U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

23–406 PDF 2005

THE NATIONAL PARKS: WILL THEY SURVIVE FOR

FUTURE GENERATIONS?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 22, 2005

Serial No. 109–66

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

DIANE E. WATSON, California

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. MARC WHEAT, Staff Director

MARK PFUNDSTEIN, Professional Staff Member

MALIA HOLST, Clerk

TONY HAYWOOD, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on April 22, 2005 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Long, Gretchen, past Chair, Board of Trustees, National Parks Conservation Association; Vin Cipolla, president, National Parks Foundation;

Emily E. Wadhams, vice president of public policy, National Trust

for Historic Preservation; Denis Galvin, retired Park Ranger, former

superintendent of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Everglades National

Parks; and J. Peyton Knight, American Land Rights Association ........... 38

Cipolla, Vin ................................................................................................ 55

Galvin, Denis ............................................................................................. 66

Long, Gretchen .......................................................................................... 38

Knight, J. Peyton ....................................................................................... 73

Wadhams, Emily E. .................................................................................. 59

Martin, Steven, Deputy Director, National Park Service ............................. 10

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Cipolla, Vin, president, National Parks Foundation, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 57

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 24

Galvin, Denis, retired Park Ranger, former superintendent of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Everglades National Parks, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 69

Knight, Peyton, American Land Rights Association, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 77

Long, Gretchen, past Chair, Board of Trustees, National Parks Conservation Association, prepared statement of ...................................................... 42

Martin, Steven, Deputy Director, National Park Service, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 13

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 5

Wadhams, Emily E., vice president of public policy, National Trust for

Historic Preservation, prepared statement of ............................................. 61

(1)

THE NATIONAL PARKS: WILL THEY SURVIVE

FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS?

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder, Cummings and Norton.

Staff present: David Thomasson, congressional fellow; Mark

Pfundstein, professional staff member; Tony Haywood, minority

counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will now come to order.

Ranking Member Cummings is on his way and in traffic, so he

said to go ahead with my statement, so I am going to go ahead and

get started.

Good morning and thank you for joining us.

Today’s important hearing, which we are holding during National Parks Week and on Earth Day, is the Washington overview

for a series of hearings this subcommittee will be conducting on the

challenges and potential solutions facing our National Park Service.

From our beginning as a Nation, our natural beauty has been

trumpeted within America and around the world. Thomas Jefferson’s enthusiasm led directly to the Louisiana Purchase, which led

to the Lewis and Clark expedition.

From the Hudson Valley artists to the great artists who highlighted what have become our national parks of the West—including Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, William Henry Jackson,

Thomas Hill and Ansel Adams—Americans developed a passion for

the beauty of these areas. Today much of this art is still displayed

by the National Park Service. John Muir and other naturalist writers built upon the base of these prints and early photographs,

which are displayed at public exhibitions and through prints in

people’s home.

The creation of the National Park system was a uniquely American idea. It has been said that Americans, without the hundreds

of years of history of Europe, claimed our parks as the equivalent

of the Grecian, Roman and Egyptian ruins—our Parthenon, Coliseum and Pyramids.

2

Even before the actual creation of the National Park Service to

protect these natural wonders, the Water Department began to protect Gettysburg and other battlefields. These so-called ‘‘cultural

parks’’ were merged with the so-called ‘‘natural parks’’—when in

actuality most parks are both, but with different primary emphasis. The National Park Service became the primary protector of the

most valued places of our Nation.

This background is important to understanding America’s longstanding love of our national parks. It is historical, deep, consistent

and unlikely to change.

Park rangers consistently are voted the best-liked profession.

Visitation by Americans is a family tradition that is often the best

way to communicate our love of our country.

Preserving wilderness and access to natural wonders is not only

important to environmentalists more often associated with liberalism but to Christian conservatives who see in natural wonders the

amazing glory of our Creator. For some, the parks are a place to

wonder, others to reflect, others to teach, others to preserve wild

spaces, others to commune with God, others to recreate. But we all

love our parks. Because of this, there is tremendous public and political support for our national parks.

But our parks are in peril. There are numerous reasons. Most

simply, these are difficult budget times for nearly every public program. In reality, even in this time of tough budgets, the National

Park Service has done better than most agencies that are funded

with discretionary dollars. As legislators, we face difficult choices:

Should there be extra dollars for health benefits for veterans, for

AIDS prevention, schools, prescription drugs coverage in Medicare,

new highways, national parks?

In the process of weighing these decisions, we must have a balanced point of view that looks both at the present and the future.

But once the Nation’s wild spaces are gone, it is extremely difficult

and expensive to recover or restore them, and sometimes it is not

possible at all.

It is expensive to tear down buildings that would buildupon important historic sites, but we have done it. But if Independence

Hall or important sites like Angel Island, the Ellis Island of the

West, disappear, the originals are done. Stands of Sequoia trees

can’t be replaced in multiple lifetimes. In Congress, we have an obligation not to abandon our responsibilities to future generations by

solely focusing upon current problems.

Less dramatically, the Park Service has multiple other missions

as well. NPS not only has the duty to protect our Nation’s treasures for future generations but to intelligently manage them for

the appreciation of current Americans. This means that roads

should be in decent shape. It means that restrooms should function. Visitor centers should be useful and visitor-friendly.

A favorite word for national parks in this administration and

many on the Hill is backlog. One of the many goals of these hearings is to better identify what this precisely means. Is it

uncompleted projects? Wished-for projects? Annual maintenance?

All of this plus more? How is it prioritized?

But the backlog, which exists and always will, is not the only

issue. Visitors want and seek interpretation. They want to talk to

3

real-life rangers. They want up-to-date and accurate scientific information. If historical research has discovered new information,

they want it reflected at the park. They are not taking their families on historic learning experiences to fill them with outdated or

inaccurate information. Films and signs at visitor centers and

throughout the sites, if not up to the latest standards of technology

and information, should not be decades behind.

The National Park Service is the greatest combination repository

of historic cultural information in America. It has the actual sites,

but much more. Journals at Valley Forge, rifles at Gettysburg, an

incredible collection of artwork, at Mesa Verde invaluable artifacts

from America’s earliest days—just to name a few.

Add grizzly bears in Alaska, bats at Carlsbad Caverns, bison,

birds of all sorts and varieties, fish, frogs to grasslands, mountains,

lakes, dunes and massive wetlands like the Everglades and Big Cypress, and you have America’s premier collection of natural history

as well.

Can these resources be better utilized in our Nation’s education

system?

Ultimately, you can fix the backlog, but if there are not enough

rangers or others to clean the restrooms, make sure the roads are

maintained, greet the visitors, do the research and all the other

tasks facing the Park Service, the National Park Service will not

be serving the desires of the American public.

While the Park Service has received increases in funding, we

have added new areas of land to the system. The Park Service has

faced rapidly rising health and pension costs for their employees.

We are seeing national parks like Organ Pipe in Arizona overrun

with illegal immigrants and drug trafficking such that a ranger

was killed in a shootout and one of Arizona’s top hiking trails is

closed for safety reasons.

Homeland security demands have been significant. The favorite

targets mentioned by terrorists include many managed by the National Park Service. The Capitol Mall here in Washington immediately comes to mind, but also Independence Hall, the Statue of

Liberty, the Gateway Arch, Mt. Rushmore, and even the land at

both ends of the Golden Gate Bridge are all the responsibility of

the Park Service. So while we’ve increased spending for the National Park Service, the challenges have overwhelmed the dollars

available.

The administration is taking many creative and innovative measures to try to stretch these dollars. Just because there is a decline

in the number of personnel does not necessarily mean that services

must decline. Every agency, including the National Park Service,

must become more efficient. NPS works with the organizations presenting today, and others, to raise private dollars. Demonstration

fees and other fees from camping to concessionaires add dollars to

the system.

The challenge we face in hearings such as this, as it is in every

agency of the Federal Government under every administration—

and we have seen this in this oversight committee—is getting specific testimony—the challenge is getting specific testimony on budget challenges. Every administration in every agency has OMB, the

Office of Management and Budget, reviewing all testimony. I unVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:18 Oct 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23406.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
4

derstand that, and we hope that OMB and this administration will

allow the National Park Service to at least tell its success stories.

We hope that employees will be allowed to speak freely when questioned and not just have to defend the status quo.

As a strong Republican and an avid supporter of President Bush,

I hope these hearings will be perceived as cooperative by the administration, but we are an oversight committee. Any appropriations must originate and go through the Appropriations Committee,

but this committee is and always has been the primary oversight

committee of the U.S. Congress. When Republicans took over Congress in 1994, we changed it to Government Reform because it is

our specific duty through oversight to identify what is working,

what isn’t working, and recommend reforms. To do that, we must

have comprehensive information, which we will obtain over the

course of these hearings.

Our witnesses today include many of the most informed people

in America on the status of our national parks.

Steve Martin is Deputy Director of the National Park Service, recently arrived from being the inter-mountain regional director. He

has served as superintendent at numerous parks, recently at

Grand Teton.

Vin Cipolla of the National Parks Foundation, Gretchen Long of

the National Parks and Conservation Association [NPCA], and

Emily Wadhams of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

represent three organizations focused on supporting our parks at

the national level with State and regional affiliates across the

country.

Payton Knight of the American Land Rights Association is the

premiere spokesman for concerns of the people most impacted by

many parks’ decisions, those who live in and around them.

Denny Galvin is the former Deputy Director of the National Park

Service, as well as former superintendent of numerous parks, including Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Everglades. So we thank

you all for joining us today.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]

5

6

7

8

9

10

Mr. SOUDER. First, let me do a couple of procedural matters. Before proceeding, I would like to take care of a couple of these matters.

First, I would like unanimous consent that all members have 5

legislative days to submit written statements and questions for the

hearing record and that any answers to written questions provided

by the witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection,

it is so ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents and

other materials referred to by the members and the witnesses may

be included in the hearing record and that all members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, it is

so ordered.

