering whether or not they’ll be able to pay next 

month’s rent or even have GI bill benefits to remain enrolled in 

school.’’ 

Mr. HASTINGS. That will be part of the record also, without objection. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me say this, Mr.—wait. The—in our committee, what we had just now was a total—between Mr. Gowdy and 

Mr. Issa, a total of 9 minutes. I’d like unanimous consent—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. In my committee—in my committee, we go the 5- 

minute route, but I’ll give the gentleman leeway. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. I don’t have much more, 

Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your courtesy. 

I also would like to insert in the record a letter from the Reserve 

Officers Association of the United States of America. The impact on 

60 

veterans is just one example of the toll the shutdown is taking on 

Americans. As a result of the shutdown, seven Head Start programs were forced to close, leaving 7,000 preschool children locked 

out of the classroom and their parents scrambling to find childcare. 

A private donation has been—has helped bridge the funding gap, 

but Head Start programs across the country are facing closures as 

the shutdown continues. The National Transportation Safety Board 

has suspended an investigation of a train derailment in Baltimore 

County, Maryland, as well as a train derailment in Ellicott City, 

Maryland, that resulted in the release of 20,000 gallons of vinyl 

chloride. 

I could go on and on with specific examples such as these, but 

let’s talk about the impact of the Republicans governing tactics on 

the economy. The Peterson Foundation released a report this week 

titled: ‘‘The Cost of the Crisis-Driven Fiscal Policy.’’ The report 

finds that the arbitrary and shortsighted approach that governing 

by crisis is hurting the economy. The report concludes that these 

policies have: ‘‘saddled a still struggling economy with the fiscal 

drag of a contraction of discretionary spending, created general uncertainty about fiscal policy that though its impact on financial 

markets has undermined economic growth, and finally forced the 

first prolonged shutdown of the Federal Government since the first 

term of the Clinton administration and failed to raise the Federal 

debt ceiling in a timely manner, conjuring the specter of a sovereign default with all its financial and economic fallout.’’ The report finds that the result is that the—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. Will the—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. —growth of gross domestic product—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. Will the gentleman wrap up. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. —is slowed by as much as—I’m wrapping up 

right now, Mr. Chairman. Just taking my—my same thing that Mr. 

Issa did. Product—the report finds that the result is that the 

growth of the gross domestic product has slowed by as much as one 

percentage point since 2010. 

Director Jarvis, you are responsible for running an agency that 

is charged with protecting our national parks, which contribute to 

the national economy, and we thank you for your service. 

With that, I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS. I don’t have to remind the gentleman that his 

time had expired 2 and a half minutes ago, but I just—I just want 

to—I’ll recognize myself, and I am—I’m going to try to adhere to 

the 5 minutes. 

When you have government shutdowns, there’s obviously going 

to be some displacement, that happens, but let’s understand that 

these are decisions that the political class has difficulty sometimes 

reconciling. Our founders devised a system that was supposed to be 

hard. Government of the people is hard. If you want efficiency, 

then you go to a dictatorship, but if you want to have freedom and 

liberty, you have our form of government. And so now we’re caught 

in this—in this situation right now, and we have to do our best to 

get through that. 

Ms. Eberly made an observation in her—her response about, I 

don’t know who’s responsible, but we ought to find out. There’s a— 

that struck me and reminded me of the saying that a government 

61 

that is big enough to give you something is big enough to take it 

away. 

Now, what’s frightening about what we’re going through right 

now, we have—we have had 17 shutdowns since 1980, I believe is 

what the figure is, but this is the first time, this is the first time 

that access has been denied to open—open air malls, open air 

monuments. Now, that, frankly, should be a little bit frightening, 

it seems to me, that if a government will go to that much effort 

to make it difficult for the American people to see their national 

treasures, that ought to be—that ought to be a red flag for everybody. I think—that’s what this hearing is all about. 

Now, what I would like to—I’d like to ask Director Jarvis—and 

thank you for being here. You and I spoke briefly beforehand, and 

you said you’ve had better weeks. I suppose we’ve all had better 

weeks at some time. But I want to refer to—to the issue of the 

First Amendment activities, because the First Amendment is a constitutional activity. We all know that. In your directive, on number 

9, you cancelled all previously issued permits, with the exception 

of those here in our National Mall, and you put that on the National Mall, I think the White House and Philadelphia and so forth, 

but what’s—what got the—America’s attention was when the 

World War I vets could not access—or World War II vets could not 

access, you know, their monument because of those barricades 

that’s been well documented. So my question, were their permits— 

were their permits not acknowledged or what happened with the 

honor—with the honor flights? 

Mr. JARVIS. Prior to the shutdown, the honor flights were not a 

permitted activity. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Okay. So they weren’t—they were not permitted? 

Mr. JARVIS. No. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Okay. But now you are changing—you changed 

course and said, okay, these honor flights can have First Amendment rights at the World War II—World War II mall, but I thought 

I heard you say in testimony that others less than a—less than a 

size of 25 don’t have those same rights. Did I hear you correctly? 

Mr. JARVIS. No. That—the regulations for the National Mall, because we host about 600 First Amendment activities here each 

year, if it’s a group under 25, they can exercise their First Amendment activities without a permit. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Okay. Well, all right. So that’s very—that’s the 

interesting part, then. You had barricades for World War II veterans. Obviously, they were over 25, but individuals, individuals, 

you know, somebody from, say, my home town came here, they 

would be denied access, and yet you said they’re exempt. I see an 

inconsistency here and how this is applied. 

Mr. JARVIS. No. If the—if your friends came and walked up to 

the ranger and said, I’m exercising my First Amendment activities, 

and I have a group under 25, then they would—they could do that. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Well, see now, I—in due respect, now I’m going 

to have to pursue this. You have an agency within the Park Service 

that defines what First Amendment rights are, and people have to 

go up and outwardly ask to have their First Amendment rights exercised by an okay from the Park Service? Is that what I’m hearing? 

62 

Mr. JARVIS. There has been many, many cases of First Amendment—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. No. I didn’t ask that question. 

Mr. JARVIS. It’s a body of law. I’m sorry. But there is a body of 

law associated with First Amendment activities on the mall. Let 

me give you a for instance. The chamber of the Lincoln Memorial 

is not available for First Amendment activities, so that’s in statute—or in regulation, nor is the chamber of the Jefferson, but the 

plaza is. In the case of the World War II Memorial, the entire 

World War II Memorial is open to First Amendment activities. 

So—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. Except—except in this case when the barricades 

were put up because of—of—well, I don’t know. Maybe we will really find out where that came from. 

Let me—last question, and I’m—I’m over time, and I—I try not 

to—to do that. I really try to adhere to that in my committee. 

I guess the obvious question is, is all of this decision that was 

made regarding restricting activity, was that your decision? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir, it was. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Totally your decision? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Okay. Thank you. 

I want to recognize now Mr. DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I regret 

the committee chairman from Iowa isn’t here at the moment, but 

this is a photograph from the 1995 shutdown, and that is the Lincoln Memorial, and the closure begins at the base of the steps. People were not allowed to go into the Lincoln Memorial. 

You know, I would say that we’ve got a lot more loose tools running around this country doing destructive things now than we did 

in 1995. We had someone attack the monument recently. So to say, 

gee, we shouldn’t need any staff there to protect the memorials is 

absurd in this day and age, so—— 

I also have a letter here I’d like to enter into the record from the 

National Park Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, and 

I’ll quote just two things from this letter: Without any contrary 

court findings or changes in the law—despite what the gentleman 

on the other side said—we will carry on with this miserable, thankless and pay-less task denying public access to parks during the 

government shutdown. You know, although our—our actions make 

sensational news stories and fodder for the pundits, it is supported 

by precedent, legal guidance from government lawyers under laws 

we are sworn to enforce. 

You know, the Park Service rangers want to be working. They 

want to be regularly admitting people to memorials and parks and 

then guarding those people and the memorials and the parks 

against destructive activities, but because of the Republican government shutdown, they cannot do that, plain and simple. You 

can’t create something and then pretend you are outraged by the 

results, which is what I am hearing from the other side of the aisle. 

Director Jarvis, I do have a question. They—they seem to love 

our parks today, but I haven’t seen that love much recently since 

the Republicans took over Congress 2010: 2010, your total budget 

was $2.75 billion. In 2013, $2.4 billion, which would be less than 

63 

the 2008 spending levels. Since 2008, have you caught up on your 

capital backlog? 

Mr. JARVIS. No, sir. Our—our maintenance backlog now exceeds 

$11 billion. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. $11 billion maintenance backlog on these parks, 

which are now loved so much by the other side of the aisle. Well, 

given the reduction in spending and taking you back to 2008, have 

you had to cut back earlier this year before the closures? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. Particularly with the sequestration, we had 

to cut back significantly on the program and hours. We currently 

have 1,000—for this last summer, 1,000 less seasonals, and we 

have 900 positions that are permanently—that—permanent positions that are unfilled. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Okay, 1,000 less seasonals, 900 less permanent, 

and the Republicans are saying the sequestration, which they created, which has cut your budget back to below 2008 year levels, is 

politically motivated, the things you’re doing there. Is it politically 

motivated when you noticed those people that, you know, they 

weren’t going to be working this summer? 

Mr. JARVIS. No, sir. There’s no—no politics involved here. This 

is just our responsibility to take care of the national parks with— 

with what resources we have. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. You know, I’d note further, 

you know, there are some other perverse impacts on our Federal 

lands. Wildlife refuges are closed, and those on the other side of 

the aisle, who day in day out are there to defend the Second 

Amendment, aren’t doing much to defend those who want to hunt 

on those lands during this hunting season and the losses that are 

being caused there. They aren’t doing anything by keeping the government closed to help those in rural areas who want to work. I 

got timber industry folks who’ve been noticed that their contracts 

are going to be suspended. Now, they’re going to have a right to 

sue the government and get money back for suspending their contracts. 

Unfortunately, we won’t have those logs this winter to tie the 

mills over to the spring in areas where you can’t get into the mountains in the wintertime. And yet that’s because of the government 

shutdown. They might say, oh, well, they should just let them go 

forward. Well, they can’t let them go forward, because they have 

a fiduciary duty to monitor the timber sale. There have been instances where people have cut trees they weren’t supposed to cut. 

They’ve gone beyond the boundaries of the cut. Timber theft, it’s 

called. Those things happen. The government needs to have officials there to monitor this. They can’t do it under your shutdown. 

We’re losing money. We’re losing jobs. Now you pretend you care 

about rural America, you care about our parks, which you’ve 

slashed the budget for. 

You know, this is absolutely the height of hypocrisy, the fact that 

we’re here today trying to figure out why the parks are closed because of a government shutdown and what bizarre things have 

happened—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make an inquiry 

for a point of personal privilege. 

64 

Mr. HASTINGS. The gentlemen will make his—I think he’s probably asking for a parliamentary inquiry, so I’ll recognize him for 

that. 

Mr. GOHMERT. When the gentleman says that you pretend that 

you care about the parks, are you speaking about anybody on this 

dais, so that I will know whether to have the gentleman’s words 

taken down or not? 

Mr. HASTINGS. Any member has the right to ask a—another 

member’s words to be taken down, but I think what this discussion 

is here, the gentleman was addressing it in the proper way that we 

address those sort of things in the third person, and so I didn’t intervene. He obviously has—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. I heard the second person, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HASTINGS. He obviously has strong feelings, like Members on 

both sides of the aisle have on that. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I heard the second person instead of third person, 

which is not proper. 

Mr. HASTINGS. I did not hear—I did not hear the second person. 

The time of the gentleman has expired. The chair recognizes the 

gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I think it’s important that we conduct this oversight hearing 

in a joint fashion. I think it—of all the things that’s happened— 

and nobody favors a shutdown, Republicans or Democrats. Our side 

believes that we’re—we’re on the verge of a permanent shutdown 

of our government, which would be much worse, when you spend 

so much money and incur so much indebtedness that we lose our 

financial credibility, our national security as a result of that. So 

this is a legitimate debate. There have been more than a dozen 

shutdowns. There have been—I just heard today, I never realized 

that under Carter, we actually went beyond the debt limit, not that 

we want to follow that model. 

The problem here is that it—it appears that what took place by 

the Park Service was offensive to the American people, to the Congress and to just the concept of common sense, Director Jarvis. 

That’s what this is about. I mean, I think nothing has resonated 

more with the public than to see an open air monument, such as 

the World War II Memorial and close by, the Martin Luther King 

Memorial. It just seems that common sense did not prevail. 

Did you—now, you said you take full responsibility for that action. Is that correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That’s correct. 

Mr. MICA. And did you discuss this with the Secretary of Interior 

Jewell at any time? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, I did. 

Mr. MICA. And did she—did you—and you didn’t discuss it with 

anyone in the White House, did you? 

Mr. JARVIS. In—in—several times on the phone with the White 

House, I presented, with the Secretary, my decision, but it was 

never the reverse. There was never any—— 

Mr. MICA. So you discussed with officials in the White House 

your action. 

Mr. JARVIS. I did. 

65 

Mr. MICA. And you also discussed it with her. Now, the common 

belief among even Park Service employees, and I quote one of 

them, who’s—this is a press account October 3rd. It’s a cheap way 

to deal with the situation, an angry park service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. We’ve been told to make life as difficult as we can. It’s disgusting. 

This is the common belief of people who work for you, and he believes he was told to make this as difficult and as painful as possible. How would you respond to that? 

Mr. JARVIS. I have no idea where that—that information came 

from. 

Mr. MICA. It’s a park ranger quoted from a news—— 

Mr. JARVIS. That’s hearsay. What I’m telling you is that—— 

Mr. MICA. It may be hearsay, sir—— 

Mr. JARVIS. I’m in communication with my employees, the ones 

that are still on work, and they do not believe that. So to say that 

this is the belief of the National Park Service employees, that’s incorrect. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. Well, here’s one. And I can tell you that I am 

in contact with my constituents as an elected representative, and 

nothing has appalled the American people more that I’ve seen in 

my two decades of service than what you’ve done. To close an open 

air monument like the World War II or across the street, across the 

way, where people could walk. Now, granted, that was not in existence in 1995, maybe you didn’t have a precedent, but it was offensive to close a place where you could walk. 

You said your job is to protect the monuments. How—how would 

the monuments not be protected if people walked there? 

Mr. JARVIS. They are protected—if we don’t—— 

Mr. MICA. The monuments, now. The people are protected by the 

Park Police and the District Police, and I’m told that—and we have 

evidence that there were—there were almost as many to protect 

the people and—— 

Mr. JARVIS. That is incorrect. If I may correct the record here. 

The U.S. Park Police has been excepted from furlough. The U.S. 

Park Police are in New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. 

They have responsibilities for the George Washington Memorial 

Parkway, for traffic, for the regular commuting in here every day. 

Mr. MICA. But I am told in the District of Columbia, extraordinary measures were available to make certain that, again, that— 

that our monuments, the streets, we have had a horrible incident 

that took place. 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Mr. MICA. They were on the job protecting the people. 

Mr. JARVIS. Correct. 

Mr. MICA. But your job is to protect the monuments. Now, somebody—you talked to folks in the White House. Who did you talk to 

in the White House? 

Mr. JARVIS. I actually do not know who was on the phone. I do 

not. It was only informing—— 

Mr. MICA. And did they relate to you that you should continue 

to inflict pain? 

Mr. JARVIS. They did not. 

66 

Mr. MICA. All right. And can you provide to the committee that 

information of who you spoke to and when on this matter? 

Mr. JARVIS. We are retaining all of our records as requested by 

the committee chairman, and once we get out of the shutdown, we 

will be providing those. 

Mr. MICA. Well, we will subpoena them or get them one way or 

the other. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman—— 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. And I appreciate the director saying he’s going to comply with our request 

that we sent on October 2nd. 

The gentleman from American Samoa, Mr. Faleomavaega. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I certainly want to welcome all witnesses and for the testimony 

that they’ve provided before the joint hearing this morning. 

Mr. Jarvis, I want to commend you for the distinction and the 

outstanding job that you have done, or is doing as the director the 

National Park Service with a track record of some 40 years of service to our Nation and to the American people, I think should be recognized. 

Mr. Jarvis, you mentioned that the Park Service takes in about 

232 million visitors a day—I mean, a year, with some 700,000 people each day in the 401 national parks, and you have to operate 

on a budget that is 1/15th of 1 percent of our national budget? Is 

this—am I correct in putting these before you? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir, that is correct. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Jarvis, I—it’s sad that I seem to see 

that you have become a political punching bag for this hearing, and 

it’s really unfortunate. And I think what we’re trying to do here is 

to give a real sense of the challenges and the problems that you’re 

faced with as the director. 

When you were given notice that you need to shut down, you 

mentioned that the shutdown occurred on the 1st of October? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And how do you go about shutting down an 

agency? I believe 70,000 Federal workers work for the Department 

of the Interior, and out of that, some 68,000 have been furloughed. 

Mr. JARVIS. That—somewhere in that neighborhood, yes. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And the Park Service is part of that. 

Mr. JARVIS. That’s correct. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And all of the responsibilities that you bear, 

and I think it’s been a common interest explained here this morning, the fact that a tremendous economic disaster has been created 

because of the shutdown. Am I correct on that? 

Mr. JARVIS. We calculate that for every dollar invested in the National Park System, you get $10 back to the economy. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And, Mr. Galvin, I am very interested in 

your statement. You said you represent the National Parks Conservation Association, with a membership of some 800,000 of our 

fellow Americans? 

Mr. GALVIN. That’s correct, Mr. Faleomavaega. 

67 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And what are some of the most classic 

things that the association has been able to achieve and you as a 

trustee of this association? 

Mr. GALVIN. Well, as I said in my opening statement, the National Parks Conservation Association is uniquely focused on supporting the national parks since 1919, and in—we do—we do that 

by providing information to the public, by providing information to 

our visitors, by involving ourselves in issues at the park level, by— 

by—— 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Galvin, my time is short. Let me—let 

me go on. I got one to send you. You—I’d like to quote your statement that you made here as an observation at the hearing this 

morning, and I quote, the National Park Service is not to blame for 

the failure of Congress to keep our government open and provide 

the resources needed to maintain our parks and keep them completely open. Blaming National Park’s employees for the abysmal 

results of such a failure of national leadership is unconscionable. 

Can you share that with us more? 

Mr. GALVIN. Well, you know, I think this hearing is about how 

the shutdown has worked out. Okay? And as I said in my statement, doing shutdown plans isn’t easy for a 401-unit system that 

extends beyond the international dateline, but there isn’t any question about why there was a shutdown. There is no appropriation. 

There is no continuing resolution. There is no money to pay employees. Even the few employees that John has at his disposal 

today are not being paid, so that—so we can—we can debate about 

the World War II Memorial or Grand Canyon. The fact is 401 units 

of the National Park Service are mostly closed, over 380—— 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Galvin, I’m sorry. My time is getting— 

thank you, Mr. Galvin. 

Mr. Jarvis, how much—how much of an economic benefit—well, 

what has it done to the economy of this country the fact that what 

the national parks has done in terms of just like Mayor Bryan, Ms. 

Eberly and Ms. Simon in terms of their responsibilities, how much 

this—of an economic impact because of the closure? 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, at this moment, October, which is a peak period for many of our gateway communities, the impact is enormous. 

And, you know, they’re not going to recover that. I mean, even if 

the Federal employees are paid at the end of this, our concessioners, our gateway communities, those hotels, restaurants will 

not recover this loss. And so we have already begun to figure out 

how we can get some of these back open. And as—as the mayor of 

Tusayan indicated, we’ve reopened the Grand Canyon, we’ve reopened Rocky Mountain, eight parks in Utah, all of these, because, 

you know, frankly, we shut these down on October 1, and immediately began to figure out how we can work to get those back open 

without violating the Anti-Deficiency Act. And I think the evidence 

shows, from Claude Moore to the Peaks of Otter, to the Grand Canyon that I have been working very hard with a very small staff, 

there are only nine of us left in the park service in the Washington 

office, to get these parks back open so that we can get the $76 million per day that the National Park Service is contributing to the 

national economy. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

68 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from Utah, Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Jarvis, you said you had about 3,000 exempt 

employees. I’m assuming those are all security personnel? 

Mr. JARVIS. There are—— 

Mr. BISHOP. The numbers—— 

Mr. JARVIS. I’ve got the numbers. 

Mr. BISHOP. The numbers aren’t important. Are those security 

personnel? 

Mr. JARVIS. Not all of them. 

Mr. BISHOP. Most of them? 

Mr. JARVIS. Most of them. 

Mr. BISHOP. Do you have roughly the same number of security 

personnel on the mall as you had before the shutdown? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes. 

Mr. BISHOP. Okay. Is there a specific threat to the property or 

life of anything that is taking place on the mall that is different 

now than before the shutdown? 

Mr. JARVIS. Our intelligence indicate that there has been an uptick in activity and interest during the shutdown in potential 

threats. 

Mr. BISHOP. Can you give me a specific one? 