Our first panel, as is the tradition of this subcommittee, is the

administration; and today it is composed entirely of Steve Martin,

Deputy Director of the National Park Service. Because we are an

oversight committee, it is our practice to ask all witnesses to testify

under oath. So if you would raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that the witness responded in

the affirmative.

Mr. Martin will now be recognized for his opening statement. We

ask you to summarize in 5 minutes all opening statements; and

any other statements, as you heard, will be put into the record. If

you go over a little, that will be fine this morning, and we will

allow for the questions too.

Mr. Martin.

STATEMENT OF STEVEN MARTIN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR,

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Mr. MARTIN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today; and thanks for that opening statement. That

was great as well.

And, as you mentioned, I will submit a complete statement for

the record.

The stewardship responsibilities of the National Park Service

have grown significantly in both size and complexity since 1916.

Today, we manage 388 parks and other units, with a diverse array

of natural and cultural resources covering 88 million acres.

Visitation at parks last year was about 277 million. Surveys consistently show that about 95 percent of visitors are satisfied with

the quality of their experience when they visit a park. We have

every reason to believe that the parks and other units of the National Park Service and the external programs we manage will continue to be highly valued by the American public and a critical and

important legacy that each generation leaves to the next.

President Bush has emphasized the importance of our stewardship responsibility by focusing resources on taking better care of

our parks. We have had much success in reducing the maintenance

backlog and in changing the way we manage our facilities. The administration and Congress have also supported steady increases in

operating funds; and the administration has taken steps to improve

management on several fronts, setting the stage for us to do more

with available resources.

11

The President’s budget request for the National Park Service for fiscal year 2006 is $21⁄2 billion, $2.2 billion in national park appro- priations and $320 million in transportation appropriations. We received a $64 million increase for operation of the National Park

System for fiscal year 2005, which increased parks base budgets

nationwide.

The fiscal year 2006 budget request would buildupon that growth by increasing operations by $50.8 million above the fiscal 2005

level, allowing for increases for paid benefits and other fixed costs. As for other sources, we anticipate receiving about $106 million

in revenue from recreation fees, national park pass fees, and transportation fees, and about $38 million in concession fees. In addition, the National Park Service also receives a great deal of financial and in-kind support from cooperating associations, friends

groups and other partnerships.

Many parks benefit tremendously from the work done by volunteers. Currently, about 140,000 Americans serve as volunteers in

our parks.

The maintenance backlog is a key issue. The fiscal year 2006 budget meets the President’s goal of investing $4.9 billion over 5

years to address the deferred maintenance backlog. The fiscal year

2006 amount toward this goal is $1.1 billion; $320 million of that

amount is for park roads funding. It depends on full funding by

Congress and the administration’s proposal for the highway reauthorization bill.

Through 2004, the National Park Service has undertaken over

4,000 facility improvement projects. Visitors are now seeing improved trails, more accessible campgrounds, better visitor centers,

better roads, stabilized historic structures, and reduced environmental threats. With more funding per cycle for maintenance, we

are ensuring recent improvements will be maintained.

In addition to funding, the National Park Service has developed

a comprehensive asset management strategy that has enabled, for

the first time in its history, the Park Service to inventory its assets

and measure the condition of its facilities. During the last 3 years,

we have produced a comprehensive inventory of our assets that includes 19,000 buildings. We anticipate having comprehensive condition assessments for all 388 units by the end of 2006. This will

enable the Service to target funds to the highest priority needs.

On homeland security, since the September 11th attacks, the National Park Service has placed a priority on addressing security

and law enforcement needs at icon parks, parks along the border

and national park units that include critical infrastructures such

as dams. Our law enforcement personnel are actively engaged in

stemming the tide of drug cultivation, smuggling, illegal immigration, and tending to homeland security measures. We work closely

with the Department of Homeland Security and other Federal,

State, local and other agencies to coordinate these activities.

We’re also doing a number of things in management improvements. Some of those things will have a huge impact long term on

our ability to continue to provide good customer service to our visitors.

One area is concessions. Seven years ago, when Congress passed

the new concessions law, the National Park Service Concession

12

Program was in poor shape. With the help of business consultants

we have made the program much more business-like and we have

begun to professionalize our work force. Since 2001, we have

awarded 322 contracts, and by the end of the year we expect to

have the total—we expect that total to be 447, which will reduce

our backlog to about 100 contracts.

We are also improving the way we manage partnership construction projects, projects such as visitor centers, that outside organizations are helping us with. We need to ensure that these projects

fit our needs. We have implemented a comprehensive project review process that includes service by training, project tracking and

accountability.

In a third area, the National Park Service continues to make

progress toward its goal of developing a scientific base of knowledge about park resources through the Natural Resource Challenge. This initiative has expanded existing inventory programs,

developed efficient ways to monitor the vital signs of natural systems, and expanded natural resource conservation activities in

parks. Park managers now have key information on the status and

trends in park ecosystem health.

We are also undertaking improvement of our business practices

in several ways. The National Park Service continues to expand the

use of the Program Assessment Rating Tool to inform budget formulation and program management decisions. We have developed

a parks scorecard, which is an indicator of park financial health

used to aid in identification and evaluation of base budget increases. And we have developed a core operations analysis that integrates management tools to improve park efficiency.

Under another part of the President’s management agenda we

continue to pursue competitive sourcing, which provides a means

for the National Park Service to evaluate its business practices and

identify more effective ways to deliver service.

Mr. Chairman, in summary, we are working harder and more effectively to meet the challenges of managing the National Park

Service and the other programs the Service is responsible for. We

appreciate the interest and the support of this subcommittee in our

endeavors.

That concludes my statement, and I would be happy to answer

any questions.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Martin follows:]

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

Mr. SOUDER. One of the things that I’ve talked about personally

as we’ve discussed this hearing and one of the things that our subcommittee does in our primary oversight areas has been—because

we do authoring and oversight on narcotics, but it’s true of multiple

hearings that we’ve done in this past week and some that we have

coming up on a number of diverse issues beyond narcotics.

Earlier this week, we did a hearing looking at Medicaid/Medicare

funding in cases like Terry Schiavo with HHS. We have one coming

up with the Office of Faith-Based. We have HHS questions, Department of Education, things where we have oversight is to get

documents, because that’s what we do, we review. You mentioned

a number of these, and I would like to make a verbal request to

also give a—we will put it in writing so you have a written request—among these—and we will work precisely, what is the best

way to do this and how.

But toward the end of your testimony you said you had developed a park scorecard, which is an indicator of park operational

and managerial health. We would like to see what that scorecard

is, how you make that decision, and how measurements are done.

I think it is admirable to try to do that.

We’re having this same discussion—and it has become a matter

of discussion in the narcotics area. We are having—Department of

Defense, Department of Education, Department of HHS, Department of Homeland Security will all be testifying in the next 3

weeks; and one of the questions is, is when they made proposals

to transfer, did they have such scorecards and on what basis are

they making requests to do this.

Because when we are being asked, as Congress, to look around

and how to fund, it’s helpful to know how decisions are being made.

For example, the administration was proposing moving from

HIDTA to OCEDEF—which are two lingo names inside the drug

task force area—but had no scorecard to identify or measure.

Therefore, basically, although it hasn’t been officially announced,

they’re not getting their request; and it’s going to stay the way

Congress designed it.

And as we look at these different parks and do the type of analysis, I think, A, it’s good to have a parks scorecard. We would like

to have a copy of that and then talk about it, and that may lead

to other questions that come up as we move through the hearing

process.

Similarly, you mentioned that you have a core operations analysis to see how that is working. At some of the parks I’ve visited,

I’ve had different people describe, as they were developing it, it was

kind of a new phenomenon to try to put these type of business-type

criteria in a lot of the parks. But as we try to work with the type

of budgets we have, we need to see how—and that’s particularly

what this committee does in reforming operations as whole—and

all the different subcommittees—is look at how these processes are

being set up. Are the agencies doing it in a wise management way?

How are they making this decision? And, quite frankly, how is Congress tinkering with them? It’s not like we don’t do earmarks and

we don’t cause chaos in your life as well.

Also, could you tell me—you said that in this inventory of comprehensive asset inventory, which I believe the first time—you

20

have a lot of cultural assets at Golden Gate, and I remember them

going through trying to do an asset inventory like this. You said

they have all—you expect to have them all done at the end of 2006,

and you have preliminary on 388. We’re not really interested in

seeing all the asset inventory of every park, but if you could give

us some examples of how the inventory assessment is being done,

where you think—and what do you think is being accomplished

through the asset inventory management.

Some part of this—from who I have talked to at the parks, part

of this is you have so many structures there, having to determine

which ones are going to be the priority in fixing and so on. Could

you describe where you’re going to use the asset inventory and how

you see that being utilized and, also, what will be the most useful

things for this committee to look at as far as asset management?

Mr. MARTIN. In answer to the first part, we would be happy to

share both the scorecard, which is a certain level of analysis and

snapshot at the big picture, kind of being able to, at a glance, look

at what is going on within all of the parks. And the core of operations is actually where we work with park staff to change, you

know, kind of how we view priorities and how we view efficiencies

and ways to save costs and other things. So we would be happy to,

in much more detail, share that with you and your staff and can

bring people in from the field or from our other offices.

The whole concept of asset management is something that we

have been working on for a number of years; and I think this most

recent effort is, I would say, the most sophisticated and has been

the most broadly embraced by the field. It’s something that I think,

you know, as you look back at our efforts to take care of an aging

infrastructure and also a very significantly important infrastructure with our historic facilities, we had to begin to get a grip on

how do we manage this? How do we seat priorities? How do we invest literally hundreds of millions of dollars that are going into

maintenance and improvements and service? And are we doing it

in the right way?