Mr. JARVIS. I cannot give you the specifics. 

Mr. BISHOP. Is putting barricades up a normal practice after the 

interpreters and the maintenance service have left those particular 

areas? 

Mr. JARVIS. No. 

Mr. BISHOP. If there is no greater threat—if there is no specific 

threat and you actually put up barricades on those monuments, 

you have violated the Anti-Deficiency Act. You have created a new 

obligation with no new threat. If there is not a specific threat, you 

have violated the Anti-Deficiency Act. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I’d like to yield the remainder of my time to Mr. Stewart. 

Mr. STEWART. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bishop. 

And I represent some of the Nation’s greatest national parks. I 

represent the Second District of Utah. We have Zion’s. We have 

Bryce Canyon, many others. To the American people and particularly to some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I 

would like to make what I think is a very obvious point. It’s entirely the point of this hearing. Yeah, the government’s in a partial 

shutdown, and there are implications that come from that. The 

question to consider is this: In the midst of a crisis, should the Federal Government choose to make things better or should they 

choose to make things worse? Should the administration seek to alleviate some of this inconvenience and some of this pain or should 

they seek to exaggerate those? Should the Federal Government be 

viewed as a friend to the people or as an enemy. 

And, Mr. Jarvis, surely you must realize that because of some of 

your actions, many Americans view you not as an advocate, but as 

an adversary. And I think—you know, we’re in a political conflict 

right now, and we’ll move on. We always do. We find a way to 

move through this, and 6 months from now the American people 

will move on with their lives. A year from now or 5 years from now, 

69 

some of this will be forgotten, but I think that the lasting impression that most Americans will have will be of those veterans standing at the World War II Memorial and being denied access to that. 

And so, Mr. Jarvis, let me ask you, if I could, you are not here 

voluntarily. Is that right? 

Mr. JARVIS. I volunteered to come after the shutdown when I 

would have staff to prepare. 

Mr. STEWART. Are you here because of the force of a subpoena? 

Mr. JARVIS. I am. 

Mr. STEWART. Okay. That would seem to be not voluntarily, then. 

If you view your actions as defensible, then why didn’t you volunteer to come and sit before this committee and answer questions? 

Mr. JARVIS. I did volunteer to come, but not on this date. I don’t 

have any staff to prepare. Normally I would have a staff that 

would work on developing testimony—— 

Mr. STEWART. You said before—— 

Mr. JARVIS. They’re all furloughed. 

Mr. STEWART. You said before these are your decisions. I 

wouldn’t imagine you would need staff to explain to you why you 

made the decisions that you claimed you have made. 

Mr. JARVIS. I don’t need staff to explain to me, but I do need staff 

to prepare testimony, because this committee requires testimony be 

submitted in advance, and those staff are furloughed. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman suspend? 

Mr. STEWART. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Chairman, a point of—not inquiry, but parliamentary clarification. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Parliamentary clarification, or actually it’s inquiry would be a better one, but the gentleman is recognized for 

that. 

Chairman ISSA. When we subpoenaed the director, our staff had 

already made it clear, and I believe the director is aware, that essential personnel under the act would include such personnel as 

are necessary to respond to Congress. And that was the basis 

under which we subpoenaed him, because waiting till afterwards 

simply meant that he was unwilling to return such personnel as 

were necessary to prepare for today’s hearing. And I just wanted 

to make that point that—that there was a dialogue in preparation 

to make the determination that he could bring back on a daily 

basis such personnel as were necessary if he wanted to be better 

prepared for today’s hearing. 

Mr. HASTINGS. That’s my—my understanding also. 

The gentleman from Utah, Mr. Stewart, is recognized for the balance of the time. 

Mr. STEWART. Well, thank you both to the chairman. And I think 

it emphasizes my point that if we considered these—these decisions 

and actions as being defensible, you would not be reluctant. I 

would think you would be anxious to come before the committees 

and to defend those—those decisions. 

In the few seconds I have left, let me make this point, if I could. 

My State has worked an agreement with Secretary Jewell to reopen the national parks within Utah, and I’m wondering, Director, 

do you support that decision to work in concert with state governors and others to open these parks? 

70 

Mr. JARVIS. Absolutely. 

Mr. STEWART. Would you support—you know, expecting that we 

may find ourselves in this situation again, maybe in a year, maybe 

in 20 years, but at some point we may find ourselves in a government shutdown again, would you support my efforts to have agreements in place that would immediately open up these parks with 

the support of the States so that we don’t find ourselves in this situation again? 

Mr. JARVIS. You know, we have talked about this, in that we 

really have set a new bar here by entering into these agreements— 

very simple agreements, frankly—with Colorado, New York, South 

Dakota, Utah. And so we have sort of started the new point that 

if we go into a shutdown we now have the template fairly easy to 

do this. 

Now, I want to mention two things, though. We did set a standard, and we worked it out with your Governor and the other Governors. One is that the National Park Service would run these 

parks and that the States would pay for the National Park Service 

to operate them. This is the professional staff that have been doing 

this, and we could open them instantly using our employees. 

So it was not—I would not support the States themselves taking 

over the national parks. But entering into an agreement like this, 

and then it pays for the entire park operation, not just cherry-picking components of parks? Absolutely, I would support putting this 

into policy so that we can execute on it very quickly. 

Mr. STEWART. Okay. Thank you. My time has expired. Thank 

you. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

I would just note that there probably was a template after the 

1995–1996, too, that probably should have been followed. 

The chair recognizes the gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I could not identify more with our witnesses on the effect of the 

shutdown on your local economies. And I think every red-blooded 

American would similarly identify with the outrage of the residents 

of your host city, the Nation’s capital, who, in addition, have seen 

the shutdown not only of our tourist economy, as you have, but 

Congress is holding $6 billion—that is more than four States—collect of local funds, not one penny of it Federal funds. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the Republicans and Democrats 

who voted with us to free the District’s local funds. We are finally 

making some headway with the Senate and the administration. 

Mr. Jarvis, sitting here in the District of Columbia as a thirdgeneration Washingtonian, I cannot bear to hear the employees of 

the Park Service maligned. Yeah, we have trouble with our civil 

servants, but I want to say for the record how unfair I think it is 

for the Republicans to shut down the government and then blame 

the National Park Service. I thank you for the way in which you 

protect our monuments and the people who visit our monuments. 

Some of us are still recalling when green paint was splattered on 

the Lincoln Memorial, even though there was no shutdown, because of the difficulty of guarding the memorials. In 2007, I reVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:23 Jul 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88621.TXT APRIL
71 

member there was a horrific, a horrific incident, vandalism as well, 

on the Vietnam Memorial. 

Is it true that there are about 2,000 cases of vandalism every day 

on the memorials of our country throughout the United States? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Ms. NORTON. I also can’t bear the way in which our veterans 

have been made poster children by my Republican friends, making 

them look as though they are victims. 

My own paper, The Washington Post, carries an article this 

morning about a coalition of 33 veterans organizations—the American Legion, all of them. Of course they came to complain about the 

cutoff of their own benefits. But let me read you what they said. 

The executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of 

America: ‘‘Put the country first and end this shutdown.’’ That is 

veterans. That is how they talk. Not, ‘‘Let us out, and maybe the 

rest of you will get out too.’’ They go back for everybody who is victimized. 

Here is another of the speakers. ‘‘Several speakers said they oppose measures that would restore funding to VA but not to some 

other parts of the government. ’Fixing a little by little is not going 

to resolve this problem for veterans.’’’ And that was the director of 

the Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

‘‘In contrast to some demonstrations over the 2-week shutdown, 

including a protest Sunday during which demonstrators pulled 

down barriers, Tuesday’s rally was peaceful and civil in tone. No 

Members of Congress delivered speeches.’’ Probably because they 

weren’t invited. ‘‘One veteran who held a sign blaming Tea Party 

activists for the shutdown was asked by organizers to stand outside 

of the memorial grounds.’’ 

That is how veterans respond when everybody is at risk. They 

go back, as the Army veteran who received the Medal of Honor yesterday from the President went back to even get his dead comrades. 

I want to ask perhaps Mr. Jarvis, perhaps the representative 

from the tourism industry to explain something that really alarmed 

me. Apparently, it is Mr. Simon who said that the shutdown will 

have lasting effects on international visitation. Now, of course, our 

international visits start here, but then they hear about all those 

wonderful sites, especially in the far West, and they don’t want to 

go home without seeing them. 

Now, my Republican friends say, ‘‘Oh, you know, this will blow 

over, just like a default will blow over.’’ Could you tell me what you 

mean by lasting effects—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. Will the gentlelady ask the question, so we can 

get a response very, very quickly? The time has expired. 

Ms. NORTON. So will you tell me about lasting effects and perhaps what we might do to keep these effects from becoming more 

lasting? Ms. Simon? 

Mr. HASTINGS. Ms. Simon, very quickly. 

Ms. SIMON. Yes. 

We anticipate the—well, let me start by saying the national 

parks is a huge part of what is promoted to international visitations through Brand USA, which is our Federal marketing arm for 

tourism. And so we know that the international visitors are coming 

72 

here to see the parks. They come into the gateways; they also see 

the parks generally on their first visit. 

So we anticipate there will be lasting effects in terms of international visitation, particularly in the fall as they look toward next 

year’s trips coming in October and November. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN OF TENNESSEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

A big part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is in my 

district. And, without objection, I would like to place a statement 

by Blount County Mayor Ed Mitchell in the record. 

Mayor Mitchell has been a great leader in trying to find ways to 

open the park back up. And he has asked the Park Service to let 

the county operate the park and has said that they could do so just 

as capably if allowed to do so. Of course, they weren’t allowed to 

do so, but now fortunately our State has come up with really more 

money than is necessary to open the park back up until Sunday. 

There is a private community in the Smokies called Top of the 

World. Two dozen school children are picked up each day to go to 

school on the school bus. They were picked up the morning the government shut down, and then the Park Service closed the roads so 

that the school children could not get back home on their school 

bus after school, which I thought was a very sad and needless 

thing to have done. 

I have said many times that you can never satisfy government’s 

appetite for money or land; they always want more. Along with 

more money, they always want more staff. And one thing this government slowdown has shown is that the Park Service is greatly 

overstaffed across this Nation. 

Many thousands have visited the World War II Memorial and 

other monuments in spite of the barricades. Hundreds of thousands 

could safely and comfortably visit the Smokies and other national 

parks if the roads were not closed. These barricades and closures 

were obviously done to try to make the shutdown as unpopular as 

possible, as inconvenient as possible, and not because it was actually necessary. This is using the Park Service for political purposes. 

This has all shown, as I have said, that the Park Service is greatly 

overstaffed. 

Mr. Ebell has in his statement a quote from a former Secretary 

of the Interior who said, ‘‘The National Park Service has a long history of dramatizing budget issues by inconveniencing the public. 

They often choose the most dramatic type of action in order to get 

their message across.’’ It is unfortunate that the Park Service has 

allowed itself or cooperates—to cooperate in political purposes such 

as this. 

And there has been some mention here earlier by several Members that the Republicans shut down the government. The Republicans in the House voted four different times to keep the entire 

government open before anything was shut down, but Senator Reid 

would not allow that to be taken up in the Senate. 

At this time, I yield the remainder of my time to Mr. Gohmert. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend very much. 

73 

Let me mention, Director, because you called somebody earlier on 

hearsay, I am going to give you something that is not hearsay. 

I was out there at the World War II Memorial on Tuesday morning because Representative Steve Palazzo of Mississippi emailed 

that he had a bunch of World War II veterans that were coming 

by bus and there were barricades that had been put up. I get out 

there. Sure enough, there are barricades on the north entrance, the 

south entrance. And the entrance facing the road had barricades 

across, and it had yellow tape woven in and out. They did not intend for anyone to cross that line, First Amendment or not. 

So whoever was supposed to get the message out about First 

Amendment protests did not. We went up and down the barricades. 

We talked to the Park Police. And, by the way, on Wednesday, 

when I was out there, I asked a park ranger, how many people normally are out here when we are not in shutdown? She said four. 

Now, you could object to hearsay, except it is not hearsay. It is not 

for the evidence of the statement of the facts asserted in the statement, but simply that the statement was made. So you could say 

maybe it wasn’t four, but whoever that park ranger that said they 

were out there every day seemed to think it was four. 

And on Thursday and Friday—I can’t remember if it was Thursday or Friday—I counted nine Park Service people out there to protect the World War II Memorial from our World War II veterans. 

And I can tell you, if Steve Palazzo and I had not picked up the 

barricades, separated them, after establishing with the Park Service who we were, those barricades were not going to be opened and 

those World War II veterans were not being allowed in, First 

Amendment or otherwise. 

And that is not hearsay. I was there, and I watched with my own 

eyes, I heard with my own ears. 

I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS.Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Davis, is recognized. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HASTINGS.Turn your microphone—— 

Mr. DAVIS. I thought I did. 

House Republicans have forced the government shutdown on the 

American people. And the testimony provided by some of the witnesses today highlights the local economic impact that this shutdown has on small towns and businesses that serve employees and 

visitors of our national parks. 

The National Park Service has estimated that the government 

shutdown will result in total economic losses of $76 million per day 

to local communities surrounding national parks. 

Director Jarvis, is that correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mayor Bryan, in your testimony, you stated that your town and 

the small businesses there estimate a loss of more than $1 million 

in revenue just during the first 7 days of the shutdown. Is that correct? 

Mr. BRYAN. Yes, sir, it is. 

74 

Mr. DAVIS. In fact, one estimate found that Arizona will have the 

third-largest economic impact of national park closures, amounting 

to almost $5 million a day. 

Marie Lopez Rogers, the current president of the National 

League of Cities, penned an op-ed titled: ‘‘Federal Shutdown Has 

Dire Impact on Local Governments,’’ which describes some of the 

practical impacts of the shutdown on residents and communities 

around the country. 

Ms. Lopez Rogers wrote: ‘‘The antics in Washington are threatening to unravel the progress our cities have made over the last 

few months and cause harm to the entire Nation. It is a reckless 

approach to governing.’’ She went on to say, again, that: ‘‘every day 

the government is shut down is another day of economic uncertainty. We need to focus on what matters to our communities, our 

neighborhoods, and our residents.’’ 

Director Jarvis, I have heard people indicate that somehow or 

another you did not provide the sensitivity that was necessary as 

you made some decisions. Do you contend and are you concerned 

about the impact of shutdown on businesses and communities surrounding national parks? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir, I am very concerned about that. 

Immediately upon the closure, we opened lines of communication 

with our concessioners in particular. These are the private-sector 

businesses that operate food, beverage, and lodging within the 

parks—the National Hospitality Association. I even conducted a 

conference call with the CEOs and leaders of those organizations 

that first week to really begin to convey our concerns and talk 

about what we can do for them after the shutdown is over and 

what we can do in between. 

And as a result of those conversations, we really began to—I 

mean, on Wednesday of the first week, I contacted the people that 

were involved in 1995 in the agreement with the Grand Canyon to 

understand how that was negotiated. We even tracked down the 

former attorneys that negotiated that, as well, so that we would 

have the information to build a—you know, 20 years later, new 

rules and regulations and all of that, the very small staff—how we 

could get these things back open so that we could reduce the impact to the tourism industry, which we rely upon. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. I commend you for your 40 

years of service to the Park Service. 

And I have no further questions, and I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The gentleman yields back his time. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gohmert, is recognized. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Jarvis, I am just curious, the philosophy that you have 

as Director of the Park Service. Do you believe our rights come 

from our creator or from our government and Constitution? 

Mr. JARVIS. I believe they come from all of the above. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, check your Constitution. It is a Constitution 

that prohibits activities by the government, not gives them—give 

them rights. The Declaration of Independence established what our 

Founders believed where our rights came from. 

But, Ms. Eberly, what has happened to you is pretty outrageous. 

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75 

down. And I am curious, were you notified before October 1st, that 

Tuesday, that you might be closed, even though you had been operating totally independent and you had saved the farm because of 

your efforts in your 32 years as director? When were you notified 

you were being shut down? 

Ms. EBERLY. I had a phone call on my cell phone from the superintendant Monday late morning, and I returned it early afternoon. 

I was out of town. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Okay. And what were told in that conversation? 

Ms. EBERLY. We were told, or I was told that the farm was going 

to be part of the shutdown. And I said, but we have never been 

part of other shutdowns. And he said, well, it will be illegal for you 

to open the farm, and if you do, then you risk arrest. And only one 

employee, only one private employee, will be allowed in to feed the 

animals. 

Mr. GOHMERT. How many National Park Service employees are 

at your farm each day? 

Ms. EBERLY. None. Not since 1981 when we were—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. No, now, wait a minute. We have heard about the 

law being that, in a shutdown, you have to revert to minimum 

manpower unless there is a specific threat. Are you aware of any 

threats that were emanating from the Claude Moore Farm on September 30th or October 1st? 

Ms. EBERLY. No. We are pretty low-key. Not only that, but our 

next-door neighbor is the CIA, so they pretty much take care of any 

threats that might come along. 

Mr. GOHMERT. So you are not worried the CIA is a threat to the 

Claude Moore Farm, apparently. 

Ms. EBERLY. Nope. They are our best friends. 

Mr. GOHMERT. How about—I read that the McLean Chamber of 

Commerce had paid a bunch of money to use the farm on October 

1st in the evening for a gathering. Were there any indications that 

the McLean Chamber of Commerce was a threat to your farm? 

Ms. EBERLY. No. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Have they ever been a threat to your farm? I 

mean, chambers can be pretty rowdy. 

Ms. EBERLY. Yeah, they can. 

Mr. GOHMERT. But—— 

Ms. EBERLY. This one is pretty okay. And we belong, so. 

Mr. GOHMERT. All right. So what happened on Tuesday? 

Ms. EBERLY. Tuesday, the employees came in as normal because 

we decided we weren’t going to leave the farm unprotected. And I 

had asked for this decision in writing, because we had received 

nothing in writing, and so the superintendant emailed me a statement about 3:30 on Monday. And we appealed that, thinking that 

we could get it changed, thinking that this was just sort of a 

booboo. 

And then about 2 o’clock on Tuesday we got a phone call saying, 

no, absolutely no. And then Park Police showed up and made the 

Chamber members and all the people setting up for the event 

leave. 

Mr. GOHMERT. On Monday, when you returned the call of the 

superintendant from the Park Service, did they say your park 

might be closed, to be on alert, or what did they say? 

76 

Ms. EBERLY. They said, if the government shuts down, then we 

would be a part of the shutdown, and that they had been—they 

had had this plan in place since Thursday. But that was the first 

notice we had received. 

Mr. GOHMERT. All right. And so, did you happen to notice how 

many Park Service Police came out to run off the McLean Chamber 

of Commerce and put up barricades? 

Ms. EBERLY. You know, I wasn’t there. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Okay. Do you know where the barricades came 

from? 

Ms. EBERLY. They brought them. Not the Park Police. The park 

maintenance crews brought them. 

Mr. GOHMERT. The park maintenance crew brought them. Have 

you ever had park maintenance crews out there since you became 

an independent-operated park or farm? 

Ms. EBERLY. Oh, yeah. I mean, early on, the parkway maintenance crews were very helpful to me—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. ‘‘Early on’’ being when? 

Ms. EBERLY. In 1981. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Okay, but in the last 13 years, have there ever 

been any park maintenance service people come out to your farm? 

Ms. EBERLY. To perform maintenance? 

Mr. GOHMERT. To do anything. 

Ms. EBERLY. I think a broken waterline, but that was probably 

about 9 years ago, maybe. 

Mr. GOHMERT. All right. Mr.—thank you. My time has expired, 

but—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. GOHMERT. —I would note for the chairman that the law was 

violated by the Park Service in sending police and maintenance 

personnel out to the park. 

Mr. HASTINGS. To the extent this is being recorded, that is part 

of the record. 

The gentlelady from Guam, Ms. Bordallo, is recognized. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I, too, would like to commend Mr. Jarvis for his long many, 

many years of service to the National Park Service, and also to all 

of the witnesses here. 

Mr. Jarvis, the shutdown was the final hit to the national parks 

after years of cuts in your budget—and I think you mentioned this 

earlier in your testimony—and to your operations and construction 

accounts. Can you speak about how the cuts in funding over the 

last several years have impacted your organization? 

Mr. JARVIS. In a number of ways they have impacted us. 

In terms of our facilities, we are in steady decline. Most of the 

facilities in many of our classic national parks were built 50, 75 

years ago—water systems, wastewater systems, roads, and the like. 

So we now have an $11 billion maintenance backlog that is declining. We receive less than half of what we would need in order to 

just maintain that. 

On the other side is our ranger staff, those that provide interpretation, visitor protection; has also been in decline. And so we are 

not capable of providing the level of visitor service that really the 

public expects and deserves. 

77 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

As the National Park Service gears up for its 100 years in 2016, 

what do the continued cuts mean to the future of the National 

Park Service? What are you—I am sure it must be very impactful. 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, a couple things that we are working on. 