We have actually—as the process has evolved, we have gotten

better at it; and I think we are still improving.

But in a given park, you go in, and first you just start with a

building inventory, and then from that you actually—you know,

working with park staff, working with outside groups, you do an

analysis of what is the priority for maintenance, how do you organize this, what is your most important asset, if you can do that,

or certainly set a band of most important.

And then for all of them you go in—at Teton, where I was working, we got a group of people, including some engineering graduate

students, to come in, and maintenance employees who had worked

on these building for a few years, to go through and actually make

a list of what kind of condition is this building in, what is the different building components, from the utility systems to the roof.

It begins to then generate a data base that says, you know, these

are the needs of the Park Service for the next few years and these

are the needs of these key priority assets for the next few years.

So we can begin not only to look at, you know, what has been

termed as the backlog, but, really, how do we develop a program

21

to maintain these assets for the long haul. Because that is really

what we’re all about.

And also to make decisions on should we build a new facility, is

the lifecycle cost of this building, if it is not a historic structure,

so onerous that maybe the best thing to do is build a new one, or

is this even an asset that we need. And we’re finding in many cases

that we have things that should be trimmed out of our building inventory because they’re not useful, they’re no longer functioning as

they were designed, and it makes the most sense to do that.

So it’s a complex and I think a very good system. Like I said, it’s

really interesting because it’s an initiative that this administration

has been very supportive of, but it’s also interesting to see the level

of support by our chiefs of maintenance and other staff in the field,

and I think over the next 3 years it will continue to help us make

these decisions.

Mr. SOUDER. As we move into the field and do more formally

what I have kind of done informally in the last years in visiting

parks and probably—I mean, our intention is to finish with the

hearing and focus in on, OK, here we have now prioritized things,

these things are going real well, these are things that we need to

focus on more.

I want to kind of plunge into the weeds of this area for a second

before I go back and ask you some tradeoffs in what type of things

we will look at, and let’s talk about Grand Teton for a second. I

want to give you a couple of examples—I’m not panicking you. I’m

not headed anywhere specifically. I’m just going to use it as an illustration. Because when I visited Grand Teton and I told them

this next piece of information, they immediately worried what my

goal was. I didn’t have a goal.

Years ago—since I’m older now, many years ago, we stayed at

White Grass Ranch, which is basically going to seed now. You can

go through the area. I think it had asbestos. And I think that you

made decisions to keep one ranch, but let others, as Grand Teton

park went, go to more natural states like they originally were. This

one wasn’t torn down, but it’s falling down gradually.

I also was taken over to a—what would be, let’s just say, a less

sophisticated tourist—it wasn’t a tourist ranch like White Grass,

which was more or less a Rockefeller-funded type of a setup than

was added to the park, one that was more a squatter, and then he

had a couple of tourists. It was in terrible shape, and it was a question of should that stay or not stay. And the State Historical Society felt that it should stay because it was an unusual representation of that type of camp, unlike the other types of camp, and yet

it was, in the visitor question, is Grand Teton a cultural or a national park?

Similarly, there are whole ranges of questions like that, and

what I’m kind of, by giving those two particular examples, asking

is, in this asset inventory, how do you factor in variables of—and

is it built into your system to factor in the tradeoffs of cultural/natural, the tradeoffs of things that may exist outside the park in a

given State, or even from a national perspective of this is very

unique, we have 100 of these in the system, so here is the balance.

First off, just giving an asset inventory is a big step, then getting

some criteria. But are these the type of value judgments that are

22

in, or does it tend to be more mechanical of the cost, and then kind

of a gut feeling for the tradeoffs? How does it——

Mr. MARTIN. That’s a great question, and it’s something that we

work on and struggle with, work with our partners and work with,

you know, the outside groups like you mentioned, the historical societies and others, to make those choices.

The asset management system is largely set up to have decisions

like that made outside of it. You would make those kind of decisions that you’re talking about through your general management

planning. We do evaluations and inventories of historic buildings.

We have a process that we’ve started—I wouldn’t say real recently,

but it’s relatively new in Park Service terms—of looking at cultural

landscapes. And the protection of resources is an evolution, you

know, like many things within our culture, and so we’re learning

more about some of these assets, that we’re now finding, you know,

this historic resource might be really important, and it might even

be important, interestingly enough, for telling a natural resource

story. So we make those evaluations all the time, but largely

they’re done outside of the specific, more, I would say, you know,

kind of process looking at engineering and deployment of funds.

Now, the process, though, accepts those kinds of decisions. So as

you rate the importance of your assets, as you determine what is

our highest priority need, what is the most threatened of our resources, then you would incorporate those decisions into that. So it

accepts that kind of information. But, generally, if it’s significant

information on what and how to save this building and should it

be decided, that is done through one of our other planning efforts

that includes quite often, you know, the NEPA compliance and

other things. But it is compatible with that, and I think it will help

us and allocate resources where they are most needed when we receive them.

Mr. SOUDER. You alluded to the Individual Parks Management

Plan. Is there a standard approach that a park management plan

needs to be updated a certain number of years, or is that at the

recommendation of the superintendent that this is becoming outdated? Since that is the kind of critical this-is-where-we’re-headedover-the-next-period-of-time, then you’re putting these other park

scorecard core analysis and inventory management, how does a

park—when I see these—Yosemite, for example, has been a real

wonderful discussion on a park financial plan. How does it cycle

through?

Mr. MARTIN. We try to keep those planning—the nature—what

we call either master plan or general management plan current. It

does vary on the cycle of those. Some of those have been in place

for a long time and have been amended where it makes more sense

to just tweak it, as opposed to making wholesale changes.

In a region like the intermountain region, at any given time, of

our 88 units we will have 10 or 15 that are undergoing different

levels of overall general management planning. And it really—it

varies. If you have a park that is a new park unit that doesn’t have

one, that is a high priority because we need to work with the communities and work with our partners and also analyze the interests

of Congress and others in the establishment of it. Are we meeting

23

those challenges? And others, it is because the plans have become

outdated.

Like I mentioned, it is a continuum, it is a changing cycle, and

they need to be updated just because of recognition of different resource needs, different operational needs, different visitor needs. So

there is not any, you know, we do them all every 5 years, because

in some ways the other thing that we found is that as we interact

more—which we are very supportive of—with our public and others, it takes longer and it is more expensive to do them.

So we do an assessment. OK, do we need this? Do we have the

right guidance? Are we making the right decisions? And then you

would move forward into the planning. But there are ways of

amending, doing minor changes as well trying to keep ourselves

relevant, keep us in compliance with the Environmental Policy Act,

and keep us in close connection and cooperation with our neighbors.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you have a backlog of management funds?

Mr. MARTIN. Yeah. We have some needs in those areas, but part

of that is that it is also—like a lot of things, you know, I think we

have adequate funds to meet the key needs that we have right

now.

Mr. SOUDER. Could you also—this is kind of a side part of that,

but a member from our park subcommittee asked this question, I

believe, the last time, which is now 2 years ago, a National Heritage Area study that Congress had requested, I believe. If you could

update this for our records that we have—I think you can process

8 a year, and we were backlogged 20 the last time I heard, or 30,

which would mean 3 to 4 years after Congress passes a bill for a

study, we didn’t get the study, and so sometimes we’re actually

then passing the heritage era before the study is done. Could you

get the latest data on that, of approximately how many studies can

be done a year, and what is the backlog on the number of studies?

Mr. MARTIN. We’ll get that to you.

Mr. SOUDER. I yield to Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,

for holding this hearing.

I will submit my opening statement for the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

24

25

26

27

28

29

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m just curious. You talk in your testimony

about surges with regard to homeland security, and I was just wondering how do you—is there—do you expect the Federal Government to reimburse you for those special circumstances where homeland security is involved?

Mr. MARTIN. Well, we’ve—I guess I’m not quite clear. You said

that——

Mr. CUMMINGS. You said that the law enforcement capacity to

surge in response to homeland security threats, to other emergencies that may affect iconsites in the park system, and I just

want to know how does that——

Mr. MARTIN. Right now, we have funding that allows us to respond within the park units to the critical homeland security

needs. There has been an emphasis, we have received some additional money, and then we have also put a focus on it because we

feel it is a really key national priority.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what form does this usually take, in other

words, these surges, these problems?

Mr. MARTIN. You know, there is, I would say, a broad focus. We

work with homeland security. If there is, you know, something that

is brought to our attention or if we go to an elevated security level,

we help with protection of the icons, dams. We have a lot going on

along the borders. We are working with Border Patrol. So I would

say it is pretty all-encompassing for the breadth of the sites that

we’re responsible for.

But right now we don’t get reimbursed from that for homeland

security. That is money that we have within our budget or is absorbed within our budget.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And when it is absorbed within your budget,

does that affect anything else? I mean, maybe you have money

hanging around, but they tell us there is not much money anywhere. And I’m just curious as to how that affects—does that affect

staffing, for example?

Well, first of all, how much money are we talking about.

Mr. MARTIN. Well, again, it’s really varied. I can get the exact

amounts of money, but we’ve put roughly—and again, I will get you

the accurate numbers—but we’ve put roughly a hundred million

into infrastructure improvements, and we’ve put roughly now

around $40 million into reoccurring, and some of that has been appropriations that we have gotten for those purposes, for strengthening borders, working with icons and doing other things. But I

will provide you with the exact numbers.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So what I’m trying to get to is do you have

some—so even before the fiscal year begins, you’re already contemplating those kinds of things? Because it seems logical, logical

that if you have a budget, and I assume the budget is what you

need, and I’m assuming you’re not asking for more than what you

need since we’re in such dire straits——

Mr. MARTIN. Right.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But I’m trying to figure out what it is. Am I

missing something?

Mr. MARTIN. I think—right now, we have the money for what

would be considered routine operations, and we program that out,

and not just on homeland security, but that’s—and, again, through

30

some of the budget tools that we are looking at, it is enabling us

to fairly distribute that over our, you know, what we consider our

core and most important needs.

Then, you know, the things that you can’t anticipate, then you

would reprogram. If we go into—if the Nation goes into a heightened state of emergency, then we’re going to participate in that and

we’re going to do our part. And I think, like others, you know,

we’re going to find ways to make that happen.

Again, I think it’s something that, you know, you can’t program

for all contingencies, but we feel that we have the funds and the

ability to meet, you know, our core responsibilities as they pertain

to the homeland security within our budget, and we allocate that.

And, again, recently we’ve received some additional funds for that,

and I think that we’re meeting those base needs.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Tell me—and you may have addressed this earlier—about understaffing. Do we have an understaffing problem

anywhere?

Let me tell you why I’m asking that. A young lady—I can’t remember her name offhand—was fired here in the Washington area

because she complained about insufficient security at the monument—at one of the monuments or monument sites, I think, if I remember correctly. Why are you shaking your head?

Mr. MARTIN. No, I was trying to understand the——

Mr. CUMMINGS. A young lady who was a member of the Park

Service, she was fired. It was a big story——

Mr. MARTIN. Yeah, OK.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you remember it now?

Mr. SOUDER. He’s new.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were new.

It was a big story, front page of the Washington Post.

Mr. MARTIN. Yeah.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m not going to get into all the details of her situation, but one of the things that she claimed was the fact that—

with regard to homeland security and the fact that we needed to

have a better situation with regard to those kinds of things, that

we were—that there was understaffing. And eventually some higher-ups said you shouldn’t have gone and told the public about the

understaffing, and she basically said, well, I think I have a duty

because, if something happens, then the public may be harmed.

Now all I want to know is about staffing. One of the reasons I

asked you the earlier questions is I’m trying to figure out, is there

a financial problem when it comes to our situation, the climate of

our country since September 11th? We’ve got—let me finish.

Mr. MARTIN. Yeah.

Mr. CUMMINGS. We’ve got so many people who are trying to enjoy

the parks. They are looking for things to do with their families that

are inexpensive. We saw what happened down at—although this is

not related to you—in the Olympics a few years back where folks

were injured because somebody—some demented person came and

blew people up and that kind of thing. And so what I’m trying to

get to is, where are we with regard to staffing? Does the climate

post-September 11th call for more staffing? Do you have the resources to do that? And should the public feel safe when they go

to our parks?

31

Mr. MARTIN. Not only should they feel safe, but I think that they

are safe.

I believe that since September 11th we have stepped up to those

needs, and I think—and that’s one area where we have increased

both our physical needs, you know, making sure we have adequate

structures and other things in place to meet those needs, as well

as staffing. So I feel that, you know, things are going well.

On the other—it’s interesting when you talk about needing a

place to go, I think that parks are great places to visit. A study

that was done a couple years ago showed that over a 2-year period

about 30 percent of people in the United States visited parks. So

it is something that is happening. So, yes, we are doing that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

You may be familiar with this, referring back to a CNN piece

that appeared on their Web site—this is back July, 2004—and it

says, according to a study conducted by the non-profit National

Parks Conservation Association—are you familiar with that?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes. Maybe not that study, but I’m certainly familiar with the organization.

Mr. CUMMINGS [continuing]. The entire Park Service operates on

about two-thirds of the budget it needs, about $600 million short.

And that about—and this is what they said, I’m not saying this—

and that about $50 million of that shortfall stems from duties related to homeland security at the so-called icons. So you disagree

with that?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. How so?

Mr. MARTIN. Well, I feel that, No. 1, that we are meeting our responsibilities when it comes to protection of our parks, protection

of our visitors and our icons, as well as the others—and, again, I

think we have many, many important sites.

And I think that as we do some of our operations analysis,

we’re—you know, we’re finding that to meet the core operational

needs of the service that we’re coming up with some different numbers; and we can provide you with some of those if you’d like some

additional information.

Mr. SOUDER. What we will do is we will work on a list of 10

icons, ask what has been plussed up and where the rangers—that

will be the simplest way to do it because they transfer rangers——

Mr. MARTIN. And we have that information available, and we can

get back to you fairly quickly.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me just finish this up, because I’m curious

about this. I’m going back to this CNN piece. And by the way, the

lady’s name was Chief Teresa Chambers. I just want to give you

this quote, and I want to see what your response—I know you’re

new, but I just want——

Mr. MARTIN. And I’m somewhat familiar with that, so——

Mr. CUMMINGS. You are now?

Mr. MARTIN. Yeah, I understand what you——

Mr. CUMMINGS. It says, in a memo Chambers wrote that the

budget crisis put new hires in doubt, potentially bringing the Park

Police staff to its lowest level since 1987 and seriously undermined

her officers’ ability to protect the icons.

32

She goes on to say, my professional judgment, based on 27 years

of police service, 6 years as chief of police and countless interactions with police professionals across the country, is that we are

at staffing and resource crisis in the U.S. Park Police, a crisis that,

if allowed to continue, will almost surely result in the loss of life

or the destruction of one of our Nation’s most valued symbols of

freedom and democracy.

And again, in fairness to you, that is back in July, 2004. So I assume that even back then, based upon your knowledge, you would

not have agreed with that statement; is that right?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And now assuming—let’s play the devil’s advocate—and this is not you, me—assuming—you want to read your

note?

Assuming that it’s true—let’s assume it’s true. Has anything

happened since then to make things—to increase the amount of

money available for the Park Service Police?

Mr. MARTIN. Again, I can’t speak to the specifics on their budget

but would be happy to provide that to you.

That branch of the Park Police is one that is largely focused on

the east coast and west coast, and certainly highly in this area.

Coming where I did out of the Park Service, we had minimal interactions with them. We did that through our park ranger. We did

our law enforcement through the park ranger. But I can provide

that information for you.

But what I do know and what I have been briefed on, and I think

I have some firsthand knowledge, is that we’re continuing to evaluate that. We are looking at the Park Police’s budget. We are analyzing, again, both the physical security and the staffing security

at these areas to ensure that those—that our homeland security

needs and the needs of our icons are being met and the needs of

all of our parks.

Again, I really feel, you know, I visited 40 of our areas last year,

40 of our Park Service areas, and I really feel that we have been

doing a good job in that area. And not that we aren’t continuing

to analyze, we are continuing to get additional information and

we’re continuing to improve, because a lot of this is not only new

to the Park Service but it’s new to the country. But I really feel

like we’re addressing those issues. But we can provide you specifics

on exactly what has been going on within their budget over the last

couple of years. I just don’t have those figures off the top of my

head.

Mr. CUMMINGS. In many of the parks you have to pay a fee,

right?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You may have addressed this a little earlier, but,

again, I’m going back to people with families. You know, it’s expensive, if you’ve got a family these days, for somebody who is making—maybe a family is bringing in, say, $80,000, it’s tough. And

families are consistently looking for things to do with their children. And I’m just wondering how do you all address the issue of

fees. How do you do that? I mean, do you——

Mr. MARTIN. The fees are not, at this point, anywhere near what

it costs to run a park. I would say that they’re one of the greatest

33

values that’s available to the American public. And it’s interesting,

as we do our surveys, you know, I think it’s right around 95 or 96

percent of the people who come to the parks are just—just rate us

overall as things are good, and that includes, you know, the fees

and other things.

Not all of our parks charge fees. Many of our areas are open

without fees. And everything from, you know, local areas to many

of our bigger natural units don’t. But many do. And it’s been a

great way for us—and especially recently, with what Congress is

providing, not only do we collect them, but those fees go directly

back into areas that improve visitor services, that improve our operations for the people that are coming. So it’s a relatively small fee. Many of our areas have $3 to $6 entrance fees per person, $15, $20 a carload. So it’s, you know,

those are really important moneys, but it’s been always kept at a

level where it’s not a deterrent to visitation.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Is it increasing? I mean, is the number of people

coming to our parks increasing?

Mr. MARTIN. After September 11th there was a flattening, in

some areas, actually, a decrease; and what we’re seeing in the last

year or two is that it is going back up. Again, I think it is just that

readjusting, you know, like many things within our society. But

what we’re seeing now is our visitation in our parks is going back

up again. Again, it varies site to site, but the overall trend is more

people are coming, and it will be real interesting to see what goes

on this year. But we’re anticipating to see a trend in the increase

of visitation.

Mr. CUMMINGS. This is my last comment, Mr. Chairman.

I just had occasion to go to Topeka, KS, with regard to the Brown

decision and saw what was being done there by the Park Service.

They did just a phenomenal job. I’m not saying that—not just what

they have done with refurbishing the schoolhouse and what have

you, but it was a tremendous event there. And I know the Park

Service was very much responsible for making that happen, so I

just want to pass on that compliment to your folks. I don’t want

them to think that those things go unnoticed.

The thing that I also am concerned about is that people know

about the parks, and I’m wondering how what is done to get that

word out. I know that for myself, growing up in the city of Baltimore, as a child I probably went to one of our parks that you oversee one time in my first—not only as a child but in my first 30

years of life. So I’m wondering what is being done to make sure

that word gets out to our inner city areas, our urban areas, and

making sure that people everywhere know about this wonderful

bargain that you just spoke about. It is one thing to have opportunity; it’s another thing to know about it and to feel welcomed.

So I thank you very much for your testimony. I’m sorry I missed

the beginning of it.

Mr. MARTIN. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Since this is the initial overview hearing, and as we kind of build

the layout, we will followup with some specifics on what visitation

statistics and trend lines—would it be good to have a 5-year or 10-

year? Also, to the degree possible that you can split natural parks

34

and some of the cultural/historical and then particularly the recreation areas, things like Santa Monica and Golden Gate and Gateway, which have huge attendance, which are more urban parks.