One is to develop as many partnerships with States, with nonprofit organizations, with the tourism associations, to assist us in 

providing these places. We cannot do it alone. Increasing our volunteer workforce, increasing philanthropy, leveraging what dollars 

that we have, both appropriated and non-appropriated, such as our 

fee dollars, all of those—we are looking at as many opportunities 

as possible. There has been a hearing in the Senate on a variety 

of ways we can find additional funding for the National Park Service leading up to the centennial. 

We are also working with the National Tour Association, the 

Hospitality Association, and Brand USA on a major marketing 

campaign for 2016. We feel that the national parks are an integral 

part of this American economy as well as standing for really the 

best of this country. And we believe the centennial is a huge opportunity to remind all Americans of their national parks as well as 

draw tourism from around the world. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Director Jarvis. It is commendable 

that you are thinking ahead and you are looking into all these possibilities to continue on. 

Now, what is the impact with your employees, I mean, the overall morale and so forth of those still on duty and those that you 

had to furlough? 

Mr. JARVIS. This is extremely—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. I know a couple of my colleagues—— 

Mr. JARVIS. This is extremely—and thank you for this question, 

because it is extremely painful to the employees that are on furlough. They want to work. They want to be bark in the parks. They 

want to be greeting the American public. And—along with the rest 

of the Federal Government. 

For the employees that are on duty, this is extremely difficult. 

You know, our rangers, our U.S. Park Police are accustomed to 

welcoming the public. We are, I think, the only Federal agency that 

has enjoyment in its mandate. It is a part of our mission to provide 

these places so that the public can enjoy them unimpaired for future generations. And right now we are having to turn people away 

because of the shutdown and the lapse of appropriations, and that 

is very, very difficult. 

Now, I have instructed, in spite of what you are hearing here 

today, I have instructed my law enforcement folks to take a very 

low-key approach to enforcement at the park level, to not confront, 

to stand back and just inform the American public that these 

places are closed. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Uh-huh. 

Mr. JARVIS. And, as a consequence, there have been very, very 

few citations across the country. It has mostly been a respectful reminder to the American public when they come, obviously with 

their disappointment. It is, again, extraordinarily difficult and 

painful for us to have to deliver of message. And we hope that this 

will end very soon and we can open all—— 

78 

Ms. BORDALLO. And with the few seconds I have left, Mr. Jarvis, 

I do suppose the ones that are not furloughed feel sort of guilty 

with other colleagues that had to be furloughed that they are still 

on and the others have been, you know, furloughed. So I can imagine it must be a morale problem, as well, in the agency. 

And I thank you very much again for your service. 

And I yield back my time. 

Chairman ISSA. [presiding.] The gentlelady yields back. 

We now go the gentleman from Colorado. But prior to that, I am 

going to ask unanimous consent so that it be in the record for later 

discussion—and we will have a copy of it given to the Director. 

This is the donation agreement for the National Park Service from 

the State of Oregon—I am sorry, from the State of Arizona back 

in the 1990s. And it details what the chairman said was a template. 

I might note that, instead of $96,000 a day, it was $17,000 a day. 

So after you get a copy of it, I hope you can explain the inflation 

rate over this period of time. 

The gentleman from Colorado. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Jarvis, this is painful for me because I do love and support 

and appreciate the national park system. And to see what you have 

done really pains me, and to have to have this conversation. I have 

been to over 200 units of the National Park Service—like I said, 

I love the parks—many of those visits with my wife and children. 

And yet, when I was at the World War II Memorial the second 

day of the slowdown and I helped moved the barricades because 

those World War II veterans should not have been denied their access, it was so reprehensible. 

I talked to one gentleman there who was in a wheelchair. I asked 

him how old he was; he was 97 years old. And he had fought in 

the Pacific theater in World War II in Guadalcanal, among other 

places. And yet he wasn’t being allowed, had those barricades 

stood, he wasn’t being allowed to touch or see the plaques where 

the fallen are memorialized, his buddies. My own father couldn’t 

ever make it out there. He turned 93 years old before he died, but 

he was never in good enough health to go out there. 

And so it was wrong, what you did. This decision of yours was 

not good. It was not good for the American people, and it is not 

good for the park system either. Like I say, I appreciate the park 

system, and yet I think you have besmirched its reputation and 

you have soured its relationship with Congress. And, in my opinion, sir, you have failed and you are a liability to the National Park 

Service. 

I do have a couple of questions I would like to ask you about. 

Whose decision was it to try to shut down Mount Vernon? Mount 

Vernon is privately owned and operated. I know there is some 

parking off to the side that you have responsibility for. Was that 

your decision also, to try to shut down Mount Vernon? 

Mr. JARVIS. I think you are incorrect in that regard. We did not 

try to shut down Mount Vernon. We barricaded one parking lot 

that belongs to the National Park Service. And that was done in 

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79 

ing lot is part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. It did 

not block the use of Mount Vernon. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Well, if people can’t park there, I don’t know how 

they can access—— 

Mr. JARVIS. There are many parking lots at Mount Vernon. This 

is just one. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Was that your decision, though? 

Mr. JARVIS. I was not involved in that decision directly, no, sir. 

Mr. LAMBORN. I would like to ask about reimbursement to the 

States. My own State of Colorado is one of the four or so States 

that have talked with the National Park Service about paying for 

continuing the Park Service until this government slowdown is 

over. 

Will States like Colorado be fully reimbursed for their expenses 

that they are incurring right now? 

Mr. JARVIS. Not unless Congress authorizes it. 

Mr. LAMBORN. The document that Chairman Issa just had introduced into the record shows—this is from 1995–1996—that the pattern was, in the past, that States would be reimbursed. 

If they are paying for things like salaries of park rangers, maintenance, law enforcement, and so on, then those people don’t have 

to be reimbursed later by you because that would be—I am assuming they wouldn’t get twice their salary. I assume they only get 

paid once. So when you get reimbursed, that is a windfall to you 

if you don’t reimburse the States. 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, here is the way it actually works. So the States 

are depositing a set amount that we negotiate with the Governors 

into the Treasury, and as soon as we open the parks, we are charging against that account. So that account is drawn down. 

Now, if the shutdown ends before we expend all of that money, 

then whatever is remaining absolutely will be immediately returned to the States. But for the money that is charged against, I 

have no authority than to take Federal dollars that, once reimbursed when the shutdown ends, and give that to the States unless 

directly authorized by Congress. Which I would support, by the 

way, but I don’t have that authority just outright. 

Mr. LAMBORN. So, at this point in time, you are not pledging to 

reimburse the States. 

Mr. JARVIS. No. We made it very clear in each of these agreements and very clear in the agreement that was negotiated that 

there is no guarantee that they are going to get this money back. 

It would only be if Congress were to authorize it. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Well, I think you should have to be responsible for 

that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

I might note for the record that in every case of shutdowns all 

Federal employees have been paid and these types of debts have 

been paid. So there is a high expectation, even without a contract. 

We now to the gentleman from Virginia for his round of questions. Mr. Connolly? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And welcome to the panel. 

80 

Ms. Eberly, I have been to the Claude Moore Farm many times, 

and thank you for running such a beautiful spot in our community. 

By the way, the land on which the Claude Moore Colonial Farm 

is located, is that federally owned or is that privately owned? 

Ms. EBERLY. Federally owned. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Federally owned. 

Ms. EBERLY. Uh-huh. It is a former landfill. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. So could it be that Director Jarvis, looking 

at the Antideficiency Act and trying to figure out what is covered 

and what isn’t, looks at a place like Claude Moore, federally-owned 

land—you manage it, but it is federally owned—and it gets a subsidy of $100,000 a year, apparently down to $92,000 this year because of sequestration and down to zero next year because of budget cuts, that he might have just included that in, sort of, the larger 

penumbra of the Antideficiency Act and things he might have to 

decide? Could that be an explanation? 

Ms. EBERLY. I was told by the superintendant that it was entirely his decision, that he had—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Which superintendant? 

Ms. EBERLY. The parkway superintendant. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. The parkway superintendant. 

Ms. EBERLY. Uh-huh. And he had decided to leave open the Memorial Bridge and the George Washington Memorial Parkway. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And from your point of view—well, you obviously 

didn’t like the decision; none of us did. But it was also a matter 

of communication. Explaining the rationale was not very consistent, from your point of view. 

Ms. EBERLY. We have never gotten an explanation. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. 

Director Jarvis—— 

Ms. EBERLY. Because now we are open. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Director Jarvis, I would like you to address that 

in a second. But you have, you said, 401 national parks; is that correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Would Claude Moore and, say, the Mount Vernon 

parking lot be included in that number? Or are they, because they 

are sort of hybrids, are they over and above the 401? 

Mr. JARVIS. No, they are components of those 401. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of similar situations as to the 

Claude Moore Farm within those 401. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. And you were advised presumably by your 

ethics office or by your attorneys when you go about to organize for 

the shutdown in anticipation of the shutdown that you are going 

to have to make thousands of discrete decisions in a very collapsed 

timeframe. And you are concerned about complying both with the 

law, that is to say the shutdown, and with the Antideficiency Act. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Would you remind us what the Antideficiency 

Act is and does? 

Mr. JARVIS. Essentially, it is a statute that prohibits doing work 

for which there is no Federal appropriation, except for the limitations on protection of life and property. 

81 

And so, in the case of Claude Moore, if I may, the Claude Moore 

Farm has since 2001 received $1.3 million of Federal appropriations from the National Park Service. We recently spent several 

hundred thousand dollars repairing their sewer system. We do ongoing food and safety inspections, trash removal, and road maintenance. 

So we had to evaluate, in the case of Claude Moore, in the case 

of dozens of these, of whether or not we would be in violation of 

the Antideficiency Act by allowing these to continue to operate. 

And so, if you may, let me just say, we took the closure date on 

October 1, and then we began to evaluate each of these operations 

individually to ensure that we were not violating. And those that 

we felt we could honestly and clearly and legally reopen, we have 

done that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. By the way, I have a limited amount of time left, 

but I want to say, at least speaking for this Member, I just heard 

my colleague from Colorado make some rather strong statements 

about you and your service. I completely disavow those comments. 

I think you have been an exemplary public servant. I think you 

have done the best you could under very trying circumstances. 

I think you have put up with some criticism because some—no 

one here, of course—want to deflect public attention from their own 

actions, namely, the consequences of a shutdown. But to trash 

somebody’s good reputation, who has served his country well as a 

labor of love as well as your professional commitment to the national parks and making them the best they can be, I just want you 

to know there are many of us here and many throughout the country who very much value your service and deeply regret any suggestions that somehow you are responsible for the shutdown and 

the consequences. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I have 7 seconds, Mr. Chairman, but I would be 

glad to yield. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Well, I just want to point out—and I thank the 

gentleman for yielding. Real quickly, I just understand that the 

Antideficiency Act goes back to the 1860s, and yet it was not employed in 1995 for whatever reason. And I just thought for the 

record that ought to be—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, could I at least ask—— 

Chairman ISSA. You can have your 6 seconds. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Mr. Galvin, is that true or not? 

Mr. GALVIN. It is not true. The Antideficiency Act ruled the shutdown in 1995–1996, the same way it does now. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

I will now recognize myself. 

Director Jarvis, do you remember April of this year coming before one of these committees, the Oversight Committee? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. And between April 16th and October 1st, you 

were not shut down, you had the ability to operate fully; is that 

correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

82 

Chairman ISSA. So for those many months after you promised to 

deliver us the discovery, including 400 pages previously identified 

before that hearing, and didn’t do so, you did so out of contempt 

for your promise to this committee? 

Mr. JARVIS. I—— 

Chairman ISSA. Or was it just an oversight? Do you just not 

know that you promised to deliver documents related to discovery 

and you don’t do it? 

Mr. JARVIS. No, sir. Those decisions are made by the Department 

of the Interior. I—— 

Chairman ISSA. Well, I am going to take that decision away from 

you. I will be issuing a subpoena to you before the close of this 

hearing, and I will expect, as soon as the government reopens, for 

you to comply with it. 

Additionally, I am going to ask our clerks to go through the 

record and find each and every document and request made during 

this hearing and again issue a subpoena. Since it is very clear that 

the promises you make have no value because someone in the Department of Interior simply doesn’t bother to deliver documents already known. And those documents are related to our accusation 

of prior abuse under sequestration. 

So Mr. Connolly may want to say you are exemplary. I find it 

questionable. 

Let me ask you a very simple question I started this hearing 

with: Whose land is it? Is it your land? Is it the government land? 

Or do you oversee the people’s land? And, please, think before you 

answer. 

Mr. JARVIS. It is the people’s land. 

Chairman ISSA. If it is the people’s land, then don’t you have an 

obligation to absolutely, positively mitigate to the greatest extent 

possible the adverse effects on people? 

Mr. JARVIS. I operate under the—— 

Chairman ISSA. No, no. 

Mr. JARVIS. —law passed—— 

Chairman ISSA. I know. Don’t tell me about the law. Do you have 

an obligation—you are restrained by laws, but do you have an obligation to deliver to the best of your ability with the limited funds 

you may or may not have? 

Mr. JARVIS. I absolutely do. 

Chairman ISSA. Then, in the case of Ms. Eberly, isn’t it true that, 

in fact, every day her organization saves the American people 

money they would otherwise spend to operate that park or the park 

would be gone? Isn’t that true? 

You kept talking about the million dollars you delivered. She delivered twice, three times, four times that in value, through volunteers, through fundraising. Isn’t that true? 

Mr. JARVIS. Absolutely. We love our partners. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So here is your public-private partner, and 

you shut her down and cost her far more than any potential savings. You spent money to barricade so that she, in fact, couldn’t operate, and you did so without prior notice. 

And let me ask you an important question. What was the first 

day in your job—you talked about 2016 and what you are anticipating and who you are working with. What was the first day you 

83 

began asking the question over the last year—we will just use 

2013—what do I do in the case of a shutdown related to a lack of 

appropriations? What was the first day? 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, we were facing a potential shutdown in 2011 

when the—— 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So, since 2011, your testimony is that, in 

fact, you have known there was a potential for a shutdown. 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Chairman ISSA. You were with the Park Service and you were 

aware of the agreement made with Arizona in 1996. You were 

aware, could have been aware, of course, Ms. Eberly was not shut 

down back then. 

You were aware that, contrary to what was shown in an earlier 

picture, that, in fact, the Lincoln Memorial was not closed, as that 

picture falsely shows, at some earlier barricade. This is a repair period of time. It may, in fact, be an actual picture. But the pictures 

we have seen show that people walked up. This barricade was not, 

in fact, keeping people from going. People went all the way up. 

You will notice the—Mr. DeFazio, you will notice the construction. 

This picture is also from that period and shows people actually 

being seen, with the sign up there, going there. 

The fact is you had a history and a tradition. Why did you not 

make the effort and the contacts to find out how to mitigate? Why 

did you not talk to the mayor’s people or representatives? Why was 

there not an attempt to see what they could do to mitigate it? Why 

were those contracts not dusted off in preparation? Why didn’t you 

do anything to mitigate this whenever possible? 

And why did you cause Ms. Eberly to sit there and lose money 

and perhaps her organization go into an inability to maintain it 

when, in fact, you know and I know that that road maintenance 

is being deferred whether she is open or closed? Isn’t that true? 

Mr. JARVIS. I immediately upon the closure began to look at the 

documents from the Grand Canyon—— 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, yes, that is a great answer. And my time 

is expiring. 

You waited till after October 1st and then began—after you asserted pain on people through a lack of planning, you began planning, so that a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks after you had made your 

point, you had made your point that you could punish the American people by shutting down and taking away assets they cared 

about, then you began, because of public opinion, opening back up. 

For the record, isn’t it true that everything you have done to reopen could have been anticipated and done in advance? In other 

words, if you can reopen her parking lot, then, in fact, you had the 

authority never to close it. Isn’t that true? 

Mr. JARVIS. We did not have—— 

Chairman ISSA. The 1860s law didn’t change—— 

Mr. JARVIS. In all due respect—— 

Chairman ISSA. —so isn’t it true—— 

Mr. JARVIS. In all due respect, the National Park Service is a 

very big, complex organization. I did not know about Claude Moore 

any more than the dozens of others out there. I rely on my field 

representatives, my superintendents to tell me. 

84 

And so what we had to do is we shut it down in compliance with 

the lapse of appropriation and then immediately began assessing 

which ones we could reopen. And we did that with that Claude 

Moore. I have over a dozen here more that we have reopened, as 

well as—— 

Chairman ISSA. Yeah, the Grand Canyon is, you know, kind of 

hard, it gets overlooked, you didn’t see it, you know. And we all 

know that terrorists are going to go in and blow up the Grand Canyon, too. So, you know, the fact that you overlooked the Grand 

Canyon is not credible. 

We go to the gentlelady from Massachusetts now for her questions, Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. 

And thank you, Mr. Jarvis, for being here. 

You know, as I said in my early comments, I do have two national parks. They really do commemorate—one commemorates the 

American Revolution; the other commemorates the Industrial Revolution. The communities that host these national parks take such 

pride in all the great work you do and the tremendous leadership 

you have brought, the high standards you create. And we as an 

American people, I think, are proud of those standards and hate to 

see anything happen that undermines them, as the sequester is 

certainly doing and as shutting down the government is doing. 

But I want to address first the whole issue of our veterans’ access to the World War II Memorial. My father was a survivor of 

Pearl Harbor. He went on to serve across the South Pacific. He is 

no longer living, but I can’t imagine that he would not be so dismayed by the circus that has been created around the access issue 

to the memorial. 

And I happened to be in the airport when an Honor Flight group 

was coming from Arkansas. It was a very celebratory moment. 

These were older, older men who were so proud of their service to 

this country, and it was a touching thing to be near them. 

I just want to reference that Politico today reports that, despite 

my Republican colleague attempts to turn the World War II Memorial into the government shutdown’s poster child: ‘‘Veterans 

streaming into Washington to see the monument don’t really face 

any obstacles in their visits. And many complain that they are 

being used for political gain.’’ 

Jim McLaughlin, a lead organizer for the Honor Flight Network 

told Politico: ‘‘We have had no problems at all.’’ He said the Park 

Service has been: ‘‘very cooperative and very polite,’’ in allowing 

veterans groups to visit under the auspices that they are conducting: ‘‘First Amendment activities.’’ 

Director Jarvis, veterans have been able to visit the World War 

II Memorial, haven’t they? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, ma’am, they have. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. 

I would also like to go back to the issue—and I thank you, Ms. 

Simon, for your testimony. Are we really surprised that the government shutdown would have an impact on our gateway communities, on our tourism industry? Isn’t it just something one could 

have foreseen? 

85 

Ms. SIMON. I don’t think the fact that there was an impact was 

a surprise. No, I think everyone anticipated it. It was really not 

knowing what to expect come the first day of the shutdown. 

Ms. TSONGAS. And that is why it is such a dismaying activity, 

given that it could have been avoided. A bill could have been 

brought to the floor that would have Democratic support, the Senate bill that was passed by the Senate on a bipartisan basis, 

brought to the floor of the House of Representatives, supported by 

Democrats, supported by Republicans, and it would have avoided 

this altogether. 

The national parks are where a lot of the discussion has gone because they are very visible to the American people, and it is happening at a moment in time when visitation has historically been 

very high. But I don’t think we can overlook all the other people 

and all the other institutions that have been so impacted. 

Last week, I had a heart-wrenching conversation with a nurse at 

a military installation in my district who is furloughed because of 

the Republican shutdown. As a Federal contract employee, she is 

terrified that she won’t be able to recover her lost pay, putting her 

family at financial risk. ‘‘We are the ones suffering,’’ she told me. 

‘‘We are hardworking Americans working paycheck to paycheck. 

Something like this can destroy us.’’ 

We have to remember the servicemembers who have returned 

from combat duty who may lose their college tuition assistance that 

they have been promised. Clinical trials for cancer patients have 

been delayed, and veterans are being told that they will have to 

wait even longer to have their benefit claims reviewed. 

And, yes, it is so unfortunate that our national parks, some of 

our Nation’s most treasured sites, are closed to the public. But that 

is what happens when the Federal Government shuts down. We 

need to end this and end it today. 

Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady yields back. 

We now go to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thanks to the panel for being here. 

I certainly agree with one of my colleagues who mentioned earlier, on the other side of the aisle, that we live in a parallel universe—a parallel universe of fact and of fiction. 

Five years of government by crisis has been taking place, beginning with the first 2 years of this administration when the Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House. A 

budget wasn’t passed either of those 2 years. Continuing resolutions. Continuing resolutions certainly work toward crisis, don’t 

they? 

And now we have come to a big crisis where the Democrats’ shutdown of this government has taken place. Now, they would call it 

something else, and they have been effective with the use of pawns 

in the media and pawns, sadly, in the bureaucracy, Mr. Jarvis, of 

making pain on the American public. 

But I am concerned more about the pain that has been put on 

the private-sector economy—Mayor Bryan, Ms. Eberly, tourist associations. This was knowingly done. I am concerned about the pain 

that will be coming even worse for Mayor Bryan and Ms. Eberly 

86 

and other private concessioners when Obamacare has its full results and we have a part-time economy, not a full-time economy. 