San Diego Missions Park, for example, illustrates part of the

challenge we face in the park system. It’s set up as a missions park

but probably 80 percent of the utilization right now are Hispanic

families picnicking in areas that weren’t set up for picnicking, but

it’s some of the only open green space in a major open area. How

do we adapt to the different cultural groups? How do we adapt to

demands that weren’t necessarily seen for this space? And then

will they utilize and appreciate the history that’s around them as

you do that? And how many parking lots do you put in to accommodate that? But we’re seeing different usage.

Also, one of my personal interests, but we have not figured out

to how to address this, but it’s critical as we look at the demonstration fees, as we look at more contracted-out services from the hotels

to the—where you eat is contracted is out, where the hotel is contracted out, where the gift store is contracted out. If you’re going

to hike a mountain, or at least climb a mountain, there will be a

mountaineering service that you will pay a fee, if you want to ride

on a horse. Now these fees aren’t outrageous. They’re cheaper than

almost anywhere you will go.

But one of the things that we have looked at—and there has

been broad agreement in appropriations and authorizing to try to

do something like this, but we haven’t figured out how to do it in

a fair way, and it’s something I’ve been raising for roughly 6

years—and that is is that basically low-income people are exempt

from that charge. Now, could you take it as a—not a deduction, but

a credit on your tax form? Is there something that you can show

when you are in the actual park? How do you do that without discriminating against individuals—which we ran into with the school

lunch program.

But there is a willingness, because the number of individuals

who will be impacted by this is small, and therefore it’s a cipher

in the budget. But psychologically it would be a major thing and

might increase attendance in targeted groups. Because the challenge of the Park Service is always that parents are often more enthusiastic than the kids, that as you get older, you are more appreciative, the higher your income goes, the more you’re appreciative,

and the more your group gets mainstreamed, the more you are appreciative. So, initially, any immigrant group gradually comes in—

this is not new. It’s been going on this way for a long time. What

creative ways can we do that?

I would also like to know—and we won’t have time to pursue this

here, but it’s something I’m going to be working at—is, in addressing the maintenance backlog and the challenges of general ongoing,

how do you analyze what gaps you have in the park system? This

has been a pet concern of mine, not really formulated here. But

even when you look at Lewis and Clark, as you look at American

heritage, you say, look, this is a site that maybe we ought to be

looking at. If we look at African American heritage, this is a site

we ought to be looking at; Hispanic heritage. As we authorize the

Lincoln Commission, are there things that—related to Lincoln—

that we don’t have in the system? As you look back at how to mainVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:18 Oct 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23406.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
35

tain what you have, it is a philosophy of saying what you need to

add, and that’s what I was alluding to.

I’m going to ask you two other—I’m going to ask you one to finish up so we can get to the second panel, and that is on roads.

In 2001, only 35 percent of park roads were considered to be in

good condition. And I want to know if it has gone up or down, and

how much money do you receive from the Highway Trust Fund for

maintenance of these roads? And what is the funding level necessary for the maintenance of the roads?

Mr. MARTIN. I would say that is a key area in addressing our

backlog and our needs to improve our facilities in the park and obviously something that’s very important to visitation. We are in an

interim where we are getting incremental amounts similar to what

we have gotten in years past. And that number, I think it is in the

neighborhood—if not, we can provide you the exact amount—

around $170 million. We are within the President’s budget. There

is a request for $320 million, which would take us over that next

5 or 6-year period. We feel that, within our partnership with Federal highways and others, that with that amount, we can make a

huge dent in our needs. And also, that is the amount that we can

spend wisely. And that is the other thing; these are long-term commitments and goals. And so it is not only getting the funds, but,

you know, what do you have the capacity to do? Yellowstone is a

great example. You can only do a couple of road projects a year

even though they have a tremendous need because it’s during a visitation period. But we feel that target number would put us well

on the way to improving that road condition.

Mr. SOUDER. This highlights a couple of things that we will be

looking at in the funding question, and that is a fascinating thing,

particularly in the snowy areas and heavy visitation in the summer, how much can you actually do? That was an interesting example. In effect, most Members don’t even realize it in the highway

bill, that the National Park Service gets a huge amount of dollars.

I think that is a fairly safe statement to make and that when we

are trying to work out a tight budget and trying to get roads in our

own districts that we can hold a press conference about, the National Park Service isn’t high on any of our personal agendas unless it happens to be a park in your area. You are saying the President requested $350.

Mr. MARTIN. $320.

Mr. SOUDER. Roughly $170 is incremental in the way we’re doing

the budget now. Do you know in the bill—I presume there are

some differences between the House and Senate figure in the proposed bill, if you could get that. The bottom line is, looking at a

bill, currently under funding, you are receiving a lot less. For planning, you have a problem compared to the gap what you are requesting compared to what we are likely to fund. Now raising the

point that Mr. Cummings made earlier that I have been talking to

different committees about is in plus-up for homeland security.

Here is the fundamental problem, the dollar figure that you use in

your opening statement, while significant in dollar terms—and I

have been doing letters with Mr. Lewis and other members to try

to increase that each year, working with the appropriators and

compared to a lot of places; the Park Service, like I mentioned, is

36

doing OK. But OK means the figure you actually gave us looked

like about 21⁄2 percent increase; that your personnel costs are certainly going up more than 21⁄2 percent. You are transferring and

having to, in effect, rob Peter to pay Paul to cover, particularly in

times of terrorist alert. You’re now short on your road budget, that

there is only—the question is—the tough question is what is being

reduced when you are having to meet these increasing pension and

health care costs? What is being reduced so we can make a case

here? We need to understand what is being reduced. And that part

of this is homeland security. I personally believe there ought to be

a carve out in homeland security like there is in roads. If the government says that there is a heightened thing, and these are the

things that may be hit, we don’t necessarily want a ranger that is

supposed to be protecting campers in Yosemite transferred to protect the Washington Monument. That’s a homeland security question, not necessarily a traditional park service question. And why

wouldn’t that be handled in the homeland security budget like

roads are handled in the roads budget? Similar in narcotics—and

I know—and this is one of the things we are going to look at as

we get into these parks. This is not easy, as I see from these different parks, but it has to be addressed. You have—I mean, one

thing you are trying to work to professionalize the park rangers,

who historically have not had some of the challenges that they

today face in urban parks and on the border. But using Morgan

Park as an example, you can see the place littered with water bottles, or if it is black, it is a drug milk carton that was used. You

see tire tracks being put across areas to pop tires of people trying

to run either drugs or illegal immigrants in; a danger in being able

to hike the trials. Big Bend is at times overrun in Texas.

At South Padre Island, they say they have all sorts of things

going up on the beaches. You can’t even use the beaches on South

Padre Island National Seashore, according to their rangers and superintendent. Needles coming up. It is a different type of a challenge when you are facing armed groups that are trying to invade

certain areas of the territory because they are being pushed into

these open spaces from the border. And we have to figure out

how—and there are all these debates. Border Patrol, DEA, do you

want them wandering through?

We are even having cultivation as we heard in one of the parks

out west and particularly in the forest areas of narcotics in those

parks. And it is likely to grow. In fact, yesterday, in talking to the

head of Colombia National Police, as we take out the coca planting,

guess where they’re going? They’re planting them in the national

parks of Colombia. You fly over the national park in Peru, and in

areas along the Amazon basin, what they’re doing is planting coca.

They are stripping the trees, not for lumber. They’re stripping it

to plant coca and for cocaine labs. We have an interesting phenomenon here. As we have other problems intervening in the park,

how in the world can you do your traditional functions unless we

either figure out a direct way to fund these in the park project or

figure out, should some be in homeland security or some be in narcotics like we do highways? First, we have to fund the highways.

Anything else you want to add?

37

Mr. CUMMINGS. I hope you will take the testimony—you know,

one of the things I found interesting about these hearings is that,

unfortunately, people have to leave. They are very busy. I am not

trying to get you to stay here because I know you have to do

things. I am going to have to leave shortly myself, but let me say

this, that they give their testimony and then they leave. It would

be nice—I want you to take a look at the National Parks Conservation Association’s testimony because I don’t want you to, in other

words, I want you to hear about what some of their concerns are.

But I think it would be nice to take that with you, because I think

that way you can—when you go back to your people, not only can

you take our concerns, but you can take their concerns and probably all the testimony of our witnesses who are going to come up.

Mr. MARTIN. And I appreciate that. And I think that we, you

know, we do work together, and I think that’s one of the things

that as we met before this that the tone of the hearing is that, you

know, what a great legacy to get to work together on. And I think

we have, you know, great possibilities. I also believe that we are

in a time of fiscal constraint. And I think that we have to—that

makes for some stressful times. I think we are committed. The administration is committed. And it is represented in our budget from

last year and in our proposal for this year that Congress is committed to all working together. So we have a responsibility to do well

with what we have. And we have responsibilities to work with others to ensure the protection of the parks. And we appreciate the opportunity to do that. And we will take the testimony of the others

and the reports and the continued dialog. Many of the people who

will be on the next panel are ones that we work regularly with and

have shared great partnerships and great successes with. So I will

take that to heart and appreciate the interest, because you know,

I think those of us who spent our career doing this are passionate

about this task. And I think it is something that is a great legacy

of the country.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Were you finished?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I think the chairman pretty much hit the nail on

the head. The problem is, something’s got to give. Something has

to give. I mean—and I try to tell people this. We have to have balance in this country. We have to fight terrorism, but we better take

care of the people in this country, too. You have to have a balance.