Because then it won’t be a shutdown that stops people from visiting these wonderful sites that, Director Jarvis, I visited when I 

was just a kid that led me in 1969 to go to Western Illinois University and major in forestry and land management. Over 40 years 

ago, my intentions were to be in the service that you are in. And 

since that time, I have visited parks all over this country in 50 

States, and I still do with my grandkids. 

But in the future, they won’t have that opportunity because of 

a economy that has gone to a part-time economy. And our people, 

maybe not foreigners, which we hope continue to come, but our 

people won’t be able to afford to go to see that magnificent Grand 

Canyon that I saw as a boy and as a teenager and as a college student and as a father. 

I am sick of hearing of this shutdown called anything other than 

a Democrat shutdown. We have offered four bills to fund the entire 

government, rejected by the Senate-controlled Senate. We have offered now 15 bills to open up necessary components of government—oh, and by the way, one of those was the Park Service and 

the monuments, one of those was the Veterans Administration, 

WIC, and I could go on down the line—rejected in the Senate, supported in a bipartisan fashion in the House. Where is the problem? 

Let me ask a question. Ms. Eberly, I heard you interviewed on 

TV, I think, after the first week. I appreciated your spunk. What 

has this cost you, or cost the Claude—the Colonial Farm? 

Ms. EBERLY. So far, probably about $30,000, I guess. That probably doesn’t seem like very much money down here, but to us it 

is. 

Mr. WALBERG. To you it does. Twenty thousand when I first 

heard you, so it has gone up $10,000 more. 

My brother, without me, took a motorcycle trip along the Blue 

Ridge Parkway just a few weeks—well, the week before the shutdown, had dinner at the Pisgah Inn. I have been there myself. 

Beautiful part of the world. A week later, it shut down, a private 

concessionary making money for the U.S. Park Service. 

Let me ask a question, Director Jarvis. What does the Park Service think will happen if they don’t close private businesses? 

Mr. JARVIS. Private businesses that are both within and outside 

the national parks are essential to public service. I mean, that is— 

so we have Pisgah Inn, Peaks of Otter, Northwest Trading Post, 

Folk Art Center, and the Mabry Mill are all open as a result of the 

policy change I made to get them open along the Blue Ridge—— 

Mr. WALBERG. How many others are closed still? 

Mr. JARVIS. I don’t really know. But I have opened over a 

dozen—Cliff House, the Avon Pier at Cape Hatteras, a number of 

these—that really do not require our support and do not violate the 

Antideficiency Act. 

Mr. WALBERG. And hundreds are still closed. 

Mr. JARVIS. I have opened the window for anybody to request, 

and we are evaluating each one of those requests. 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, let me just—because my time is 9 seconds 

here. And I would refer to you as well as Mr. Galvin. 

87 

1995, we had a shutdown. 1995 to the present, Mr. Galvin, we 

had the opportunity to put in place for—that large government entity called the Park Service to put in plans so this type of thing 

wouldn’t happen. You say it is large and it takes a lot of effort. 

Well, it sure does. But why wasn’t it taken care of between 1995 

and now? I contend it was because we wanted to inflict pain upon 

the taxpayer, the citizen, to make them go along with policies that 

will ultimately make it more problem for Mayor Bryan, Ms. Eberly, 

and others. 

And I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

I now ask unanimous consent to place in the record a letter 

dated March 27th, 2013, to Mr. Jarvis concerning the oversight discovery responsibilities and request, and then the response dated 

April 19th, 2013, from your bosses at the United States Department of the Interior in which they promised that they were diligently working on the discovery that we have never received. 

We now go to the gentleman from Nevada for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

Our national parks belong to the American people and they 

should be open, along with every other essential part of the government. I have twice met with Honor Flights this month that brought 

our veterans to see the World War II Memorial. For some, this was 

a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it was an honor to shake the 

hands of these service members. Their service should not be politicized, and they should not be used as pawns. 

Our Nevada veterans were not stopped by barricades. In fact, 

they were warmly greeted and welcomed by park rangers, allowing 

access to the memorial for First Amendment activities. And I’d like 

to thank the Park Service rangers for their courtesies. 

You know, half the truth is often a whole lie, and I’m sorry that 

the Representative from Texas is not here, because one of the days 

that I was there, he was there, and for him to say that those veterans were turned away or that the park rangers treated them 

with disrespect is not the case. 

Now, I represent Nevada’s Fourth Congressional District, and we 

are home to several national parks, including the national—the 

Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which is the fourth most visited unit in the National Park System of over 400. National parks 

are a vital part of our tourism industry and our economic base. 

In between votes on last Saturday and Monday, I was able to go 

back home to my district to meet with my constituents, and during 

one of our town halls, the former Superintendent of the Lake Mead 

National Recreation Area came, and this is what he told me. First, 

the blame should not be placed on the National Park Service or the 

individual park, but clearly on the shoulders of Congress that 

caused the shutdown in the first place. The last thing the National 

Park Service wants to see is our precious parks closed to the American public. 

He went on to share that since the closure, the park has already 

had to cancel 7 events, with an expected participation of 1,925 participants, and there are several additional events in the next 2 

weeks with over 10,000 expected participants, having an effect on 

our local economy, on jobs and on tourism. 

88 

So, Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent at this time to 

enter Mr. O’Neill’s entire statement into the record. 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

Director Jarvis, thank you for your service. Do you agree with 

Mr. O’Neill’s statement that the Park Service professionals would 

like to do their job and open the parks to the public? 

Mr. JARVIS. There’s nothing on this planet that we would prefer 

to do than to get back to work and reopen all 401 national parks. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Ms. Simon, I talked about some of the impacts 

to local communities surrounding national parks like Lake Mead. 

Can you share other impacts that you’ve experienced and how it’s 

affecting the private sector? 

Ms. SIMON. Yes. Just in the first week, we surveyed all of our 

members, and our tour operators reported collective losses estimated at $114 million just in that first week. So, you know, projecting that out in terms of what they have experienced so far as 

well as what they’re continuing to experience, because they’re having to reroute tours without an end date in sight, they’re having 

to reroute tours on into the future and will be experiencing, you 

know, financial implications to having to find alternatives to those 

tours. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, let me just close by saying one of my colleagues 

on the other side said something about Director Jarvis’ failure to 

do his job. Well, if Director Jarvis or any of the other public service 

professionals have failed for having to carry out the shutdown, 

then what does that say about the Republican Members who 

caused the shutdown in the first place? 

Mr. HASTINGS. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back his time. 

The gentleman from Virginia Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have the honor to represent America’s First District in Virginia, 

which includes Jamestown, Yorktown, Williamsburg, and also the 

historic battlefields there in Fredericksburg, Virginia. 

Director Jarvis, I want to ask you, if you go back historically and 

look at the shutdown in ’95-’96, and you look at how the Park Service handled specifically Jamestown Settlement, which, as you 

know, is run by Preservation Virginia, it’s a private entity, they’ve 

been running that—that area since 1835, it’s a nonprofit organization, the access is through the Colonial Parkway. In ’95, operations 

there at Jamestown Settlement continued without interruption. 

This time around, unfortunately, Historic Jamestowne, that 

Jamestown Settlement, was told to close by the Park Service. 

There is actually a Park Service employee there at the gate turning 

people away. They came from all over the country. You know, Preservation Virginia relies on the revenue generated there at Jamestown Settlement for their operations. That costs them about $6- or 

$7,000 a day. It took 10 days to work out an agreement so that access to that facility, owned and operated by Preservation Virginia, 

could reopen. 

Can you give me some indication about why this time around 

things were different than they were back in ’95, and why we 

couldn’t have used the mechanism in ’95 to assure that—that 

89 

Jamestown Settlement could stay open through—through this— 

this shutdown? 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, I will defer to Mr. Galvin to talk specifically 

about what occurred in ’95, because I wasn’t here then. But I would 

say that we didn’t anticipate this closure to last as long as it has, 

and what has happened as a result of its extension is that we’ve 

had to—to figure out whether or not in each individual case, 

whether or not we would be violating the Antideficiency Act because of the revenue, the amount of money, the facilities, whatever 

partnership aspect that we have with places like Historic 

Jamestowne. And we had to take that to our attorneys and say, 

this is what we’re investing, and then we had to say, can somebody 

else cover that, and then reach an agreement. And I—I was not involved directly in the one at Colonial and Jamestown, but I think 

we did work it out. 

I apologize that it took so long. That’s certainly not our intent 

to drag these things out, but the 1995 agreement was not ready to 

be just—change the date and the names on the bottom. All different attorneys, all different people in play now. And we’ve got the 

template now, so we’re moving through these rather quickly, including the State of Virginia. The Commonwealth has requested an 

interest, and we’re quite willing to work with them. 

Mr. WITTMAN. It just seems like to me with that framework, that 

even though the names and the times were different, it seems like 

to me that the framework is in place to quickly get that done. And 

in anticipation, it seems like to me, of potentially where things 

were going, there should have been some effort to say, well, wait 

a minute. While we had staff in place, while we had the opportunity to do this, why wouldn’t you look at those agreements to say 

if this does come, we have a contingency plan that we will be ready 

for this if it does happen; and if it doesn’t happen, then it’s not 

time that’s wasted or resources that are wasted. So it seems like, 

to me, that, you know, anybody looking at this said maybe—maybe 

we ought to have a contingency plan. 

Was there any contingency thought given to these agreements to 

say, listen, if this does happen, we’re going to be ready to go, there 

will not be a cessation of operations in places like Historic 

Jamestowne? 

Mr. JARVIS. We did set policy initially that is consistent with ’95 

that, you know, through roads, you know, obviously the George 

Washington Memorial Parkway in Rock Creek and the Natchez 

Straights Parkway in the Blue Ridge Park would remain open, and 

we—we set that standard, and that was obviously similar to 1995. 

But I think you make a good point. We haven’t done this in 20 

years. Shutting down is hard and complicated. And I think there 

are some lessons learned here. We now have a very good template 

agreement to work with States. We now better understand the Federal investment in each of these facilities. We don’t have, like, a 

standing database on every one of our partnerships in Washington; 

we had to receive that information coming in from the individual 

parks in order to assess it and to assure that we were not violating 

any—any current statute. I think— 

Mr. WITTMAN. And—— 

90 

Mr. JARVIS. I think we have learned. And probably if—hopefully 

there’s not another one of these, but if there is, I think we will be 

better prepared. 

Mr. WITTMAN. And I want to point out, too, we have some other 

concessionaires like in the town of Yorktown right next to where 

my office is, a great restaurant, the Carrot Tree Restaurant, that 

said, listen, we—we just want to continue to operate. The problem 

is that under their rent agreement, they have to continue to pay 

rent while you have told them to shut down. You know, the—the 

economics of that just doesn’t work out. I’m paying rent, yet I cannot have customers come to the restaurant. 

It’s an open thoroughfare. There’s no requirement for any expenditure of park resources during any period of time, yet they 

were told to shut down. And you can imagine how frustrated they 

are, how frustrated the community is with that, because logically 

it makes no sense. Separate from the political aspects of the shutdown, people look at that and go, what in the world is going on? 

So I would urge that when these instances, if they do occur in 

the future, that these instances be planned for, and that businesses, by no fault of their own that are being asked to—to shut 

down, that we give consideration for them. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from California Mr. 

Huffman. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

You know, I—I’ve almost run out of adjectives to describe this 

unfortunate hearing that we’re having today. The one that I’m left 

with is ‘‘sad.’’ I’m a freshman Member of Congress. I’m very proud 

to represent my district, to serve in this institution, but I am embarrassed by the committee process in this hearing, this sham of 

a hearing that we’re having today. 

I came to Congress to solve problems. I came to Congress to try 

to work across the aisle and raise the political discourse in this 

country and try to—to set a better tone, and instead I am taking 

part in a hearing that makes the McCarthy era look like the Enlightenment. The fact that it’s taking place during a government 

shutdown manufactured for political purposes by my Republican 

colleagues just makes it even worse. This is worse than fiddling 

while Rome burns. This is fanning the flames while Rome burns. 

This is looting and dancing while Rome burns. 

We have heard all manner of over-the-top accusations from members of this committee, and we’ve heard made-for-right-wing-media 

sound bites, charges of malice, of deliberate infliction of pain, of a 

secret plan to maximize public inconvenience and impact. We’ve 

heard unnamed, anonymous witnesses from a media report talk 

about these nefarious intentions, and then we’ve heard a member 

of this committee extrapolate from that and say it was the common 

belief among National Park Service employees. All of this, of 

course, is going to be played on YouTube tonight, it’ll be played on 

Fox News, all of these made-for-right-wing-media accusations and 

claims, but there is zero evidence to support any of it. We’ve heard 

from folks who actually are on the ground, who know, who can give 

us the facts, and there is zero evidence. 

91 

If this was a court, you know what would happen? The judge 

would bring the prosecutor or the plaintiff’s attorney up to the sidebar and say, you know, I’m not only dismissing your case; if you 

ever bring a case like this and make over-the-top accusations like 

that that you can’t support with evidence, I’m going to sanction 

you, and I might even report you to the bar for ethical violations. 

But there are consequences. There’s accountability in an actual 

court, and this is a kangaroo court. And so we will continue bouncing further into the rabbit hole, I am sure. 

Director Jarvis, I can only imagine how difficult it is for you, as 

somebody who has dedicated your life and your career to the mission and the work of our National Park Service, to be going 

through the shutdown of those very parks that you’ve dedicated 

your life to operating and serving. You’re in the business of opening 

parks and—and managing them and running them. This is such a 

wonderful success story for our country, the National Park Service. 

To be asked to shut them down, especially under these circumstances, just must be awful. 

And I remember—I just served 6 years in the California State 

Legislature. I chaired the parks committee. We went through our 

own parks crisis, and it was your agency that was helping us save 

parks from closure. In fact, you saved three parks in my district 

because you stepped up, you believe in our public lands and our 

parks and people and communities they serve, and I want to thank 

you for your service. 

I can only imagine the indignity of having to sit there and listen 

to all of these baseless accusations; to have to listen to a witness 

who fronts for the oil and gas and coal industries and sues environmental agencies to try to prevent them from implementing environmental laws tell you that you are a terrible environmental steward, 

accuse you of hiding behind the veneer of the popularity of our 

parks to actually do harm to our parks and our environment. It is 

a disgrace that you have had to listen to this indignity, that you’ve 

had to sit there. 

We’ve had to listen to people romanticize about 1995 as if this 

were some shining model of how you can close down the National 

Park System and not have anyone feel the pain. But we’ve also, 

fortunately, had a witness who actually presided over that disgraceful chapter and could tell us that, yes, the Antideficiency Act 

actually applied in that case, too; who can tell us that, no, it wasn’t 

some shining model of success. Monuments were closed, people 

were impacted, communities were impacted, pain was felt, some of 

it very high-profile pain. 

So, again, I am struck by the fact that despite the over-the-top, 

made-for-media accusations and sound bites in this kangaroo court, 

we have no facts at all to suggest you’ve done anything wrong. 

Closing all of these parks, shutting down a huge Federal agency 

is a hard thing to do. There’s no easy way to do it. There’s no perfect way to do it. My only hope is that you are able to hang in there 

while we work through the terrible politics that have brought us 

to this government shutdown, and that we can get back to the business of running our Park Service and serving the people and the 

communities that depend on it as soon as possible. 

Thank you for your service. 

92 

Mr. HASTINGS. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona Mr. Gosar. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thanks, Chairman Hastings. 

First I’d like to thank Mayor Bryan for showing up and having 

breakfast with me in the Governor’s office as well. I mean, maybe 

we ought to make politicians have breakfast every morning, because that’s, I think, a good start to the day. 

But thank you, Mayor Bryan, for your leadership in regards to 

Tusayan. Tusayan is—is so interwoven with the park system, particularly with the Grand Canyon. But the situation we’re examining today is simply unacceptable. Without a doubt, the Obama 

administration has tried to make the government shutdown as 

painful as possible for communities like Tusayan to achieve political gain. In a district like mine, dominated by the presence of Federal resources, two large military facilities, and over 70 percent of 

federally administered land, the fact has been painfully evident. 

And, of course, it is Arizona, and we know the relationship between 

this administration and Arizona. 

As soon as the National Park Service announced it would shut 

down facilities like the Grand Canyon, I worked with our Governor 

Jan Brewer and local leaders like Mayor Bryan to ensure it was 

reopened. While I am pleased that all parties were able to come to 

an agreement late last week, we have to make sure some of this 

type of nonsense never happens again, and to make sure that there 

is a seamless transaction. 

While I would like to avoid future shutdowns, the reality is that 

they will inevitably happen. This certainly isn’t the first and, unfortunately, probably not the last. And if we need any excuse, $17 

trillion and growing of debt is going to the acknowledgement that 

we will bounce around this—the idea for some time. 

But our national parks are the people’s parks, and they should 

not be manipulated by political purposes. For 10 days the Park 

Service refused, refused to work with our local governments and 

businesses to keep these important economic drivers operating. Our 

State wildlife agency and State parks agency offered to shoulder 

the burden of management, and our local governments offered to 

chip in their scant dollars, but instead of working with us, the administration actually committed resources to further inconvenience 

our constituents rather than alleviate some of the burdens. 

What changed in those 10 days? Nothing. The political pressure 

from Congress and the local communities simply forced the agency 

to come to the table, like they have in previous shutdowns, and 

come to a solution. And I am committed to introducing legislation 

or doing anything else I can within my capacity as a Member of 

Congress to ensure that there is a clear legal path, a seamless 

pathway towards keeping our parks open regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C. 

Director Jarvis, can you identify one of the seven wonders of the 

world located in Arizona? 

Mr. JARVIS. Are you speaking of the Grand Canyon? 

Mr. GOSAR. Oh, absolutely. So it’s one of the seven locations in 

the world. 

93 

Mayor Bryan, I—I watched your eyes, you know, in regards to 

Mr. Jarvis talking about immediately reaching out to communities. 

Was that the truth? 

Mr. BRYAN. Well, Congressman, I know that Congresswoman 

Kirkpatrick, our Senators Flake and McCain, as well as myself 

tried to contact and get information as to why we couldn’t apply 

the 1995 to what we needed to do now, and from their office, nothing other than the local superintendent saying no. 

Mr. GOSAR. Absolutely no. I mean, I—I was involved also in 

those mitigations with the Governor and that. 

Mr. Jarvis, would you be prepared to turn over all documentation 

in regards to the attempts trying to reach your offices in regards 

to opening the Grand Canyon? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOSAR. That would be emails and phone logs. 

So you didn’t reach out to the Grand Canyon, the folks in the 

Grand Canyon, and the Governor of Arizona when you were looking at the shutdown? 

Mr. JARVIS. Me personally? No, because I can’t talk to every Governor and every community, but our local superintendent—I guarantee you that Dave Uberuaga, the Superintendent of the Grand 

Canyon, was talking to the community. 

The reopening of the Grand Canyon, along with the reopening of 

all the national parks, was front and center in our discussions in 

Washington. I—just as a little bit of history, and this would be in 

my records, is that immediately upon the shutdown, I called the 

former Superintendent of the Grand Canyon in 1995, Rob 

Arnberger, and I asked him specifically what happened on that day 

with respect to the closure so I could understand that. 

Mr. GOSAR. That’s all in the record, you know. 

Mr. JARVIS. Okay. 

Mr. GOSAR. Let me ask you your connotation of what we did in 

2011. You knew there was contentions, right, in government about 

debt? So there’s contingency plans. I was a dentist, and so every 

patient that walks in my office, I have to be prepared for an emergency, so I go through it and I rehearse it day in, day out, day in, 

day out. And I find it fraudulent that we weren’t prepared to have 

a seamless transaction with our State, particularly one of the 

greatest marvels of the world, a natural resource, one of the marvels of the world, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, 

that you were unprepared for that dictation. That’s part of leadership, and I find it offensive that there was 10 days of absolutely 

no, no, no and no, when we had a State and local municipalities 

trying to work on behalf of keeping these open. So I’ll be looking 

forward to those answers. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentlelady from New Hampshire Ms. 

Shea-Porter. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you. 

I sit on the Natural Resources Committee, and I hope and I wish 

that the concern for the national parks and the people continues 

after this. We actually had a hearing. The Republicans invited a 

witness whose suggestion was to basically allow all the national 

94 

parks to charge market value, and if they charge market value, 

that would leave out the very people that we’re talking about: average Americans who want access to their parks. 

So we shouldn’t be sitting here acting shocked that closing the 

parks was part of closing the government; of course it was. But 

what I am shocked about is the tone in this place, and I’m embarrassed to be sitting here, and I would like to apologize. We can all 

have differences of opinion, and we clearly do, and I hope the differences of opinion will be solved today. I urge my colleagues across 

the aisle to accept that vote tonight, if we have it, that the Senate—the bipartisan Senate agreement will be coming to us. So we 

do have disagreements, but we shouldn’t be talking like this. 