And it’s not your fault that there may not be enough money. But

when I ask the questions and then the chairman—I mean, he went

through a lengthy description of various parks and the problems

that are taking place at those parks. And those are just the ones

he mentioned. You begin to wonder whether the personnel piece is

coming to a critical moment. In other words, it’s going to take personnel to do the things he is talking about, and you almost seem

like you have to have some policing here. And I don’t want a situation where our parks are overrun with drugs. I don’t want a situation where, as he stated, people come for a nice picnic and then—

I mean, they come for one purpose and come to find out, the park

is being used for a whole other purpose inappropriately, and it just

doesn’t work. What happens then is actually, you have a

counterproblem going on because then people will come, and they

38

will say, wait a minute, I thought we were coming to the place we

came to 5 years ago. We have these wonderful memories.

And do you know what they are going to do? They are going to

turn around and not only are they not going to come back, but they

are going to tell their friends and neighbors not to come back. That

is what I am concerned about. Some kind of way—what we’re trying to do is help you help the people who want to come to the

parks. And if there’s not—if there are insufficient funds to do those

things, we are going to have to fight harder to try to get that

money there. The American people simply—I would say about my

district and I will close with this, Mr. Chairman—I say in my district—I live in Baltimore. They are not trying to get to Disney

World. They’re just trying to get to Kings Dominion. They are trying to get to a decent place for a reasonable price and have a good

time. They are not looking for a filet mignon. They’re just looking

for some hamburger. And so it is scary to me if we get to a point

where the one thing that one of the many things that this country

has to offer with our taxpayer dollars to offer to families then begins to erode—you know, erosion, by the the way, just doesn’t happen overnight; a little piece there, a little piece there, a little piece

there, and next thing you know, we don’t have have what we had

a few years ago. And that’s what we have to be concerned about,

that we maintain the quality and maintain a reasonable fee structure so the families will feel welcome. I wish you the best.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Mr. MARTIN. Thank you very much.

Mr. SOUDER. If the second panel could come forward. Welcome

all of you. And the first thing we do is to swear you in as you heard

earlier. Our standard practice is to ask our witnesses to testify

under oath. Would you each raise your right hand?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.

Thank you all for coming, and we will start with Ms. Gretchen

Long, who is the past chair of the Board of Trustees of the National

Parks Conservation Association which already has been thoroughly

praised this morning.

So thank you for coming today.

STATEMENTS OF GRETCHEN LONG, PAST CHAIR, BOARD OF

TRUSTEES, NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION;

VIN CIPOLLA, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL PARKS FOUNDATION;

EMILY E. WADHAMS, VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC POLICY,

NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION; DENIS

GALVIN, RETIRED PARK RANGER, FORMER SUPERINTENDENT OF YELLOWSTONE, YOSEMITE, AND EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARKS; AND J. PEYTON KNIGHT, AMERICAN LAND

RIGHTS ASSOCIATION

STATEMENT OF GRETCHEN LONG

Ms. LONG. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I am as you say the former Chair of the

Board of Trustees of the National Parks Conservation Association

and continue as a current trustee. It is indeed a privilege to be

39

here today as the subcommittee delves into the extraordinary challenges that do face our national parks.

Since 1919, the 300-member nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association has been the leading voice of the American

people in protecting and enhancing our National Park System for

present and future generations. I personally have had the privilege

of visiting more than 200 units of the National Park System from

walking the Freedom Trail in Boston where I grew up to hiking

quite recently in Big Bend in Texas; from the marvelous canoeing

trip in Gates of the Arctic to visiting the home of the Reverend Dr.

Martin Luther King in Atlanta. And I, like millions of Americans,

have sought inspiration, recreation, education and relaxation in national parks, places that are truly superlative examples of our

country’s magnificent resources and heritage and help us to teach

our children and our grandchildren about who we as America are

and what values we have that we struggle to uphold. We are grateful, Mr. Chairman, that you have dedicated this unprecedented series of oversight hearings to the condition of our national parks. We

also very much appreciate your leadership in co-sponsoring the National Park Centennial Act which can do much to rectify the fiscal

woes of the national parks.

Over our 86-year history, NPCA has found that the most pervasive challenge facing America’s parks is the failure of successive

Congresses and Presidential administrations to fund them adequately. The national parks face two deficits, an annual operating

shortfall that exceeds $600 million and the debilitating backlog of

deferred maintenance projects estimated between $41⁄2 million and

close to $10 million. In addition, funding for the acquisition of nationally important lands has been drying up. To bring attention to

these challenges, NPCA recently released, Faded Glory, Top 10

Reasons to Reinvest in America’s National Park Heritage. This report, which has been provided to the subcommittee for the record,

shows the debilitating effect of underfunding of the parks, some

crumbling historic buildings, unsafe roads, theft of historic artifacts, loss of critical habitat to invasive and other worrisome

threats.

I will only highlight a few of the 10 reasons in my oral testimony: 90 percent of Americans say they are drawn to the national

parks for educational benefits. Yet parks today have roughly one

interpretive ranger for 100,000 visitors. This is about more than

merely about touring a park, it is about the education of the next

generation of Americans. When I took my children to national

parks, we counted on park rangers who would teach us the history

of the place, but no longer can we expect to see the face of a helpful

ranger. I visited Lowell National Historic Park on a Saturday last

month, and I was disappointed that, when I walked through the

Boot Cotton Mill, I could not find a park ranger to answer my questions about textile factories or talk about America’s experiences in

the Industrial Revolution.

Harper’s Ferry National Historic Park, a short drive from here,

must deny a ranger-led tour to three out of every four school

groups that request it due to staff shortage. Here is, in relation to

our previous discussion, the impact of the needs to meet other requirements affecting—having adequate staffing. At Everglades NaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:18 Oct 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23406.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
40

tional Park, the Park Service last year had to cut ranger-led education programs from 115 per week to fewer than 40 per week. The

more rangers disappear, the more our society loses a key tool for

understanding ecology and for inspiring the next generation of

Thomas Edisons or Martin Luther Kings in creating the next generation of leaders and scientists.

Recognizing this problem, Congress intervened last year to increase operational funding for the parks. Despite the significance

of that intervention, it barely kept the parks even in budget terms

and did nothing to reduce the annual funding deficits the parks

face.

Visitor safety: It is also affected by underfunding. For example,

backcountry ranger patrols in many parks are being reduced. As

the former chair of the Board of the National Outdoor Leadership

Schools, I know that risk management is a critical part of any

backcountry experience and the backcountry rangers are a critical

part of any large park’s operation. Rangers who meet hikers in the

backcountry provide information and advice about such things as

avoiding conflicts with bears or warnings about dangerous weather.

Ironically, search-and-rescue operations cost parks far more than

the funding of adequate backcountry patrols. But many park managers are being left with no choice other than to reduce patrols and

wait until the next emergency strikes.

Then, as discussed earlier, there are the roads. Approximately

two-thirds of the more than 5,000 miles of roadways in the national

parks are in poor-to-fair condition, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The road repair portion of the backlog exceeds $3 billion. In addition, the Department of Transportation estimates the Park Service will need $1.6 million over the next 20

years to meet transit demands. Yet the park roads and parkways

program funded under the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st

century provides only $165 million per year. The administration’s

proposal to fund the parks at $320 million, if enacted, can do more

than any single piece of legislation likely to pass this year to begin

to address this enormous shortfall.

Near my home in Wilson, WY, in Grand Teton National Park,

the park will unveil a new transportation plan this summer which

includes new bicycle paths that are necessary to improve visitor

safety after two tragic deaths of cyclists that were forced to travel

on the narrow edges of roads. The roads constitute much of the infamous backlog of deferred maintenance projects. This backlog will

require a significant leap in funding like the one proposed in the

Centennial Act if we are ever to hope to solve this chronic problem.

If recent funding trends continue, the picture I have described will

only worsen. The current proposed increase for fiscal year 2006 will

likely lead to more service cutbacks in the parks unless Congress

substantially increases funding above the President’s request. This

is partly due to the traditional failure to budget sufficiently for the

mandatory annual adjustment for government salaries.

Unbudgeted costs of living adjustments have cost the National

Park System approximately $50 million over the past 2 years.

While the Park Service proposal for fiscal year 2006 attempts to

account for most of the anticipated increases, the budget request

for fiscal 2005 provided only 46 percent of the funds needed for

41

staff pay increases. As a result, parks absorb those unbudgeted salary adjustments shrinking the funds that they rely on to cover toilet paper for the rest rooms, visitor brochures and seasonal rangers

to protect and to educate visitors.

The Park Service’s budget woes are exacerbated by underfunded

homeland security demands. According to recent Park Service testimony, security now costs $40 million annually. The Park Service

receives no compensation from the Homeland Security Department

for these costs. These increasing stresses on Park Service budgets

not only jeopardize many of our more traditional parks but also innovative programs like the National Underground Network to

Freedom. Congress created this unique park service-led partnership program in 1998 to preserve historic sites and promote partnerships to educate the public about the Underground Railroad,

the informal network used by slaves to escape to freedom. However, this exciting initiative, which has the potential to add to the

interest in and relevance of the parks for millions of Americans, is

in serious jeopardy with insufficient funds to pay staff and with the

modest $300,000 grant program eliminated from the President’s

proposed budget.

Hand in hand with the need for funding is the need to spend

those funds wisely. That is why NPCA has placed such a significant emphasis on providing the Park Service with the tools to develop business plans and to implement new approaches to operate

more efficiently, such as we have done in a recent recommended

plan on fleet management. Nearly 100 parks have now developed

their own business plans, which we initially originated, but they

need to do more. Park managers of every rank and position need

a firm grasp of park systems laws, regulations and policies and

need training in the art of professional management. And they

need the tools to maximize the effectiveness of their dealings with

concessionaires, volunteers, gateway communities, philanthropies

and other partners. In 11 years, America will celebrate the 100th

birthday of the National Park System and Park Service. While

Congress established Yellowstone in 1872, no unified professional

government agency for parks existed until President Wilson signed

the National Park Organic Act in 1916.

Mr. SOUDER. You are way over time.