And the attack on you, Director, I—I apologize. It’s as ugly as I 

have seen, and I have seen some pretty ugly things here. This is 

my—my fifth year here. So I am very, very upset about this. I 

thought about walking out, and I thought, no, I need to tell all of 

you that we recognize how difficult this is. You didn’t shut down 

the government. You didn’t. They did, and they need to acknowledge that. 

I can’t imagine that there’s anybody who works in a national 

park or dedicates his or her life to serving the public, that anyone 

would say, oh, let’s close it during their busiest season. Let’s keep 

Americans out of the parks. These parks belong to Americans, and 

our American workers have protected the parks and loved the 

parks and served the American people every single day until they 

shut the government down. 

Now, the reason the government was shut down was not because 

they had a problem with the parks. It wasn’t anything else that 

they were worried about. Their problem was that the Affordable 

Care Act was still there, and so they shut the government down 

in their pursuit to try to either alter or end the Affordable Care 

Act, which happens to be law, also was upheld by the Supreme 

Court. And so their last stand here is to insult the people, insult 

the Federal workers, insult all those, and also to try to deny culpability for the impact, the economic impact, that this has had on our 

Nation. 

In my great State of New Hampshire, we have people who travel 

from all over the world to see the leaves. It’s an annual event, and 

it’s a pretty special show that God has provided for all of us. And 

yet we’ve been seriously impacted. Small businesses in New Hampshire and our New Hampshire economy was impacted not because 

of the Federal workers, but because of the Congress. 

And so to turn around and try to shift the blame and the responsibility is stunning. And that alone would be awful, but to hear the 

tone, and the meanness, and the accusations and the insults, my 

stomach has been twisting the whole time. 

I had a note that I had written. I was hoping to—to hand it off 

to the chairman, but he left. I said, please, can you and everyone 

else leave out these personal attacks and nasty tones? Americans 

expect us to ask tough questions, make tough statements, but be 

civil. 

Civility. We can disagree. We do disagree. But, again, I apologize 

for the tone here, I apologize for the insults. I thank you, Director 

Jarvis, for the work that you have done for this country. And they 

95 

have a right and an obligation to ask questions, but we don’t have 

a right to bring in Federal employees and treat them as if we’re 

just batting them around like a cat with a mouse, and for that I 

apologize. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The gentlelady yields back her time. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from California Mr. McClintock. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman. And I would remind 

my friend from New Hampshire that three times the House voted 

to fund the government. Three times the Democratic Senate rejected those measures and refused to resolve our differences 

through the negotiation—— 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. No, I will not—that served our country for 225 

years. I would also remind her that on October the 2nd, the Republican House voted to reopen the parks. We were joined by 23 House 

Democrats, who courageously defied their party leaders. The Democratic Senate killed that bill, once again refusing to resolve our differences. I would remind my colleagues that incessantly repeating 

a falsehood does not make it a truth. 

Mayor Bryan, why is Grand Canyon National Park open and yet 

Yosemite National Park is closed? 

Mr. BRYAN. I can’t speak to Yosemite, Congressman, but Grand 

Canyon National Park is open because after 10 days we were able 

to, through the Governor’s office, negotiate a deal to reopen it at 

$93,000 a day, 426,500—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. If—if the Governor of California had taken the 

same action, would Yosemite be open today? 

Mr. BRYAN. I would assume so. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Thank you. 

Mr. Jarvis, do I understand you correctly that you ordered the 

barricading—— 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman, I seek to be 

recognized. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. The gentleman—— 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. A point—a point of order. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The gentleman from California has the time. If 

you ask the gentleman to yield and he yields—— 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. A point of order. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The gentlelady will state a point of order. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. The suggestion that I was repeating a falsehood, I would like to know, was that suggesting that I was lying, 

and if so, I would like to—to have you deal with that. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. HASTINGS. The chair is going to rule that the timeliness of 

that has to be immediately, and the timeliness of your remark was 

not—was not timely in this case, and so the chair recognizes the 

gentleman from California. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. But I have to say, Mr. Chairman, that after 

the dialogue that we had earlier, I thought—I thought the chairman would address that if that happened. I remember an earlier 

conversation here, and I thought that what I heard you say at that 

96 

time suggested that you would indeed step in if there were any— 

any—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. Well, what’s the—if the chair is asking—if the 

gentlelady is asking the chairman whether there is consistency 

with a—with a conversation with another Member on this side of 

the aisle earlier, I think I am absolutely consistent on that, because 

the gentleman from California was talking in the third term. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. The gentleman from California is recognized. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And if I may clarify, I was merely saying that 

the statement that this shutdown is the fault of Republicans, when 

Republicans have repeatedly voted to keep the government open, is 

simply false. And that is a fact. 

Mr. Jarvis, did I understand you correctly that you ordered the 

barricading of public property to which the public would normally 

have unrestricted access? 

Mr. JARVIS. I ordered the closure of all 401 national parks. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Did anybody instruct you to barricade these— 

these public venues? 

Mr. JARVIS. No, sir. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. So that came from you? 

Mr. JARVIS. That’s correct. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Let me read you an email that’s typical of 

what—complaints flooding into my office. This one involves Kings 

Canyon National Park. The gentleman writes, to get to my place 

of residence and work, I have to travel through the Big Stump entrance station on Highway 180. Currently the entire roadway is 

barricaded, and it appears as though the Park Service is attempting to prevent anyone from traveling to or through the national 

park. 

My concern is twofold. First, I personally live here on private 

property, and there’s the appearance that the government is trying 

to prevent us from accessing our private lands. 

Second, I was in the area 17 years ago as a young adult during 

the last government shutdown, and this type of thing didn’t happen. Sure, the facilities at the visitor centers were closed, but the 

land was still accessible. 

I fear that our Federal Government is overstepping in this area, 

and I don’t know where to turn in order to get this corrected. 

Mr. Jarvis, by what authority did your agency barricade public 

highways and impede the public from accessing their own private 

homes and businesses? 

Mr. JARVIS. My closure order that I issued on October 1 did allow 

for people to access their private property, and even if it was on 

a closed road, but only for the purposes of accessing their private 

property, not for recreating in the park. 

All through roads through the National Park System have been 

remained open, such as the Tioga Pass in Yosemite and the 

through road through the Great Smokies, but the spur roads or 

roads that only lead directly into the park and not through to access the other side are all closed as a part of the lapse in appropriations. 

97 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And yet this gentleman says 17 years ago they 

were open, and that your action has impeded him from reaching 

his private property. 

Mr. JARVIS. I would defer to Mr. Galvin, but I would say in 1995, 

Kings Canyon was closed. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Jarvis, at Yosemite, the Park Service have 

posted guards at pull-outs and parking lots where none are normally posted. You’ve said that this is in response to the 

Antideficiency Act that only allows acts to protect life and property. 

I would wonder if you could explain, how is life and property 

threatened by parking in an open parking lot and simply taking 

pictures of Bridal Falls? 

Mr. JARVIS. If you’re taking a picture of Bridal Falls, you’re not 

on a through road. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. No. You’re on a turnout or a public parking 

area. 

Mr. JARVIS. On a through—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. How is parking in a public parking area a 

threat to life and property? 

Mr. JARVIS. These pull-outs are maintained by Federal appropriations. We pick up the trash. We protect the resources from fire, 

from damage and vandalism. And I—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Do you think taking a picture is vandalism? 

Mr. JARVIS. No. Taking a picture is not vandalism, but use of 

these facilities that are closed because we do not have an appropriation—— 

Mr. JARVIS. Mr. Ebell, my time’s very limited. I’m working on 

legislation that would forbid barricading or restricting public access 

to any open-air public space to which the public normally has unrestricted access, or to interfere with normally permitted public 

recreation on public land. Would that alleviate a lot of the problems that are being reported to us? 

Mr. EBELL. Yes, indeed it would alleviate some of them. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Thank you. 

Mr. EBELL. But I think, as you see, the Antideficiency—the Director of the Park Service hides behind the Antideficiency Act when 

it’s useful, and he ignores it when it’s not. And this is, I think, 

going to continue as long as these kinds of people are allowed to 

run the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona Mr. Grijalva. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And I—I have been trying to get something out of this meeting, 

and thus far it’s been very difficult. But a couple of questions, 

and—and it was not dual, parallel universes with alternative universe. An alternative means that you’re not dealing with reality 

quite well. I just want to make the distinctions of what I said. 

Mr. Jarvis, thank you for being here. I know that—that—I wish 

this was an honest effort to discuss your—why you were forced to 

respond to congressional efforts to shut down our government, why 

the sequestration continues to mount increased burdens on—on the 

agency, but this is a media event and has to be treated like such. 

There’s not a—there’s not a look for solutions. 

98 

What I did find interesting, though, Mr. Jarvis, is one of the 

things that I learned is that there—the idea that we have to have 

a shutdown preparedness program within every agency; that because what has been admittedly by—admitted by my colleagues, 

this phenomena will continue, and there will be other shutdowns. 

So there’s a—there’s a preparedness plan that you must now put 

together, so you minimize that publicity for Members, so that special parks in their areas are left open, so there’s not any public criticism, so that the most visible, like the Grand Canyon, are left 

open so that we minimize that public opinion and public response 

to the fact that one of their treasures and all of their public lands 

are being closed as a consequence of a shutdown. 

It’s an interesting preparedness issue. I don’t know how you will 

do it, but that—that will require you to be able to still furlough 

20,000 people, keep the parks open, all access open, do it with 4- 

or 500 people, and, in that preparedness plan, make sure that the 

public lands are left alone, yet do not have the money to operate. 

It’s an interesting request. I don’t know if it’s a foregone conclusion that you can come up with a plan. I would suggest that it’s 

probably an effort that it doesn’t require any time. It just requires 

that—that all the parks be left open, that there be no oversight, 

that there be no security, that there be no maintenance, and 

they’re just open. It—it is a silly request and a silly idea to deal 

with the adverse publicity that’s been generated by the closure of 

our government, and in particular in this area, the government— 

the public lands. 

The other thing I learned is that we should start, as part of preparedness, have preexisting templates with each State so they can 

assume the payment of—of keeping the parks in their States open, 

like the Grand Canyon in Arizona being one of many. 

I would also hope that we extend that same idea to HUD, Department of Education, Health and Human Services, all the other 

agencies that are being affected by the shutdown, so that we have 

with the State of Arizona a preexisting memorandum of understanding that they will take over and fund Head Start; that they 

will take over and fund LIHEAP; that they will take over and fund 

education; that they will take over and fund veterans—veterans 

services, Native American services, and programs in the State of 

Arizona. I think that—that would be a gesture that would be felt 

across the State of Arizona. And I would certainly urge our Governor Ms. Brewer that just as she worked on the Grand Canyon 

opening, that those are legitimate concerns that the people of Arizona are facing as well. 

And I would suggest, Mr. Mayor, that you would join with me in 

making sure that uranium mining is kept away from the Grand 

Canyon, because that is a—that is a threat, an imminent threat, 

and the shutdown doesn’t mitigate that at all. That’s still—that’s 

there for 20 years, and I’m very appreciative of the Secretary’s 

moratorium, but that is an imminent threat to the Grand Canyon 

as well. 

Let me ask you, Mr. Mayor, do you agree that the entire shutdown was not needed, should never have happened, or do you support the government shutdown efforts? You do support some govVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:23 Jul 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00104 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88621.TXT APRIL
99 

ernment shutdown efforts as long as the parks in your region remain open? 

Mr. BRYAN. Is the Congressman asking if I support a shutdown 

of the United States Government? 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Yeah. 

Mr. BRYAN. No, I do not. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. And I ask you that because—and I’m glad that 

you worked with Governor Brewer, because her October 1st media 

release right after this whole shutdown thing started, she said she 

would not—she said—saying the Grand Canyon opening is not a 

top concern. She said on Monday she won’t be trying to use State 

resources to keep the Grand Canyon open during a Federal Government shutdown. I don’t know if the Grand Canyon’s a priority 

for the State of Arizona, the Governor said, following a closed-door 

meeting with her cabinet. We have a lot of other priorities out 

there, like our national guardsmen, children and people that will 

be hurting desperately with this shutdown. 

I—I established that in the record, and I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired, and he 

can’t yield back time you’ve used over, so—— 

Mr. GRIJALVA. You’re not on the 8-minute rule? 

Mr. HASTINGS. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr. Meehan. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Director Jarvis, thank you for being here today, albeit under duress, but I’m appreciative and appreciative of your 

service for—for numbers of years on behalf of the national parks. 

But I have a—look, apart from all this other stuff, I have a commonsense thing I need to resolve with you. I’ve got 5 minutes, and 

I want to walk through something if we can. 

You know, you’ve—you’ve identified a couple of different times 

the Antideficiency Act, and that has motivated some of your actions. Now, you’re aware in the 120 years of the Antideficiency Act, 

there has never been an indictment or a conviction under that act? 

You’re aware of that? 

Mr. JARVIS. I was not aware of that. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, there hasn’t been. Okay. So I guess what 

that suggests is there’s moments in which even despite we use discretion—I know you’ve identified yourself as having worked as a 

park enforcement officer at a previous time. Have you been to Valley Forge Park at any point in time during your service? 

Mr. JARVIS. I’ve never worked there, but I’ve been there. 

Mr. MEEHAN. You’ve been there. It’s a marvelous place. I’m privileged to be able to represent that area. But my problem is I have 

20 people who are my constituents that happen to be joggers, and 

I’m holding in my hand United States District Violation 3928431 

from John Bell. He gave me permission to raise this issue with you. 

He was fined $100 for jogging in the park. 

Now, I’m asking you—you have identified yourself as having significant prosecutorial discretion, and I’m asking you right now— 

this has nothing to do—these are the people being called in. Mr. 

Bell and others are going to have to take time off of work, they’re 

going to have to hire attorneys, they’re going to have to—you are 

going to have your people go to court and spend hours sitting in 

100 

the Federal district court in Philadelphia miles away simply to enforce a $100 citation. 

You have discretion. I’m asking whether you will remove these citations, the $100 fines, from the 20 joggers who used Valley Forge 

Park. 

Mr. JARVIS. I’m not in the position or have the authority to 

change a ticket that has been issued. That is up to the court system. 

Now, what I will say—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, let’s go through the record, then. Okay? Now, 

because I want to establish on the record that you have allowed 

this enforcement to take place. So it’s your position that they are 

obligated to pay this fine? 

Mr. JARVIS. If they were issued a citation for violating whatever 

they—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. What violation is it that they did by jogging in the 

park? 

Mr. JARVIS. It would be on the citation. I don’t know. 

Mr. MEEHAN. It says—it says, park closed. That’s what it says. 

Mr. JARVIS. Then they’re violating a closure. 

Mr. MEEHAN. By being in the park? 

Mr. JARVIS. I believe that was a parking ticket, actually. 

Mr. MEEHAN. No, no, it’s not a parking ticket. Look at—the parking ticket goes to the vehicle. This was—they parked in that lot. 

You have an obligation—in order to identify the areas where the 

enclosures are, you had barricades, not much signage. Again, under 

the law—this is the public notice requirements that you have 

under the law. The barricades were placed in a place where it was 

entirely foreseeable on a Sunday morning when this jog took place 

that they were still there from Saturday night. The signage was no 

bigger than this, and, in fact, he went to a parking lot in which 

there was no signage. And you have an obligation under the law 

to make sure that it’s all along the boundary of the affected park 

locale. So as a matter of law, I question whether or not you gave 

appropriate notice. 

Did you in addition publish in the newspaper that the parks 

were closed? 

Mr. JARVIS. We published on our Internet Web site. 

Mr. MEEHAN. And the local newspaper. As it says, along—you 

have obligations to publish in newspapers of general circulation in 

the affected area. So did you do that? 

Mr. JARVIS. I do not know. 

Mr. MEEHAN. So you didn’t fulfill any of the requirements. 

Now, here’s the third, and I want to ask you again. You said that 

people were entitled to sit in the parks here, Occupy, because they 

were protesting, and any group of less than 20 is entitled to be in 

the park in protest. How do you know by jogging in the park they 

weren’t protesting either for or against the healthcare law by exercising their right to be out in the open and showing what good, 

healthful lifestyles can do? 

Mr. JARVIS. In the closure order that I issued on October 1st, we 

did—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Is that or not—is that—could that possibly be an 

expression of their First Amendment rights? 

101 

Mr. JARVIS. I would say that would be a very difficult case—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. You said it was content neutral. May not exercising in a space be concerned to be an exercise of their constitutional rights, their First Amendment constitutional rights? 

Mr. JARVIS. Sir, if you’d let me finish my—my sentence, the—all 

of the national parks across the system, except for the National 

Mall and Independence, are closed to First Amendment activities. 

That’s in my closure order. So—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Why—why are they closed? What’s the selective 

enforcement? Why can’t somebody in Valley Forge Park have the 

same ability to use their First Amendment rights as somebody at 

Independence Hall 20 miles away? 

Mr. JARVIS. Because Independence and the National Mall are 

treated nationally as sites for First Amendment. The parks are 

closed because we don’t have an appropriation. In the case of Acadia—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. What’s the appropriation needed? Are you aware 

that this—that the jogging paths are entirely contiguous to the 

public throughway that goes through, and the alternative is for 

those joggers not to jog on the paved path next to the open highway, which you have already identified the throughway; that they 

run in the street where they have the opportunity to be hit by cars? 

Chairman ISSA. Real quickly, a response. 

Mr. JARVIS. I’m not aware of that detail. 

Mr. MEEHAN. So the last thing, you’re going to make these people go to court over $100; is that accurate? 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. The time 

of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. MEEHAN. May he answer the question? Is it your position 

that this was not a First Amendment right, and that they must go 

to court to protect their First—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. And what 

we—what you can do, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania knows, 

there is always an opportunity for follow-up questions, and I suspect that one needs to be answered in some way, and the gentleman can follow up with that. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr. Cartwright. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And I’d like to thank Chairman Hastings, 

Ranking Member DeFazio, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member 

Cummings for bringing us together, and also to the witnesses for 

showing up today and giving us your input and your and your testimony. 

This hearing looks at a very narrow impact of the shutdown, but 

one that has directly impacted my district. I represent the 17th 

Congressional District of Pennsylvania, which has two shuttered 

national parks right now, the Steamtown National Historic Site 

and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. During the 

month of October, these two parks combined to attract an average 

of nearly 14,000 people a day, adding over $400,000 to the local 

economy every single day. 

These parks are also important sites to visit for my constituents. 

Just the other day a young girl from my district wrote me a letter 

102 

begging me to open these parks to avoid ruining her birthday celebration. 

Everybody in this room knows that there is a simple solution to 

the problem here. The solution doesn’t lie with the Park Service, 

which is following the law and doing its best with a terrible situation Congress has created. The solution has been and still is simply 

to pass the continuing resolution crafted in the Senate, refund the 

government with no strings attached, continue to work out our policy differences while we have an open and functioning Federal Government. 

I can honestly reply to this young girl who wrote to me that I 

and my party are doing everything in our power to reopen the national parks and our entire national government. I have voted 16 

times to bring up the Senate clean continuing resolution opening 

the government with no strings attached. I’ve gone on the floor and 

I’ve asked unanimous consent to bring up this clean CR, we call 

it. I’ve cosigned letters and discharge petitions to that effect. 

All of this has fallen on deaf ears, with the majority refusing 

even to allow a vote on a clean CR opening our government with 

no strings attached. 

As of tomorrow the government shutdown will be the second 

longest in our Nation’s history. And the impact of the shutdown 

goes well beyond the topic of today’s hearing. Soon Federal funding 

for the WIC assistance program may not be sufficient to cover all 

benefits. Thousands of poor children are going to lose access to preschool programs. Low-wage Federal employees, many of whom live 

paycheck to paycheck, continue to suffer without salaries, and some 

71,000 Federal employees in Pennsylvania alone have either been 

furloughed or have suffered a pay cut. 

The lapse in Federal funding may also halt employment and 

training programs for people who rely on SNAP benefits to eat. The 

Housing Choice voucher program is running out of funds, meaning 

thousands of my constituents are facing possible eviction. Last year 

SBA approved over 1,000 loan applications for small businesses in 

Pennsylvania every day. Now these loans have completely stopped. 

For companies in my district, like Trivec Contracting Company, 

which connects disabled veteran-owned businesses, the shutdown 

has disallowed the purchase of SBA bonds, making it difficult to 

hire new employees, and jeopardizes the businesses’ contracts 

themselves. 

Now, of course, we’ve all heard about the threats to Social Security, veterans benefits, Head Start, military pay, and a myriad of 

other Federal programs that people rely on. 

We have to reverse our course. We have to pass a clean CR, reopen the government with no strings attached. We have to reach 

a broader deal to undo the sequester and restore funding to many 

programs, including the Park Service. These goals are not out of 

reach. I urge the majority to act by passing a clean CR and a clean 

debt ceiling bill. 

The outrage displayed by the majority at this hearing is unreasonable, given that they caused this mess. I urge my colleagues on 

both sides of the aisle to act together for the good of the country. 

And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HASTINGS. I thank the gentleman for yielding back. 

103 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan Mr. Benishek. 

Mr. BENISHEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mayor Bryan, when we—earlier we heard Director Jarvis talk 

about the through roads in the parks. I noticed you were, like, 

shaking your head there as if the through roads were open. He said 

that the through roads were going to be open. What was your— 

what was your thoughts as that testimony was taking place? 

Mr. BRYAN. Congressman, to the best of my knowledge that during the closure, Highway 64, which is a through road from I–40 

through Tusayan, through the national park and to Cameron, 

Highway 89, was closed all except for the first 2 days. And it was 

reopened last Saturday when the park was—was fully reopened, 

but during the rest of the time, it was closed. 

Mr. BENISHEK. So what—do you know why that was done? Apparently his—his letter is dated October 1st directing that closure. 

The parks allow—directed that through roads remain open. 

Mr. BRYAN. Congressman, my understanding was that the first 

2 days, Superintendent Uberuaga did keep it open, but closed all 

the parking spaces. So people parked in the roadways and created, 

I agree, a safety hazard, because those parking areas were closed. 

And then after looking at that, they did close the road in its entirety. 

We had offered Coconino County assistance. We offered to assist 

in any way we can, and also identified that Highway 64 was crucial, was crucial to keep open to the—to the tourism industry. 

Mr. BENISHEK. Director Jarvis, do you have any response to Mr. 

Bryan’s comment there? 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, we looked at every—the through road policy 

that I issued as a part of the closure order was specifically to 

routes that are specifically designed to go through the park from, 

like, one town to the next. And the road that the mayor is mentioning here is really a park road. It travels along literally the rim 

of the Grand Canyon. 

Mr. BENISHEK. But it’s a through road. It’s a through road, 

though, along the—— 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, you come out on the other end, yes. There— 

you absolutely can come out on the other end, but it is not designed 

as a—what we consider a through road, which is through—— 

Mr. BENISHEK. So it is a through road, but it’s not a through 

road in the sense that your—your statement to not close through 

roads doesn’t apply to it? 

Mr. JARVIS. That’s correct. 

Mr. BENISHEK. That doesn’t make any sense to me. 

Let me just go on another little direction here. You know, my district is in Michigan. We’ve got several national parks and national 

park units that have been impacted by the shutdown, and although 

they haven’t—they’re not as high profile as the World War II Memorial or—or, frankly, the Grand Canyon, you know, it’s important 

to the people in our district, you know, to keep those parks open. 

There’s—there’s businesses that rely on those parks. 

And I want to submit some photos for the record, Mr. Chairman, 

that show that the park is actually accessible through county roads 

that remain open. Although there’s—you know, there’s—there’s 

signs at the main entrance of the park that says closed, that, you 

104 

know, our county roads remain open, and you can still access the 

beach and many of the recreation areas of the park, because we 

have a system in the Sleeping Bear Dunes Park that county roads 

shall remain open. 

And this is something that Mr. Bishop brought up earlier, and 

that is, whenever we cede authority to the Federal Government of 

our lands without having local input or local people being involved, 

we risk these arbitrary rules coming forward that affect the people 

locally. So I know in the Natural Resources Committee, we’re working hard to try to be sure that rules are developed with local input 

and—and State and local government intervention. And unfortunately, I think Ms. Eberly is gone here, apparently—— 

VOICE. Ms. Eberly had to step out. She’ll be right back. 

Mr. BENISHEK. I just wanted to—so let me ask you, Mr. Bryan, 

do you have a relationship with the park Superintendent that is 

different than it is with the national park—you know, the higherlevel authorities? Do you have a good working relationship with 

your—your guys there at the park? 

Mr. BRYAN. Congressman, I thoroughly enjoy our relationship 

with the Park Superintendent, Dave Uberuaga. We firmly believe 

that he was acting in a difficult situation and responding to the directions that came from—from the administration, whether it be 

Director Jarvis or Secretary Jewell or the President, but we believe 

he was trying to do the best he could and had no choice. 

Mr. BENISHEK. It’s my contention that that’s the case in many 

a situation. There was a local park superintendent, you know, who 

was willing to work with the local governments to make things 

work, but sometimes the guys in Washington, you know, they have 

these directives that go down to make these arbitrary, difficult 

rules. And I think that it’s very, very important that we consider 

national park rules that have local input and not allow folks in 

Washington to determine how we use our land in the States. And 

I think I’m out of time. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

I ask unanimous consent that the gentlelady from South Dakota 

Ms. Noem—Ms. Noem be allowed to participate in today’s hearing. 

And without objection, so ordered. 

The chair recognizes the gentlelady from New Mexico Ms. Lujan 

Grisham. 

Mrs. NOEM. Thank you for that, Mr. Chairman. I certainly appreciate the opportunity. I have some specific questions for Director 

Jarvis in relation to our—— 

Mr. HASTINGS. Oh, yeah. We’re going back and forth. The 

gentlelady from New Mexico is recognized. I just—my unanimous 

consent—— 

Mrs. NOEM. I see. 

Mr. HASTINGS. —was simply to allow you to sit. And since you’re 

not a member of either committee, unfortunately, you are the last 

one, but that is—that’s how that works. 

The gentlelady from New Mexico is recognized. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And 

thanks to the ranking members for—for putting this committee 

hearing together. And, again, I share with my colleagues in thankVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:23 Jul 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00110 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88621.TXT APRIL
105 

ing the panelists. Difficult issues, very difficult situation that we 

find ourselves in. 

Mr. Jarvis, has the National Park Service received any funding 

since September 30th? 

Mr. JARVIS. No, they have not. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. So I’m going to see if I understand this 

now. You manage over 400 national parks, 84 million acres of land, 

and you currently have no money, resources to spend on your responsibilities to preserve and maintain our national treasures, responsibilities that Congress gave you through law. How do you not 

have any money? Did you lose it or mismanage it? 

Mr. JARVIS. There was a lapse in appropriations. The employees 

that are currently working are working without pay. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. So you’re here before the committee today 

because Congress allowed there to be a government shutdown, 

which causes you and your employees to be furloughed and not be 

in a position to manage 84 million acres of land and 400 national 

parks; is that accurate? 

Mr. JARVIS. We have no appropriations, that is correct, to pay or 

operate the parks. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. So, Mr. Jarvis, these are mostly rhetorical 

questions. I thank you for trying to make the best out of a very bad 

situation that Congress has created. The Federal Government employees responsible for closing our national parks and shutting 

down the government are sitting here behind the dais today. And 

I want to point out to you that, in fact, there have been administrative penalties against Federal employees who have not followed the 

letter of the law of the Antideficiency Act, and I assure you that 

if you had tried to do that and used discretion—and we understand 

these are difficult issues. And I’m in my district suffering from the 

same issue. New Mexico’s known for tourism and visiting national 

parks and State parks, and it’s a—it’s a disaster for all of us and 

all of the businesses that we rely on to help build our economy. It’s 

a partnership. But I would tell you before you would be before at 

least the Government Oversight Committee if you decided to implement and have discretion that you’re not entitled to do under the 

law. 

I think we should change the hearing title to ‘‘I Know It’s Not 

Your Fault, But I’m Still Going to Blame You,’’ should be the title 

of the hearing today, and I—I think it’s really—I think it’s shameful. 

And New Mexico’s got a 27 percent reliance on Federal funds. 

Our private-sector partnerships are critical. We had a very fragile 

economy. For a long period of time in my district, we were the only 

district in the country with a negative job growth. So just as we 

were seeing those incremental changes—and, Mr. Mayor, your testimony was very compelling about it’s fragile, and to allow it to get 

to this point so that I’m not in a position to both support my town 

and to run my business, and neither is anybody else, because it’s 

a partnership, there’s symbionic relationships that make a difference to everyone, I think it’s shameful that we are asking you 

to explain your decisions when we have the power to stop all of this 

nonsense, and we should do it immediately. 

106 

I want folks to know that we’re about to furlough 9,000 employees in my district at Sandia National Labs; that I had a meeting 

with Federal employees who are living paycheck to paycheck. 

These couples are hired by the Federal Government. They’re not 

going to make their mortgages, they can’t afford their child care, 

they can’t pay their credit card bills or their car loans. I heard from 

a civilian air traffic controller at Kirtland Air Force Base who’s 

worried about the safety of the airmen because he’s not allowed to 

work. So the very men and women who protect our country don’t 

get the same protections that I get as a private citizen by flying 

commercially. 

The faster Congress realizes that we are hurting millions of people across the country, that every single day, by failing to accomplish one of our fundamental responsibilities, the faster this senseless shutdown ends, and we stop having hearings about what discretionary decisions you can or cannot make, but what kind of partnerships we have and what our priorities are for the resources in 

this country. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman—— 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. I will. 

Chairman ISSA. I guess the question—and perhaps you weren’t 

here earlier. The questions that we had, the reason for the title, 

and I take responsibility for the name of the title, were people like 

Ms. Eberly, who, in fact, was—cost the—cost the Park Service 

nothing, and ultimately Director Jarvis has already said under testimony that he began after they closed everything on October 1st— 

he began going through and discovering organizations like hers 

that he could reopen. 

So I hope the gentlelady appreciates that, yes, we are looking at 

the part of failure, not the part of success, and we’re not looking 

at the shutdown, because this is—neither of these committees are 

appropriation committees, we can’t affect it per se, but we are looking at whether or not there was a plan to keep as much open as 

possible, or there was a failure to plan, which I think is what, if 

you stayed for the whole hearing, you will see a pattern of. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. May I respond, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. HASTINGS. Very briefly. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Thank you so much. 

I appreciate that, and recognize that we have an obligation, particularly in a government oversight hearing, to get at best practices. But to get at best practices in a crisis management, in a situation that we created as voting Members of this body, I disagree 

that this is the most useful time here and believe that we could do 

a much better job by supporting them to enhance these partnerships by having the resources to do so. So with all due respect, I 

disagree. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to respond. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 

LaMalfa. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. 

First of all, I would preface the remarks here. I appreciate my 

colleague from New Hampshire a little while ago talking about the 

107 

tone of what goes on around here. I am one of the newer ones here 

in the Congress. And so her remorse at that is something, I guess, 

that we should all share. 

Because it seems every speech or nearly every speech on the floor 

or in committee from the other side of the aisle is talking about the 

Republican this or Republican that and the Republican shutdown 

when at least an equal amount of the blame could lie with the director of the Senate, the pro tem of the Senate on the other side, 

or with the White House that has been unwilling to talk to us until 

very recently. 

So we are all duly elected. We have a majority in this House, as 

sent here by our districts, to work through things that we might 

disagree on. And so the partisan rhetoric just doesn’t help a whole 

lot with that. Indeed, we have issues of budget deficits, we have 

huge national debt issues. And, yes, there is disagreement on the 

Affordable Care Act, as it is called, and its implementation as we 

see failing Web sites, higher prices, people complaining all over the 

country, and then being subject to fines if they choose not to sign 

up. 

So, yes, we are going to have some differences of opinion on some 

very giant issues, and we should be allowed to express those differences and hash them out here in a process we have in this Republic. Instead, it seems the other side wants to go to a one-party 

system of input by shutting us out when things get out of this 

House, like the measures we have sent in recent weeks to fund the 

government in many different aspects, many of those with approximately 30 Democrats supporting. Because they have looked at the 

politics and they don’t want to be against opening the parks, so 

they have supported our measures. They don’t want to be against 

our veterans, they have supported our measures. 

And here, all the time, it is always the Republican shutdown. 

There is plenty of blame to go around on this, but there are certainly some big issues that we stand for that have to be stood up 

for. 

So going into what we are really here for today, Mr. Jarvis, you 

know, we talk about, yes, the Park Service is a very big and complex organization, like a lot of what our government is and what 

some of us believe needs to be tamed. 

I have in my district in northern California, near the 

Whiskeytown Reservoir, which is a Federal project, along Highway 

299, there is a lake with a two-lane road. Now, you were talking 

about a low-key approach during this slowdown. The highway has 

numerous turnouts and lookout vistas to park for both safety and 

scenery. During the shutdown, my office has received numerous reports of Federal officers preventing people from stopping at these 

turnouts, again, along a two-lane highway. A truck with flashing 

lights would pull up behind them and threaten them with a ticket 

if they do not keep moving. 

So how can you justify people from stopping at a rest stop or a 

turnout on a State highway? These things are there as much for 

the safety or a place just to pull over as it is for the scenery. How 

was hurting driver safety in the Federal interest, and how is it a 

critical function, especially if you are trying to assert a low-key apVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:23 Jul 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00113 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88621.TXT APRIL
108 

proach? To me, a truck pulling somebody over with flashing lights 

isn’t very low-key; it can be quite startling. 

Mr. JARVIS. I have instructed our law enforcement rangers 

throughout the system to take a low-key approach to this. And I 

know in a number of cases they actually have, due to safety, removed any barriers or cones from these pull-outs and parking lots, 

but for safety purposes. 

They are closed because the National Park Service has a lapse 

in appropriations, and we can’t do any maintenance, we can’t pick 

up trash, we can’t protect the resources. So—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. You are not protecting anybody when you have a 

pull-out area that would actually be a safety factor for somebody 

maybe having a little car problem, maybe they just want to pull 

over and use their phone or do something. Because, you know, if 

you have been down 299, there are long stretches where you can’t 

pull over on a narrow, two-lane highway going from the valley to 

the coast. 

And so, yeah, if they happen to take a picture of something, yet 

they run into cones and you got people pulling up behind them 

with trucks threatening them, that really seems to be over the top. 

I would think there should be maybe just a little bit of embarrassment after a point with some of the heavy-handed measures that 

have been coming out of this department. 

Anything? 

Mr. JARVIS. Again, I tell you that I have told my officers to take 

a low-key, soft approach to enforcement, recognizing that the 

American public are—this is a painful impact—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. Okay. 

Mr. JARVIS. —on them—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. All right. 

Mr. JARVIS. —as well as it is to us. 

Mr. LAMALFA. All right. Now, just the other day—— 

Mr. JARVIS. But I cannot direct—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. —there was a demonstration held by our veterans 

out at the memorials here in town. And so, the day after, immediately after, bright and early, the Monday morning, which was a 

national holiday, there was staff out there re-erecting those barriers, with wire, with tape, the whole works. 

Were these furloughed folks? Were they getting overtime since it 

was a national holiday? 

Mr. JARVIS. Everybody that is working at this time is not being 

paid. So there is no overtime—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. Were they being paid overtime because it was a 

national holiday? 

Mr. JARVIS. They are not getting paid overtime. They are not getting paid at all. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Will they be accruing overtime when this is all 

settled? 

Mr. JARVIS. They will not be accruing overtime. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Pardon? 

Mr. JARVIS. They will not be accruing overtime. 

Mr. LAMALFA. On a national holiday. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

109 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to make a procedural matter. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The gentleman is recognized. 

Chairman ISSA. Director Jarvis, before you you have a subpoena 

related to your noncompliance with the earlier promise, in which 

you blamed the Department of Interior for your noncompliance 

with what you said you would do and they said they would do in 

a letter. 

I would ask that you look at the board, recognize that that is the 

ranking member’s statement, refresh your memory, and then 

please acknowledge receipt of the subpoena. 

Mr. JARVIS. I acknowledge the receipt. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Lowenthal. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, all of us are here today because we truly care about 

our national parks and our public lands. And I hope that all of us 

here really are here also because we want to ensure that these 

treasures are fully supported and receive the budgets and the attention that they deserve. 

You know, national parks have provided the country with an 

abundance of benefits, from spiritual retreat to becoming vital economic engines of rural America. For example, I am going to give 

two small quotes that exemplifies this. One that says that, ‘‘Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, 

where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.’’ 

That was John Muir in 1912. And then more recently from the 

Governor of Utah, Governor Gary Herbert: ‘‘Utah’s national parks 

are a backbone of many rural economies, and hardworking Utahans are paying a heavy price for this shutdown.’’ 

In order to put these numbers—or, to put numbers on these sustainable economic benefits, let’s talk about one park that is in my 

district—not in any district, in my State, and that is in Yosemite. 

In 2011, there were over 3 million, actually almost 4 million recreational visits to Yosemite. And those visitors spent a cumulative 

$379 million—money that was injected into the local economy and 

supported local jobs. We know that overall in 2011 over $30 billion 

was economic activity. 

And so I am really glad to hear that national parks are being 

recognized and applauded by many Members of Congress for the 

truly renewable and sustainable benefits that they provide Americans. 

So when I saw the heading today about, ‘‘As Difficult As Possible,’’ I imagined we would be talking about how do we look to better support the national parks by stopping their budget slide and 

working on essential maintenance backlogs. For me and many of 

my constituents, ‘‘As Difficult As Possible’’ really describes Congress’ treatment of national parks and public lands over the past 

3 years. 

Since the 112th Congress, National Park Service has been—their 

budget has been cut by 13 percent. At the same time, the NPS has 

not been able to handle almost $11.5 billion in park maintenance 

110 

backlog. And because of decreasing budgets, they have been forced 

to cut seasonal employees, we have heard about furloughing today, 

educational programs have been canceled, they have limited environmental monitoring. 

You know, I am just going to read, and then ask a question, from 

a letter from over 300 businesses affected by these irresponsible 

cuts over the last few years to the National Park Service. 

‘‘Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress, we own, operate, 

and support the restaurants, shops, equipment rentals, motels, gas 

stations, and other small businesses that provide services to national parks visitors. Our business and livelihood and that of our 

employer and their families depends on them keeping on the national parks open and in good condition. Watching the political 

jockeying in Washington from afar, frankly, we are worried about 

the impact to our business. Simply put, even more cuts to national 

park budgets would be pennywise and pound-foolish. Our families 

and our communities and our national economy will suffer without 

much real fiscal benefit to the Federal budget.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to place this letter 

into the record. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Without objection, it will be part of the record. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Okay. 

So if we want to find out how we can productively spend our time 

in investigating, the question that I have to you, first, to Director 

Jarvis: Do you think I am right, Director Jarvis, that in order to 

ensure public safety at our national parks and manage the sites 

during the shutdown of the Federal Government, that you have 

had to close sites—I think you have already touched on this—you 

have had to close sites due to limited staff? Is it not true that these 

closures are not site-specific or aimed at any individual group? 

Mr. JARVIS. They were not aimed at any individual or group. 

They are not political. They are a part of our responsibility to protect these places for future generations. They are a consequence of 

the lapse of appropriations. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you. 

And the next question is, we know the park services opposes the 

piecemeal approach to opening national parks. Do you think this 

piecemeal approach is appropriate for any other of our agencies? 

Should the Department of Defense only open Army bases but not 

Navy bases, for instance? Should FDA only inspect dairy products 

but not meat products? 

Mr. JARVIS. I believe that the entire Federal Government should 

be funded. I believe that this piecemeal approach that we have 

taken within the National Park System to open the parks where 

the States have been able to enter into agreements leaves a lot of 

parks closed. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. And, finally, have the cuts made under sequestration limited budget flexibility within the Park Service? 

Mr. JARVIS. Absolutely. They were across the board and at every 

budgetary item, so they impacted every park in the system. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis. 

111 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Jarvis, Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield, that is 

under your jurisdiction, National Park Service? 

That is a ‘‘yes’’? Verbalize. 

Mr. JARVIS. I believe so, yes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And do you know, is it just the home or—my understanding is that the area around it would also be under the jurisdiction. Do you know if that is the case? 

Mr. JARVIS. I honestly do not know specifically in that regard. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. Because I saw some news reports where 

there was a political congressional candidate that was holding a 

news conference basically right in front of the home. And if, in fact, 

that was an area that was under your jurisdiction that was closed, 

would that have been an appropriate thing to have done, to kind 

of stage a media event there for partisan, political purposes? 

Mr. JARVIS. I don’t know anything about that incident or case, 

and I would really—I would have to look into it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, just as a general matter, if a park was 

closed, would it be—and so an American citizen may not get in, 

would there be some type of an exception where a political candidate would be able to stage a media event if it was closed to rest 

of the public? 

Mr. JARVIS. The park is closed for all events. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. 

You had mentioned earlier, and I have been running around, so 

I don’t know if you elaborated, but the Antideficiency Act. Can you 

just articulate for me why you think that act forced you to erect 

the barricades at the World War II Memorial? 

Mr. JARVIS. The Antideficiency Act, as applied to the National 

Park Service, required us to reduce expenditures—of course, we 

don’t have any funding—limited only to life and property, life and 

property. 

Mr. DESANTIS. For people who can do essentially voluntary service. In other words, they are showing up to serve; they are not getting paid right now because there is no appropriation. So those are 

the only people you can put to work, who have that nexus, correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is right. And so we literally went through employee by employee and determined whether or not they were excepted from the furlough. Anybody that was excepted had to meet 

this standard of life and property. And so that is about 3,000 out 

of the entire 24,000. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And so that certainly is one part of the 

Antideficiency Act. It is also the case that you are not able to obligate the government for expenses that have not been appropriated. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So my question is, you know, I saw the photos of 

people operating this big crane to bring all these barricades out to 

the World War II Memorial. And a lot of my constituents were like, 

well, that is going to cost more time and effort to do that than if 

they had just left it as an open-air memorial. 