Ms. LONG. Am I over the time? Let me finish with this. The creation of the park system requires bold vision, and we are grateful

for that vision. If we are to maintain our responsibility and our legacy to realize the full potential of our national parks and to guard

against their further deterioration, we need to consider, as your

hearing is considering, ways in which we can strengthen and improve the National Park Service.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Long follows:]

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Next witness is Mr. Vin Cipolla, president of the National Parks

Foundation.

Welcome.

STATEMENT OF VIN CIPOLLA

Mr. CIPOLLA. Mr. Chairman, my name is Vin Cipolla, and I am

the president and CEO of the National Park Foundation. The Park

Foundation was chartered by Congress in 1967 to encourage private philanthropic support of America’s national parks. Thank you

for the opportunity to appear today before the subcommittee to

comment on national parks today and into the future.

The mission of the National Park Foundation is to strengthen

the enduring connection between the American people and their

national parks by raising private funds, making strategic grants,

creating innovative partnerships and increasing public awareness.

The National Park Foundation operates above what we call the

bright line of congressionally appropriated funds by contributing

direct monetary support, goods and services to the National Park

Service that add to but do not replace Federal appropriations. Over

the past 8 years, NPF has enjoyed substantial growth, over $239

million in contributions and $217 million in total grants and program support to national parks across the country. The foundation’s growth has been achieved with fundraising and administrative costs kept to a minimum. Money Magazine recently recognized

the NPF as one of eight charities best at maximizing the percentage of donations going directly to programs supported.

As I know you are aware, national parks have a long tradition

of private philanthropy. National park philanthropy began with an

innovative approach to preservation, purchase vast tracts of land

and donate them to the Federal Government. A hundred years ago,

simply converting land from private ownership to public ownership

was all that was necessary to protect it for future generations.

Today, whether it is funding new junior ranger programs that connect with today’s youth, supporting volunteerism programs that

empower citizens to care for the land, assisting with multilingual

outreach efforts inviting new Americans to the national parks or

backing park programs that bring classroom lessons to life, the National Park Foundation is bringing new and different approaches to

preserving and protecting national parks.

Just as the needs of parks have changed over time, so has philanthropy in this country. The opportunity before us is to bring

these two traditions together. We have built on the conventions of

public, private partnerships by developing innovative approaches to

improve visitor services, increase volunteer opportunities, offer

more educational programs and engage the community with their

parks over the long term. The role of private philanthropic support

is to fund inventive, cutting-edge programs in these areas and to

ensure evaluation of those programs to determine their effectiveness. There are many levels of this support from the local friends,

groups supporting individual parks to national partners like the

National Park Foundation giving system-wide support to parks.

Private philanthropy has traditionally been held in the hands of a

few individuals and corporations whose commitment is strong, conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:18 Oct 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23406.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
56

sistent and valuable. We view the future success of private support

not only in the capable hands of Congress in these traditional partners, but also in the hands of the 80 million-plus national park

visitors and enthusiasts. The future of philanthropic support is

both diversifying the opportunity you experience in national parks

and also in diversifying the opportunity to support our parks.

Along with our Board of Directors, I am committed to expanding

the base of individuals that support our national parks directly. We

want to engage these millions of park visitors and enthusiasts and

take their love of these special places to the next level to ensure

that their interest in financial support is manifested in direct support to national parks. We will use many of the new communication technologies available to reach the American public and connect them with their parks.

I am new to the National Park Foundation. I am in my third

week on the job, but not to the world of nonprofits, entrepreneurship and innovative technology. Ensuring the future of the national

parks through the generosity of Americans with use of this new

technology will be one of my top priorities in starting here at the

National Park Foundation. The fabric of our Nation is strengthened and enriched through the unique cultural, historical and scenic beauty of our national parks. They inspire us and challenge us

to understand more deeply American history, the American way of

life and the natural processes that surround us. They can be powerful tools of education for our children and offer the very best of

these United States to all who seek them out. Support for national

parks ensures the very best of returns, not those of monetary

value, but those values of preserving and protecting uniquely

American principles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your ongoing

support of national parks and the National Park Foundation and

thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cipolla follows:]

57

58

59

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. Our next witness is Emily

Wadhams, vice president of public policy at the National Trust for

Historic Preservation.

STATEMENT OF EMILY WADHAMS

Ms. WADHAMS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to

offer the views of the National Trust For Historic Preservation on

the condition of our national parks and the need to support the National Park Service’s substantial historic and cultural inventory.

My name is Emily Wadhams. I am the National Trust vice president for public policy.

We are concerned not only about the funding for the national

parks themselves but also for a host of other National Park Service

cultural resource programs and historic preservation in the States

and communities around the country. Arguably, the National Park

Service has responsibility for the stewardship of America’s most

significant historic sites and museum collections: 62 percent of the

388 park units managed by the Service were designated as historic

or cultural in nature by Congress, and every one of them contains

important prehistoric and historic places or collections. The Service’s inventory their structures and reports that 55 percent of the

approximately 26,000 buildings and structures under its stewardship are in poor to fair condition. National Park Service has relatively little data on the number of archeological sites in the parks,

but for those sites that they do have data on, less than half are in

good condition. To compound this situation, in 2003, approximately

370 incidents of vandalism or looting related to those sites were reported. Only 48 percent of the Service’s museum collections which

rival those of the Smithsonian in size and significance have even

been cataloged. Of the park’s historic landscapes identified, nearly

70 percent are in poor or fair condition. The National Trust has attempted to help by partnering with the Park Service to restore important but threatened buildings by raising private sector dollars

for a number of parks including the McGraw Ranch and Rocky

Mountain National Park and at White Grass, where we are supporting and encouraging efforts to raise funds to save the buildings

as a Western Park Service Employee Training Center. But it is apparent that the National Park Service does not have the financial

resources to document, repair and maintain these important cultural assets. This unhappy story of the conditions in the national

parks does not end with the parks themselves.

The National Trust feels compelled to draw your attention to the

array of cultural programs that assist State and local historic preservation efforts that are managed by the Park Service, and I will

highlight just a few of them: The National Register of Historic

Places, which recognizes historic sites through a formal designation

process. This provides eligibility for Federal grants, tax credits and

is a very key component in the regulatory review process for Federal agency undertakings. Funding is inadequate; staff resources

are strained. The public interest in this program is overwhelming.

In 2004, there were 145 million hits on the National Register Web

site representing over 4 million individual users. Only a small percentage of those documents, however, are in digital format due to

lack of funds. The National Trust is working with the Park Service

60

and the National Park Foundation to find non-Federal dollars to

bring this incredible record into the 21st century and make it more

accessible to the public.

The Historic Preservation Fund, also within the Park Service’s

purview, supports important State and tribal preservation programs and special grant programs. States receive matching funds

to manage the State Historic Preservation Offices, a unique Federal-State partnership between the Park Service, the Advisory

Council on Historic Preservation and the States. The FHPO activities range from historic surveys to heritage tourism programs to

assisting Federal agencies and reviews of their projects on historic

resources to assisting developers with rehab tax credit projects,

which have the economic benefit of leveraging about $2 billion a

year. In 2001, the FHPOs received $46.6 million. By 2005, that

number has diminished to $35 million.

There is a similar Tribal Historic Preservation Office Program.

The number of certified tribes participating in that program has increased from 34 to 59 in 2 years, but the funding for this program

is embarrassingly low, $3.2 million in 2005, and has not increased

proportionately.

The Historic Preservation Fund also includes Save America’s

Treasures Grants, a program in which the National Trust plays a

significant role. The Federal grants require a 50–50 match and are

made to nationally significant, threatened historic buildings and

collections. Thanks to broad, bipartisan congressional support for

SAT over the last 7 years, over $200 million has been awarded in

matching grants supporting 726 nationally significant preservation

projects in every State. SAT has leveraged private and public funds

of over $23 million for projects like the south side of Ellis Island,

Mesa Verde and Thomas Edison’s lab. Other SAT projects include

Akima Pueblo in New Mexico, Louisa May Alcott’s home in Concord, MA, and Lincoln Cottage in Washington, DC. Lincoln’s summer home is now being restored through a SAT. The National

Trust is raising the match and coordinating the project, and the future plans include full public access and increased visibility

through the designation of Lincoln Cottages and affiliated areas

with the National Park Service as recommended by the National

Park Service Special Resource Study.

In 2004, Congress appropriated $30 million to Save America

Treasures. The currently proposed budget cuts that in half. The entire Historic Preservation Fund that I have just gone over received

$74 million in 2004. And the 2006 budget proposes a 27 percent reduction for these important programs.

Mr. Chairman, as we approach the centennial of the National

Park Service in 2016, we strongly support your bill that would establish finally a dedicated fund to address the maintenance backlog

for the national parks. We applaud your efforts to find solutions to

the chronic underfunding for these places and programs that define

our American heritage. The National Trust will continue to work

with and support the Park Service in any way we can. As a Nation,

we cannot afford to be derelict in our responsibility as good stewards of our unique and spectacular cultural national heritage.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wadhams follows:]

61

62

63

64

65

66

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Our next witness is Mr. Dennis Galvin, retired park ranger,

former superintendent, former deputy director.

Thank you for coming today.

STATEMENT OF DENNIS GALVIN

Mr. GALVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be in

front of this committee again. I won’t bore you with the details of

my biography, but I have not been superintendent of Yellowstone

and Yosemite, although I have worked in those parks extensively

and in many other parks. I retired as deputy director in 2002. I

was deputy director under three presidents, President Regan,

President Clinton and the current Bush administration, until I retired.

Many of the issues brought before the committee thus far are

outlined in my testimony, and I want to congratulate you on your

opening statement. I think it simply sums up the dilemma we face

in maintaining a first-rate National Park System. I have a prepared statement, and I will submit it for the record. Mr. Martin

mentioned the 96 percent approval rating, the 270 million visitors.