So how were you able to obligate the Park Service to incur the 

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112 

ing it if, in fact, you were operating according to the Antideficiency 

Act? 

Mr. JARVIS. The memorials are property. Now, they stand for big 

ideas, but they are physical properties that I have the responsibility to maintain and protect. We get hundreds of thousands of 

visitors on the National Mall every day, every week, and they have 

an impact. 

There is this overlying assumption that I continually hear in this 

committee that these places take care of themselves. As a 40-year 

veteran of the National Park Service, these places require maintenance and operation—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. But the question is, where did you get the authority—you are saying it prohibits you from doing things. But it 

seemed to me that you had to dedicate more resources by getting— 

so, for example, when you had the forklift bringing out, did you 

have to rent that? Or how were you able to obtain that? 

Mr. DESANTIS. We have equipment. I have no idea whether that 

forklift was rented or one of our own. But in order to execute the 

closure, we had to do work. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But wouldn’t that matter, though? In other words, 

you are saying that the Antideficiency Act means you can’t spend 

money that hasn’t been obligated. So if you had to go out and rent 

equipment, would that be consistent with that or not? I am just 

trying to figure out how you are interpreting this. 

Mr. JARVIS. At a generic level, if I needed a piece of equipment 

in order to ensure something is protected, a piece of property or 

life, I would have the authority to do that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So you are saying it gives you flexibility to be able 

to—— 

Mr. JARVIS. For life and property. 

Mr. DESANTIS. —do essential functions. Okay. Very good. Well, 

thank you for that. 

I have no more questions. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. HASTINGS. Would the gentleman yield to me? 

Mr. DESANTIS. I will. 

Mr. HASTINGS. I just want to make an observation, having listened to the give-and-take, frankly, on both sides of the aisle. But 

I particularly want to bring up something that Mr. Wittman had 

an exchange with you, Director Jarvis. And his line of questioning 

was along the line, were you planning, and why was this different, 

something to that effect. And your observation was—and I wrote it 

down right after you said that—is you didn’t think the shutdown 

would last this long. 

Now, it just struck me. If that was your response, then does not 

logic would suggest that if you are going to err, you are not going 

to err on the most extreme position? Because the most extreme position was to shut things down. If you didn’t think it was going to 

last this long, it would seem to me, okay, let’s phase in to the point 

where you have to follow the law. 

But it seemed to me—and this is certainly from my perspective— 

it seems to me that you were—you, your actions, were causing the 

most pain. If, in fact, you didn’t think it was going to last that long, 

it would just seem to me that it should have gone the other way. 

113 

So I just wanted to make that point in connection with what you 

and Mr. Wittman had in that exchange. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. 

Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, first of all, I want to thank all the witnesses for being here 

this morning and staying as long as you have and being so patient. 

And, Director Jarvis, I think your patience probably takes the 

prize here today on that. I thank you for your service, and Mr. 

Galvin before you. The agency has always done wonderful things 

with the Park Service up in my area of Massachusetts on that. 

It must be fairly obvious now, I would think, to most people 

watching that this hearing is a distraction. And, unfortunately, Director Jarvis, you are the target of it, to distract from the fact that 

there are people here that have responsibility. They might like to 

share it and say that all of Congress as a monolithic and everybody 

is to blame. But there aren’t two wrongs and there aren’t two 

rights; there is one wrong and one right here. And I think they are 

hoping that people haven’t taken their Civics 101 class, that they 

are not going to be able to make that distinction. 

Earlier, you were questioned, Director Jarvis, pretty predominantly by somebody who said it is the people’s land—tell me 

whether you think it is the people’s land or your land, and you obviously rightly said it was the people’s land and you are entrusted 

with its care. 

Well, this is the people’s government, and the United States Congress is entrusted with having it operate for the benefit of the people. And with our system in the House of Representatives, when 

there is a majority, the majority is entrusted with making governance work and with making sure that it goes forward. And that has 

been dramatically not the case here. 

But there has been plenty of drama—drama down at the barricades to distract from the fact that the majority hasn’t let this government work, the barricades, claiming that World War II veterans 

couldn’t get in to see the memorials, when that, in fact, is not the 

case and they are going in and seeing it. 

The real challenge here for the majority is to make this system 

work. And they can do something of significance right now if they 

want to. If they want to open up the government, not just the Park 

Service but all of the services that government provides, they can 

just have a simple vote to have a continuing resolution to allow 

spending at the low level the majority wanted for a period of time 

until all the budget issues between the House and the Senate are 

resolved. That will bring this matter to a close. 

In fact, there is a procedural aspect to it. There is what we call 

a discharge petition on the floor right now that all the Democrats 

have signed, so we only need, what, 17 to 24 Republicans to go 

down and sign it. That would be a significant act they could take, 

instead of going down and having all the drama down at one of the 

sites or having this hearing on that basis. 

If they did that, then certainly veterans that are homeless, veterans that are students, veterans that are seeking jobs, veterans 

that have disability claims, all of them would get the services that 

they need and be assured that that was going to happen. But we 

114 

don’t see we see that. We see a lot of hyperventilation about whether or not the park services were handled in a shutdown exactly the 

way that others might have wanted to be done. 

I don’t know, Director Jarvis, maybe, you know, you took some 

actions that were correct, some not. But I don’t question your motives or the fact you tried to do the right thing by the law. And 

in hindsight maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t do something differently on that. 

But the history lesson here is to tell people that there is a right 

or wrong. This is a situation where Congress needs a blueprint of 

how it is going to spend its money; they need a budget. The Senate 

passed a budget, the House passed a budget, there were differences. People that took Civics 101 know that generally there is 

a conference committee that irons out those differences before the 

next spending year begins. Despite repeated requests for the majority in the House to go to those conferences and work out matters, 

they wouldn’t do it. So when the fiscal year ended before we started the next one, they didn’t have a budget. 

Now, the normal course of business is for people to take and 

agree to some amount of money or some level of spending for a period of time until the Senate and the House can work out those differences. That is the dispute here, what level of money will be 

spent over what period of time while those differences are worked 

out. 

All of the Democrats said they would take the low number that 

the majority in the House, the Republicans, put forward. The Senate said it would take that number. And the answer they got back 

was, no, they wouldn’t let it happen now unless certain laws that 

they didn’t like were nullified, laws that have been passed, laws 

which elections had been run where it was the focus of it, laws that 

the constitutionality have been found by the Supreme Court. 

And that is the failure here, the failure of the majority to govern, 

to keep this government open and to make sure it works for the 

people. 

And it is not Congress. There are a lot of people here in Congress 

working real hard who understand that we have some differences 

on what the costs are and how much to spend, but they understand 

the importance of the functions that government provides. So hopefully we are going to get back to that. 

Hopefully today there will be a vote and we will reopen it, we 

will get back to negotiations, and we can talk about whether or not 

Salem Visitor Center will be open, where there are 250,000 people 

coming this month alone to visit it and $25 million in revenues. 

And the mayor there, Mayor Bryan, would have me make sure that 

I said that is important. 

Or whether a young woman from my district whose daughter had 

a brain cancer situation where it was 4 hours once a week—once 

a month, rather, she has treatments on that, whether or not there 

will be money in the budget to make sure those treatments continue. 

Whether or not the universities and industries will have the financing they need to conduct the cutting-edge research to make 

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115 

turing, the biotechnology, all of those things that are needed to 

keep us on the edge as world leaders and create jobs. 

Whether or not the trillions of dollars’ worth of transportation infrastructure, bridges and roads, that need to be addressed will be 

done. 

You know, all of these things are what we ought to be doing. 

That is what leadership is. That is what being in the majority 

means. And from 2007 to 2010, when there was a Democratic majority, it was the most productive Congress since 1964. Being in the 

majority matters. We ought to see some—— 

Chairman ISSA. Yeah, that is where you ran the table on the onesided basis and passed Obamacare. 

Mr. HASTINGS. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My question is for the director. I come from southeast Missouri. 

We have the Ozark National Scenic Riverways—very important, in 

the heart of my district, very important to myself. Unfortunately, 

on October 1st the rivers were closed, and people were able to float 

as long as they never touched the gravel bars. It was illegal to 

touch the gravel bars because that was Federal land, and that was, 

I guess, the decision that you made. 

I am glad that the administration has decided to open up some 

of the national parks by local State governments funding it. Unfortunately, they are funding it. But where I have a problem with is, 

how did you pick and choose which ones were acceptable? 

I have a letter right here from the Missouri Department of Conservation where we asked 9 days ago to allow them to open the 

Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the Current, the Jacks Fork 

River. Yet we have not received a response from your department, 

and I want to know why we have not received a response. 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, there are a couple reasons. 

One is, when I normally have a large staff, there are nine employees in my office. And there is a stack of unresponded correspondence. 

Now, we are working with the Governor of Missouri. And I understand there is interest in using one of our agreements to open 

Ozark as well as the Arch, and we are wide open to doing that. 

What that letter, if I remember—which I believe I have seen, but 

I am not positive, but I think I have seen—did not suggest paying 

the National Park Service to open the Ozark. What it suggested is 

that the Department would open it for us. 

And the standard we have set throughout the National Park System is that these are national assets to be managed by the National Park Service. And so we have rejected offers from a variety 

of institutions and organizations to open portions of parks with 

their own people. And we do not feel that is appropriate. These 

are—Congress has charged the National Park Service with managing these assets, these places. And we believe that we have set 

up an agreement that can work with the State of Missouri. 

Mr. SMITH. You know, Director, that concerns me, those statements, because in 1964 these were State parks, and it became the 

first Ozark National Scenic Riverway, the first national scenic 

riverway. The reason why it was sold in 1964 to make this a naVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:23 Jul 23, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00121 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\88621.TXT APRIL
116 

tional park is so that this land would be protected and preserved 

and open to the public. 

And that is exactly the opposite of what you all have done in the 

last 16 days. You have basically barricaded the parks. You have 

barricaded the businesses, the concessionaires that rely on canoeing and floating along that river. Because of your actions, they 

have closed down. 

And, you know, speaking of something else, back in August we 

had an issue on this same river where the National Park Service 

had a regulation, a proposal that came out of there, that there had 

to be a special-use permit for our local churches to be baptized in 

the Current and Jacks Fork River. They did not have to have special-use permits to get drunk on the river or do any other activity, 

but to get baptized they had to have a special-use permit. 

I mean, those kind of regulations that you all are forcing on the 

people in my district are unacceptable. We do not appreciate it. 

And I am glad that the local park superintendant did rescind that 

rule, but the fact that rule was ever in place is unacceptable. 

And I urge every one of my colleagues to monitor and watch 

these crazy regulations that come from every department, whether 

it is the National Park Service or whether it is the IRS. They are 

all unacceptable. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. Could I—would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. SMITH. I do. 

Chairman ISSA. [Presiding.] I just want to understand something, 

Director. In preparation for this shutdown, you had a full staff; is 

that correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Chairman ISSA. And in preparation for this shutdown, you could 

have, in fact, worked with all of these stakeholders, including sent 

them the guidelines so that, if the gentleman from Missouri is correct and you are correct, they would have known what the rules 

are. 

If you didn’t do that beforehand, have you done it since the shutdown? Have you told various States what they would have to do 

in order to pass your-self determined litmus test? Because there is 

no statute that says we have to rehire your people. There is simply 

a decision you have made. 

Have you communicated that to all the States so that they would 

know when they ask, as Mr. Smith did? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes. We have not called every Governor, but we have 

sent out a press release to allow the public to know and the Governors to know. I know the Secretary—— 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So you have communicated with the 

States in which this—sovereign States in which the national parks 

have located through a press release after the fact. I am deeply disappointed. 

The gentlelady from New York is recognized. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I would venture to say that our parks departments should be open, serving the public, not preparing memos 

about a shutdown. A shutdown is a self-imposed injury, a self-manufactured crisis that we should not have to suffer through. We 

should put a clean budget on the floor and open up the government 

117 

instead of hearing, as we have all day, stories about the suffering 

of individuals and communities and businesses during the 16-day 

shutdown of the Federal Government. 

Again, this is a self-imposed injury. We can correct it immediately by going down to the floor in 10 minutes, putting a clean 

CR on the floor, and voting for it. 

Yet I am really shocked to hear so many of my colleagues testify 

today how disturbed and shocked they are at the consequences of 

a government shutdown, of the problems that closing our national 

parks are causing across this country. They need only to look at the 

1995 closing of the government to see the reports on what happened. And, again, that was a Republican-led closing of the government. 

Back then, the Interior Department estimated that for each day that our parks were closed, localities lost roughly $14 million in 

tourism business. I know from my own district in New York City 

that the closing of one of our most important monuments, the symbol of democracy and freedom, Liberty Park, the Statue of Liberty, 

not only is a huge blow to our economy of the city but to the morale 

of our city, so much of a blow that our Governor, Governor Cuomo, 

has taken the unprecedented step of using State dollars to open up 

our national monument so that business can continue as usual. 

Now, the economic numbers coming from the National Park 

Service for 2011 shows that this is a very wise decision, because 

roughly 4 million people a year visit Liberty Park and our Statue 

of Liberty, generating well over $170 million in economic activity. 

So not only is it disruptive to our veterans and to our citizens, it 

is clear that our parks are an important economic resource for local 

communities. And we are now still in a very fragile economy. 

So I would venture to say that the direction of this conversation 

today should have been on getting a clean vote on a clean budget 

so that we can open up our parks, open up our agencies, and so 

that businesses and individuals will not continue to suffer. 

Now, I am really concerned, Mr. Chairman, if this Congress does 

not act later today to raise the debt ceiling, the consequences and 

long-term damage to the economy and prestige of our country 

would be dire. Recently, the Joint Economic Committee released a 

report entitled ‘‘Economic Cost of Debt Ceiling Brinkmanship.’’ And 

in it they compared what happened in 2011, the consequences of 

this brinkmanship. The stock market fell, all the markets fell, consumer confidence dropped, the United States credit rating was 

downgraded. 

And we know from press reports today that Fitch is considering 

downgrading our credit rating today on the basis that we cannot 

govern, that we cannot even open up our government. 

And at our hearings in this Joint Economic Committee, Chairman Bernanke and other economists testified that the failure to 

raise the debt limit would have very serious consequences for the 

financial markets and for the overall economy for a long time to 

come. Moody’s testified that for every 3 weeks, the gross domestic 

product of our economy, our overall economy, would be reduced by 

1.4 percentage points. 

And we are—pick up the papers, and major allies of ours are 

calling that the dollar shall no longer be used as reserve currency. 

118 

That would be a major blow to the strength and economic prosperity of our country. 

So the government shutdown and the threat to the U.S. economy 

has happened because some have decided that that is what they 

want to do, and they are holding the entire economy and the entire 

government hostage. 

So, back to the topic—— 

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady’s time has expired. I am always 

willing to give you a pending question, but there wasn’t a pending 

question. 

We now go to the gentlelady—— 

Mrs. MALONEY. I have one. 

Chairman ISSA. —from California, Ms. Napolitano. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Director Jarvis, please, to yourself, thank you for the work 

you do on behalf of the American citizens. And I do associate myself with the remarks of Members of Congress on this side of the 

aisle, Mr. Huffman and especially Mr. Cartwright. 

The National Park Service is responsible for the protection of 

water supply. That is one of my areas because I am on for 15 years 

the Subcommittee on Water and Power of Natural Resources. And 

that is really critical, key for me, the feeding of the Federal dams 

on the Colorado River and other areas, other aspects of it, especially Glen Canyon and Hoover. And you have previously found and 

have been addressing the expansion of invasive species that directly impact the hydropower resource and the water diversions. 

With the shutdown, we are losing the ability to monitor and protect our Federal energy and water resources, which is, of course, 

costing us nationwide millions of dollars to clean up the intake 

valves and some of the pumping areas. Is this covered under the 

property emergency response area? 

Mr. JARVIS. Thank you for bringing this up. 

One of our concerns and reasons that we gated and closed Glen 

Canyon and Lake Mead National Recreation Areas is because we 

have an obligation for boat inspections, recreational boats that, 

particularly in Lake Mead, can be contaminated with quagga mussel. And we have wash stations and inspection stations both for the 

private boater as well as the concessioner. All of those employees 

are furloughed, and all of that is shut down. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, would you also include that several 

other water entities have been found to be infected by the quagga 

mussel? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, ma’am. There are concerns about the quagga 

spreading to other water bodies throughout the West. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. And they are very hard to control? 

Mr. JARVIS. Once they get in, it is almost impossible to get them 

out. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. But that does in any way or 

form—can it be treated as property that has to be protected? 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, the way we are treating it under the closure 

act is to prevent boats from leaving or entering Lake Mead or Glen 

Canyon during the shutdown. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, sir. 

119 

One of the other areas that hasn’t been covered, as far as I can 

tell, since I have been in the hearing today is, you already have an 

$11 billion backlog in maintenance and repair. What will be the 

cost of trying to catch up, based on the sequester? 

Mr. JARVIS. We need about $750 million a year in our maintenance and operation budget in order to even break even, to maintain what we have. We would need more than that in order to 

catch up. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Does that include vandalism or normal cleanup or both? 

Mr. JARVIS. It is all of the above. It is impact from just deterioration of old facilities and roads as well as some vandalism. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

And I heard you mention, or some of the testimony, that you are 

not able to receive private funding to be able to keep—you have to 

have special MOAs, right? 

Mr. JARVIS. We can receive private funding, but through agreements. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. But they have to be pre-established? 

Mr. JARVIS. No. There is private funding flowing through some 

of the States to the National Park Service to reopen some of 

the—— 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. But not all of them are party to this, are they? 

Mr. JARVIS. All of? 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. The States. 

Mr. JARVIS. So far, we have only got about six States that have 

signed agreements. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Correct. So that means, are you preparing, 

then, to be able to bring the other States on line should something—and, as you have heard, there may be other sequesters in 

the future—to be able to be prepared to protect those lands? 

Mr. JARVIS. We have now a template that works quite efficiently. 

And we are in negotiations with—we signed Tennessee today. We 

have Missouri, Virginia, Maryland. A number of the other States 

that are all in discussions with us about entering into these agreements. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. Chair, I yield to Mr. DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. 

Just on a point that was made earlier about the Governor of 

California hasn’t chosen to use scant State funds to reopen Yosemite made by some California Members. Remember, there is no guarantee that any of this money will be paid back. None. Zero. 

In fact, I would say, under the Republican rules, paying back an 

individual State would constitute an earmark, which means that 

you would have to waive the rules of the House to do it. Or you 

would try and pass a bill to extract it out of the Park Service budget, which is already inadequate, as we have heard earlier. 

So, you know, I can understand why Governors are being cautious. 

I thank the gentlelady for yielding. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

I might note that tradition would say that you are wrong. They 

will, in fact, all be repaid. 

120 

With that, we go to the gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Could the—just for—would you yield for a second? 

Chairman ISSA. Of course. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. But that was before you adopted this extraordinary 

earmark rule, which is very, very problematic. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Jarvis, thank you for your service. And I know how hard it 

is. 

I want to bring up a very specific point that I know your folks 

are working on in particular. I want to commend Dan Kimball, who 

is the director of Everglades National Park. He has been working 

with our local folks to try to reopen the park. We have about 250 

guides. They require very little from the park itself. They pay a license every year to work out in the park. And it not only has an 

impact on them and their families but has an impact on the hotels 

and the restaurants in the area. 

And so I would ask, with your very limited staff—and I know 

that this is not your fault, but the inability of the other side to provide any real leadership here. But what I—I commend you for your 

leadership, and I commend Dan Kimball and his service. But I 

would ask you, as you look at opening up, this is one of those areas 

where I think it will not cost you as much as opening it up and 

getting it done. These folks require very little of you. And they do 

a great service to Monroe County and the Florida Keys. 

I want to ask you, Mr. Jarvis, what do you think the cost has 

been thus far to the Park Service? And I know you have answered 

this question in a few different ways, but if you will indulge me 

and just tell us what you think the cost has been thus far. 

Mr. JARVIS. I really don’t have a figure. You mean cost in terms 

of how much we theoretically have expended during the closure period? 

Mr. GARCIA. How much you have expended, how much you failed 

to collect. 

Mr. JARVIS. Oh, okay. Yeah, we—in terms of failure to collect, we 

are losing about $450,000 per day of income. That would be nonappropriated dollars—fees from camping, from entrance fees, and 

the like, franchise fees, all of that. So we are losing about $450,000 

per day. 

Mr. GARCIA. Very good. 

Ms. Simon, I sort of—I know you have given some estimates 

here. I would love to hear you sort of recap it for me. As a freshman, it takes a long time for the gavel to get to me. So I would 

like to ask you what this has cost our country and, in particular, 

your industry. 

Ms. SIMON. Certainly. Thank you for the question. 

In the first week of the shutdown, our tour operators reported 

$114 million in losses just for the first week. We know that, obviously, in the last 16 days, that has drastically increased, and we 

project long-term impacts based on future business that has already canceled or postponed. We know that that does not include 

the estimated financial losses from the cities and destinations and 

suppliers that belong to our association, as well. 

121 

And then we also believe that the long-term impact will have an 

effect on international visitation to the United States. The national 

parks are a huge draw for international markets, and we believe 

that it is going to be difficult for international visitors to kind of 

regain the confidence of coming back to the United States. They 

don’t understand it. That is what we are hearing from our tour operators, is they are having to try to explain to their international 

visitors why the parks are closed and why they can’t see—— 

Mr. GARCIA. Ms. Simon, if I could just—if you could indulge me, 

could you tell me what exactly you tell your international visitors 

or what you would counsel your association members to tell those 

international visitors that don’t understand? 

Ms. SIMON. That is a very good question. We have not been in 

a position of counseling them to tell them anything. But what they 

have done is to try to find alternative activities, which includes 

some of the very nice State parks that we have throughout the 

country as well. 

Mr. GARCIA. Very good. 

Again, thank you all for being here. And to a limited degree, 

some of you have been sort of blamed somehow in your vast government conspiracy to shut down parks. I want thank you for your 

service, your service to our country, your service in trying to preserve America’s great treasures. And, of course, with a little bit of 

luck, by this afternoon we will have figured our way through this. 

But thank you very much. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman yields back. 

And I thank the gentlelady from South Dakota for her patience 

and yield 5 minutes. 

Mrs. NOEM. No. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and my colleagues’ allowing me to ask a few 

questions here today. 

Director Jarvis, I wanted to ask a clarification on an answer you 

gave to a previous question. When they were discussing the monuments on the mall, you talked about barricading them off because 

of protection of property, that that was the purpose for barricading 

them. Is that correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Mrs. NOEM. I had assumed it was for protection of individuals 

that may go onto that property or for liability reasons. But your 

number-one objective was really to protect the property that was 

there. 

Mr. JARVIS. It is my responsibility to protect the monuments and 

memorials. 

Mrs. NOEM. Okay. Well, thank you for that. 

As you know, I am from South Dakota. We have Mount Rushmore in our State. Obviously, it is a mountain that has been 

carved. It is viewable by a State highway that goes up the mountain and around the mountain. You can also go into the national 

park and view it from there, up close and personal, and enjoy that 

opportunity to do so, which millions of people do. 

Mr. Jarvis, have you visited Mount Rushmore before? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, I have. 

Mrs. NOEM. It is beautiful, isn’t it? 

122 

Mr. JARVIS. It is. 

Mrs. NOEM. It is. 

Mr. JARVIS. Extraordinary. 

Mrs. NOEM. We had one family that drove all the way to South 

Dakota, drove a thousand miles, got to South Dakota, and found 

that they could not access Mount Rushmore or even drive on the 

State highway and view it because it had been blocked off by park 

officials. Were you aware of that? 

Mr. JARVIS. I was aware the park was closed. I was unaware of 

the specifics at the local site. 

Mrs. NOEM. Do you know who made the decision to block that 

State highway and access to areas where they could view the 

monument, not even necessarily get into the viewing area, the actual park, but didn’t even allow them to get to a part of the mountain where they could view it from afar? Do you know who made 

that decision? 

Mr. JARVIS. Those kind of decisions were made at the local level 

about where to close, which roads to close. 

Mrs. NOEM. That family that drove that far found themselves not 

being able to view Mount Rushmore, and then we got hit with a 

blizzard, a blizzard that hit South Dakota. Four to 5 feet of snow 

landed in the Black Hills. They spent the next 3 days in a ditch 

somewhere in their camper, which was a very unfortunate trip, not 

the way that we like to have people visit South Dakota. It was a 

tragic situation that happened. 

And not only that, those cones that were along the road, I am 

not necessarily sure what happened to them during that blizzard 

situation, but the day after, when everybody was digging out—we 

had many, many buildings that had caved in. Tens of thousands of 

livestock had been killed by this. It is the worst disaster we have 

seen in western South Dakota in anybody’s lifetime. The economic 

impact from that is going to be huge. Trees were down, streams 

were plugged, towns were flooding. And the very next day, the park 

officials were out there putting those cones back along that highway in 4 to 5 feet of snow. 

And I would like to know if you really think that should have 

been their priority that morning. 

Mr. JARVIS. I was not involved at the local level. I could not and 

I don’t set local priorities like that. 

Mrs. NOEM. Well, it got the people around that area pretty 

steamed up. Because they were extremely upset that here they had 

lost their businesses, they had lost their livestock, they couldn’t access their homes, they were trying to dig out and protect people, 

and that the Park Service was mainly concerned with going out 

and placing cones that didn’t allow them to even view what they 

see as partly their monument, as well, from afar. It was very disturbing to them. 

From that point, do you believe it was appropriate to take that 

type of action at that point in time? 

Mr. JARVIS. I can’t comment on local issues like that. I have no 

knowledge of which pull-outs, which roads, or any of that. I just 

don’t have that kind of local information. 

Mrs. NOEM. I know that very soon after October 1st the State 

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123 

selves and to incur that cost themselves, and they were told that 

that was not going to be allowed at that point in time. Since then, 

the State of South Dakota has again requested, and that agreement has been made. So it is open and operating today. 

What is interesting is the way that South Dakota approached it, 

is that our Governor called up businesses and asked them if they 

would sponsor a day at Mount Rushmore. It made me so proud. 

Businesses lined up to fund Mount Rushmore for a day because 

they recognized it was such a treasure and so special to our State 

that they would do that. 

So it is not taking taxpayer dollars, it is separate organizations 

that are funding it for the day, which was a wonderful way to get 

through this type of a situation that has been so hard for many. 

I wish we could have done it from the very beginning, because 

many families were turned away at the gate. When they pulled 

over to take pictures, or tried to, it created more of a liability issue 

because they were parked in the middle of the highway because 

they couldn’t get in the pull-offs. 

Now, I understand that the pull-offs are gravel, dirt, stones. I 

don’t know what property we are trying to protect by putting cones 

blocking people from pulling over. Do you know what kind of property we are trying to protect? 

Mr. JARVIS. Again I can’t speak to local pull-off information. I am 

sorry. I just don’t have that sort of knowledge. 

Mrs. NOEM. Well, they have since been removed because someone decided that it was going to be very important that someone 

not get killed on that mountain and be able to pull their vehicle 

over if they were going to and get off onto those pull-offs. So those 

cones are gone now because of the safety of the individuals that are 

there. 

But I will tell you, I don’t believe that people’s safety has been 

a priority in this situation. I don’t believe it was really property 

that was trying to be protected, because, frankly, there was no 

property that was going to be damaged by those pull-offs. I believe 

it was punitive. I am upset about it. I am thankful for the way that 

South Dakotans approach things. They do it the right way. 

And this whole situation has shown me that our park officials 

need to be very, very clear on what their role is and what their priorities are. And that should be making sure that Americans get the 

opportunity to view their treasures that are in their national parks, 

not punish individuals because of situations that are beyond their 

control. 

I thank you for your time. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady. 

Director Jarvis, you answered that you didn’t know, but you did 

negotiate the Utah deal, didn’t you? And doesn’t it have similar 

provisions for roads and off-ramps, areas similar to what the 

gentlelady is describing? 

Mr. JARVIS. We did negotiate a South Dakota one, as well, and 

so Mount Rushmore is back open. All pull-outs, all roads, everything is completely open. 

The original letter that we got from the Governor only wanted 

to open the entrance road and the parking area, not the entire 

park. And so we did—then the very, very tragic snowstorm. And 

124 

then we entered into the agreement with South Dakota, and so 

Mount Rushmore is open, fully operational. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Does the gentlelady from New Mexico have any further—I know. 

Do you have any—we have finished the first round. You are done? 

Does the gentleman have any further questions, the gentleman 

from Washington? 

Mr. HASTINGS. I just wanted to say that I am very glad we had 

this hearing. It was probably predictable that both sides would say 

what they said. I mean, after all, we are in a government shutdown, and that is the price of self-government. Sometimes you have 

to make difficult decisions. 

But what we were trying to ascertain here—and, obviously, there 

is going to be some follow-up—is why it appears, why did it appear 

that the actions were punitive. Now, that is the optics, whether we 

like it or not, how—any way you can avoid it, that is the optics. 

And so that has to be avoided. 

Now, I recognize, Director Jarvis, that you don’t have a say in 

every one of the 401 national parks. I recognize that. And I recognize that the decisions that were made, like the exchange that— 

I forget—you had with one of the Members here on our side regarding Mount Vernon, that you weren’t involved in that decision. I appreciate that. 

But, nevertheless, there is a train and a thread that needs to be 

looked at. Harry Truman probably said it best: ‘‘The buck stops 

here.’’ Well, policies come from the top. 

And, again, going back to the exchange that you and Mr. 

Wittman had, if you didn’t think this was going to be a long shutdown, why were such extreme measures taken the first day? If you 

thought it was going to be a longer shutdown, then the deficiency 

act all the things that you cited would take place later on, not from 

the first day. 

And that is where the optics comes in. That is where the optics 

comes in. And that is why, from me, because I have been very public on this, that I have said it seems to me that there is a conscious 

effort, whether it came from you—you said you make the decisions. 

That is fine. If it was higher up and implications from higher up, 

nevertheless the optics are that this government now is exercising 

something it hasn’t done before to make a political point. I think 

that is dangerous in the long run with our country. I really do. 

And so, with that, I appreciate working with the gentleman from 

California, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, and I will 

yield back to him. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank my friend, member of my committee, and 

fellow chairman. So it is the best of all combinations here today. 

I am going to be as brief as I can, Director Jarvis. You know, the 

mayor, Ms. Eberly, and a host of other people who operate concessions, small towns, and so on, have asked specific questions that 

you haven’t answered, and they weren’t answered here today. So 

I hope that you will address as quickly as possible their answers 

and their concerns. But let me go through a couple of quick questions I need to get for the record. 

First of all, to the best of your knowledge, when did you begin 

the process of procuring the barricades that were used on day one? 

125 

More than a day? Of course. More than a week? Of course. Was it 

more than a month? 

Mr. JARVIS. The National Capital Region National Mall Memorials retains an inventory of what we call ‘‘bike rack.’’ We use them 

all the time—— 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, so it is your testimony that there were no 

rentals or purchases of cones, barricades, or other items in preparation for the closing of the facility. 

Mr. JARVIS. Not to my knowledge. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Mr. JARVIS. But I will check on that and get back to you. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that. 

The second one is probably most pertinent to my particular committee. Mayor Gray and the District of Columbia have been seriously impacted by the closing without any public statements. Your 

signs never said, ‘‘This is closed except for First Amendment.’’ Your 

police never said, ‘‘This is closed except for First Amendment.’’ 

As a matter of fact, from a public safety standpoint, even the 

Vietnam Memorial got opened on one side, either by individuals or 

your employees, and the other side was never opened, so people 

had to walk around it on the grass and so on. Your police drove 

on sidewalks with pedestrians walking on them because you barricaded the roads. Your mounted police horses do what horses do, 

and you are not cleaning it up. So you are creating, your employees, by choosing to have horses on the mall, are, in fact, creating 

a sanitation issue. Your park was very aware that garbage cans 

were continuing to fill because people were there, and they did not 

empty them. The mayor asked and has been trying to get specific 

authority to empty those on behalf. 

Why is it that you never considered—and, please, please don’t 

tell me you are not familiar with the malls and the monuments 

here in Washington—why is it you never considered a deal with 

the District of Columbia similar to the ones you are now doing with 

the States? Why is it the District of Columbia was never given a 

direct opportunity before or during this shutdown to do something 

similar to Mount Rushmore and the other areas? 

Mr. JARVIS. Actually, the District of Columbia has. I spent over 

an hour on the phone with Vincent Gray, the mayor of the District—— 

Chairman ISSA. When? 

Mr. JARVIS. —offering him the opportunity—— 

Chairman ISSA. When? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yesterday. 

Chairman ISSA. Oh, yesterday. Okay. I just want to make sure 

that we are talking 2 weeks into the shutdown. 

Okay. Please. 

Mr. JARVIS. Mayor Gray—the way we have stood this up is Governors are contacting us. Just like if Mayor Gray had wanted to do 

this, we would have entered into an agreement with him, as well. 

We just did it for Ford’s Theatre yesterday. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. So let me make sure I get your testimony 

straight here. Your obligation, according to what you told Congresswoman Noem, your obligation was to protect property, correct? 

Mr. JARVIS. And life. 

126 

Chairman ISSA. And life. So cars driving on sidewalks with pedestrians, well, we will leave that one aside. 

You are supposed to maintain property. You are allowed to maintain as many individual employees as are necessary to accomplish 

that. That is the definition of essential personnel, isn’t it? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is correct. 

Chairman ISSA. So you could have maintained 3, 5, 10, 20 people 

for the purpose of, if you will, offloading responsibility and better 

maintaining the safety and security of these monuments and parks 

around the country at expense other than the Federal Government. 

In other words, you could have had 10 people there who were, in 

fact, lowering your cost and increasing the maintenance and protection in addition to, by the way, the commerce that these individuals are interested in, you could have done that. And it was your 

decision to essentially furlough people and then say, ‘‘I can’t negotiate,’’ furlough people who didn’t negotiate in advance, furlough 

people who didn’t plan, and then talk to the mayor and tell him 

about an opportunity 14 days into the shutdown. 

That is a long question. But aren’t those discretions that you 

made? 

Mr. JARVIS. The decisions I made in terms of the closure are 

guided by our attorneys. Our attorneys interpret the law. And—— 

Chairman ISSA. Good. And then I hereby ask that you deliver to 

us the legal opinions you had prior to October 1st as to each and 

every one of the decisions made before, and then I would like the 

legal opinions that allowed you to make the changes between October 1st and, obviously, the end of the shutdown. 

Do I need a subpoena, or will you be able to turn those over in 

a timely fashion? 

Mr. JARVIS. I will have to talk to the attorneys on that. 

Mr. JARVIS. I will have to talk to the attorneys on that. They 

have—they have control over what is released. I think as you, as 

committee chairman, can request it, and I will take it to the attorneys, but I tell you that I sought their advice in each of these 

cases. 

Chairman ISSA. Did you get it in writing? 

Mr. JARVIS. In some cases, yes; some cases, no. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, then what did you receive orally? Because 

the writing we will get in discovery. What were the oral opinions, 

for example, affecting Ms. Eberly’s organization? Did you receive 

an oral opinion relating to her before, during, or after October 1st. 

Mr. JARVIS. We discussed the Claude Moore Farm in detail with 

our attorneys. The facts are that we do spend money there, and we 

have spent money there, $1.3 million since 2001 of Federal appropriated dollars. We provide trash, and sewer, and road maintenance, so our attorneys looked at this information, and determined 

that within the window of what we expected the shutdown to be, 

there would be no violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act. Therefore, 

we could allow it to open. That’s the way we have been—— 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, so you got an opinion after you shut her 

down without an opinion? 

Mr. JARVIS. All due respect, sir,—— 

Chairman ISSA. I’m just trying to paraphrase what you told me. 

127 

Mr. JARVIS. I want to respond to something. You keep saying 

that it is my responsibility to have planned in extraordinary detail 

for a closure. What I do when we are not closed is I open parks 

and operate parks. That’s what my staff is doing; not planning for 

a closure. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate that, Director, but you know, you 

and I lived through sequestration, and I watched and found evidence of a punitive direction toward a small shutdown and finding 

ways to make it hurt the public. 

Ms. Eberly, you had a pressing answer to my question. 

Ms. EBERLY. Thank you. 

Mr. Jarvis mentioned several things that the Park Service does 

for us, which are actually incorrect. We don’t have a sewer line, so 

you can’t possibly maintain it. We have one Porta Potty for 40 

years for children who visit the farm and touch the animals, and 

then have no place to wash their hands before they eat lunch. We 

volunteered some time ago to take over the trash collection at the 

farm because the Park Service doesn’t recycle. And what was the 

other thing you did for us? 

Chairman ISSA. They gave you over $1 million in a decade or two 

prior. 

Ms. EBERLY. Yes, and we appreciated every penny of it. Absolutely. But that actually came because of Congressman Moran, not 

at the real initiative of the National Park Service. Oh, and for the 

last 3 years, we have been plowing the snow off the road that we 

use, and the CIA, and the Federal Highway Department because 

the Park Service doesn’t usually get to us until about 5 days later. 

So, but we appreciate everything you do. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Director Jarvis, I know that you can’t look at 400 plus major facilities and minor facilities yourself, so in order to make the record 

complete both for my fellow chairmen, we are going to give you a 

list of items that we are going to want to go through in discovery, 

and documentation, and after the reopening, you need not do this 

during the remaining hours, I hope, and only hours. We are going 

to want to go through this process. But I will, for one, as I turn 

this over to Mr. Mica, I, for one, believe you did have a responsibility just as you did in sequestration, and in April of this year, 

when we found you woefully poor in the planning, in your procedures and your papers, it should have been a wake-up call that, 

yes, you should have a plan to mitigate at any time any loss, period. And to maximize, if you will, the leveraging of your public 

partners in every way possible. And I would hope that if you see 

what you call diminishing funds, that you would look and say, how 

can I, in fact, use Ms. Simon to better market products? How can 

I find more Ms. Eberlys to take over properties that in fact don’t 

pencil out, and people like the mayor who have a vested interest 

in helping you. 

I have one very short last question. You said on the record that 

there was an uptick in threats to the mall. Where did you receive 

that uptick intelligence from? 

Mr. JARVIS. Through our law enforcement. 

Chairman ISSA. Through your own in-house law enforcement? 

128 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, we work collaboratively in this district with all 

of the law enforcement forces. 

Chairman ISSA. But where did you receive it? You made a statement that you received an uptick from an intelligence standpoint 

as to threats to the mall. I need to know what agencies were included in that, to the best of your knowledge. You know you received it, so you know who briefed you. 

Mr. JARVIS. I was briefed by the Department of the Interior, our 

own law enforcement services. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. Do you know what level of classification, 

if any, there was? Was it—was it in your office? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. So it was an unclassified briefing? 

Mr. JARVIS. That’s correct. 

Chairman ISSA. In that case, we will be sending a request specifically to have the same unclassified briefing made available to both 

of our committees. 

With that, I recognize Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Just real quickly. You certainly have seen a wide diversity of opinion here today, but I think the whole committee and 

all of the Members of Congress are united in one thing, that we 

believe you had some discretion and we believe that you can take 

down the barriers at the World War II, Martin Luther King, and 

other open-area monuments. Are you prepared to do that? 

Mr. JARVIS. No, sir, I’m not. I’m prepared to respect their First 

Amendment rights to access all of these memorials. 

Mr. MICA. But are you taking them down in that regard, or are 

you just—— 

Mr. JARVIS. The memorial, the current barricades are standing 

not blocking access that are still up. 

Mr. MICA. And you are not prepared to go back. See, I think 

that’s wrong. I think you had the discretion not to put those up. 

You had the discretion to protect the monument, and that can be 

done through law enforcement working with the District, and others, or in any jurisdiction. 

I don’t know what it takes. It may take a law. We are going to 

be back in this situation probably in 2 or 3 months again. I don’t 

like that, but that’s the way this democratic republic works that we 

have to debate these things. You do and you clearly have stated 

that you have the discretion to take those barriers down, and I’m 

asking you, Mr. Jarvis, to take those barriers down. Veterans have 

hauled them away. Members of Congress have pushed them aside, 

and citizens have come and hauled them away and will continue 

to do that. So would you reconsider and today take those barriers 

down? 

Mr. JARVIS. We still feel that—— 

Mr. MICA. You won’t do it? 

Mr. JARVIS. —with a lack of appropriations, the barriers are appropriate. 

Mr. MICA. Well, I don’t know who your bosses are. If they aren’t 

at this dais and have not expressed themselves, it’s unanimous in 

a bipartisan manner—do I have to send you a letter with instructions from 100 Members of Congress, 200 Members of Congress, 

300 Members of Congress to do that, would you do it? 

129 

Mr. JARVIS. I will do it when you pass an appropriations bill. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. HASTINGS. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. 

I want to thank on behalf of both committees all six of you for 

being here and testifying, and Mayor Bryan, especially for you coming all the way from Arizona. And you have shown remarkably 

good patience for the 5 hours that you have been here. I don’t think 

I have to go any farther with that. But I do appreciate, and as 

many times happens when committees have meetings, there may 

be follow-up questions, or answers sometimes spark other questions, but this was designed, this committee meeting was designed 

to, I guess, find out why the optics of this close down was such as 

it is. I think that in itself, is very, very serious. So if there’s no further business to come before both committees, the committee 

stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:40 p.m., the committees were adjourned.] 

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