One in three Americans visited a park in the last 2 years, all based

on surveys. In addition, many parks are hubs of regional economy

so they are very important to local communities. People say the

most-cited reason for their visit is sightseeing. The attraction of

parks is their intrinsic quality.

Over time, the vigorous protection of these park resources has

enhanced, not encumbered, public enjoyment. I will spend the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman, discussing budget issues and how

they affect individual parks. But for the record, the budget of the

National Park Service has been decreased slightly since 2001. Now

that is not true of the operations budget, but it is true of the overall budget. However, due to the emphasis of Congress and the National Parks Conservation Association, a great deal of attention has

been focused on both the dilemma of park operations and the backlog. This committee and other committees have held hearings on

that.

Last year, the park-by-park increase for the individual parks, not

for the operations budget as a whole, increased by 6.1 percent, and

that was, as far as I know, certainly in recent history, the largest

increase at the park level in the history of the park. So all involved

need to be congratulated for that.

Let me say a little bit about how individual parks budget for increases. There is a standing file of increases that parks can contribute to at any time. And there is also a standing file in which parks

can put their project needs into—they have acronyms. So parks can

catalog their increases at any time. When a budget is put together,

those increases are looked at. Now sometimes there is an emphasis

placed on the budget by a given administration. One year it might

be coral reefs. Another year it might be homeland security. What

the regional offices and the Washington office do in those circumstances is go into the standing file and look for coral reef

projects or homeland security projects. And the effect of that over

time has been inattention to this business of fixed costs that you

outlined in your statement, that you talked about in your questions

67

and that the NPCA witness outlined. And as a result, many years

at the park level, the pay increases and the rising costs exceed

what they get out of the budget, in effect. And even though you can

look over years, and every administration does this, and say, well,

over the last 10 years, we have increased the park budget by 20

percent; if you look at this record on fixed costs, you will find at

the park level, many times a park is going backward. What do they

do? They lay off people, seasonals, or they don’t hire permanent

employees.

The air quality specialists at Shenandoah are a perfect example,

a park that has a significant air quality problem, has a vacant air

quality position. Why is that? I’m guessing, but it is an educated

guess, because not showing one permanent position allows the superintendent to fill three or four seasonal positions. So over time,

that kind of rational decisionmaking results in parks not filling

critical permanent vacancies. And many park budgets are 90 percent salaries. They should be 75 percent, in my experience.

Now, finally, a few words about the backlog. If you look at the

infrastructure at the National Park System, it essentially was built

in two periods of history: in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt New

Deal Era, when the emergency conservation work and CCCs built

the basic infrastructure of parks; and beginning in the Eisenhower

administration with Mission 66, which was a 10-year program after

World War II to renew the infrastructure of national parks. We

talked about Grand Teton earlier. That is a classic Mission 66

park. Except for a few rustic housing units, everything in that park

was built in Mission 66, which is to say it was finished about 40

years ago.

Let me give you one example of how that history affects a given

asset in a park. The Old Faithful sewage treatment plant at Yellowstone was built during Mission 66. It’s being reconstructed right

now, so it’s not a problem. Here’s the dilemma when that sewage

treatment plant, Old Faithful, was closed in the winter. There was

no food service and no visitors to Old Faithful. The design theory

behind that plant was, you close it down for the winter and you

switch to a septic tank. Has no heating inside. And so when winter

visitation—now 20 years of winter visitation comes to Yellowstone—you are dealing with an asset that not only faces maintenance problems, but it is simply obsolete and can’t meet currentday conditions.

One thing to look at in the facility condition index is OK, this

facility has been maintained properly, but does it have a modern

day function? Is it meeting modern day loads? At the end of Mission 66, there are 140 million visitors to parks. There are more

than two times that now, and there has been concomitant investment in park infrastructure.

Another example, I think, of changes in the National Park System, are that the principal changes that affect infrastructure have

been inheriting large military bases, industrial complexes. Lowell

was mentioned, south side of Ellis Island, the Presidio, Gateway,

which included many military facilities. When you get those undeniably nationally significant assets, you get a lot of buildings. The

only way to solve that problem it seems to me is through partnerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:18 Oct 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23406.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
68

ships and leasing, because they don’t really have—far more square

feet than a park needs or uses.

I will close with a story, Mr. Chairman. One of the great advantages of being retired is the opportunity to explore these parks in

depth and at leisure. Two years ago, I stood at the cemetery at Gettysburg and watched a father place his two small children in front

of the Lincoln bust under which there is a text of the Gettysburg

address. He translated the Gettysburg address for those children

into their native tongue. No statistic will ever capture that moment, but for me, it illustrates the power and potential of the national parks’ enduring mission and the enormous importance of national parks as educators of our citizens and protectors of our heritage. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Galvin follows:]

69

70

71

72

73

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Our last witness on this panel is Mr. Peyton Knight, who is the

executive director of the American Policy Center and Washington,

DC, representative for the American Land Rights Association.

Thank you for coming today.

STATEMENT OF J. PEYTON KNIGHT

Mr. KNIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for your

comments earlier.

I have submitted a written statement for the record. Quite frankly, America’s park system is in trouble. Our Nation’s 388 national

parks, historic sites, battlefields, landmarks, lake shores, recreation

areas, scenic rivers and trails have an estimated collective maintenance backlog of between $4.1, $6.8 billion and, according to Ms.

Long, could be as high as $10 million or $10 billion. Yet as this crisis continues to snowball, Congress has not done enough to strike

at the heart of the problem. Will our national parks survive for future generations? The answer is, no, unless Congress acts responsibly and reins in the ravenous appetite of the National Park Service and Federal land acquisition programs.

The Federal Government currently owns almost one-third of

America’s total land mass. NPS is assigned for caring for much of

this property. It clearly can’t handle its current responsibility. How

on earth does it make sense to give it more? In order to solve this

crisis, Congress must make a sincere commitment to curb all future NPS programming and acquisitions and scale back expansion

plans that are already in the pipeline that are only going to add

more fuel to the backlog fire. You simply can’t pledge more funding

at one end and continue it with out of control expansion at the

other. It only exacerbates the problem. This reckless expansion

threatens the future of our Nation’s National Park System and undermines the ability of the agency to meet its commitments to future generations.

According to the National Parks Conservation Association, public

safety and public access rank high among the casualties of our

overdrawn park service. Yosemite National Park in California desperately needs everything from trail and campground maintenance

to a new sewage system and electrical upgrades. Yellowstone has

decrepit buildings and over 150 miles of roads that need repair. In

Mount Ranier National Park in Washington, travel to backcountry

cabins is impossible because of neglected bridges and trails. The

foundation at the visitor center of the USS Arizona Memorial in

Hawaii is crumbling and literally falling into the ground.

When public access to parks isn’t taking a backseat to scarce resources, the Park Service is actually promoting spending money to

shut people out. The Park Service’s Yosemite Valley Plan would

cost close to a half billion dollars and would actually reduce the

number of parking spaces by two-thirds. Instead of being able to

leisurely enjoy the sites and wonders of Yosemite, this grand plan

calls for the park patrons to be herded on to a fleet of buses and

shuffled through the park on the Park Service’s schedule. Under

the plan, hundreds of camp sites that were destroyed in the 1997

flood would not be replaced and nearly 60 percent of the park’s remaining campsites accessible by car would be removed. The NaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:18 Oct 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23406.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
74

tional Park Service is quickly earning the moniker of our Nation’s

slum lord. And Congress’s response should not be to award NPS

with more property and more programming.

Rather Congress should seek to scale back the Park Service’s duties until manageable levels are attained. The National Park Service is already slated to receive $2.2 billion in the next fiscal year.

That is almost $1 billion more than it received just 10 years ago.

The real answer to the Park Service’s maintenance woes is fewer

holdings and programs. For Congress—unfortunately, Congress

seems determined to ignore this solution and drive the Park Service and our national treasures into further disrepair. For example,

the House and Senate this year are moving to create a National

Heritage Areas Program. Heritage areas are permanent units of

the Park Service and, therefore, lifelong dreams on already scarce

resources. Even more importantly, heritage areas are Federal landuse mandates foisted upon local communities. Heritage areas are

being sold to Congress under false pretenses. Proponents claim

that these areas are simply temporary funding grants, seed money

that is scheduled to sunset once the area becomes self-sufficient.

Predictably, this has not happened with current heritage areas.

These pork barrel land-use schemes are forever dependent on Federal funding because they lack local interest. Ten years ago the late

representative Gerald Solomon strongly warned that heritage areas

are targets for increased land-use control by the Park Service as

well as funding drains on the agency. In Solomon’s letter he wrote,

‘‘I urge you to defend property rights and strongly oppose the

America Heritage Area Participation Program. The environmentalists advocating this bill have Federal land-use control as their primary objective. This bill wastes tax dollars that can be more appropriately spent on maintaining our national parks.’’ And he goes on.

He would be appalled to learn that Congress is pushing harder

than ever for a National Heritage Areas Program when the Park

Service’s problems have only increased exponentially since he

penned this letter.

When the Federal Government acquires property, it compounds

the current crisis in two ways. One, it adds more property and burden to the maintenance backlog, but it also removes private property from the tax rolls, thereby reducing funds that could help address the current crisis. In spite of this, a provision currently sitting in the Senate budget resolution would earmark $350 million

guaranteed every year for the next 3 years for the Land and Water

Conservation Fund. That’s over $1 billion not subject to annual appropriations for Federal and State governments to buy up more private property. Fortunately, the House budget resolution includes

no such nonsense, but representatives must make certain that the

final conference report is free of this land grab boondoggle. The future of the National Park Service also depends on how the agency

is viewed by the public. Unfortunately, NPS has shown itself to be

a bad neighbor with a history of hostility toward land owners in

local communities. Through programs like the National Natural

Landmarks Program, NPS has run roughshod over many private

property owners. Though advertised as voluntary benign designations to inform landowners of the natural features of their property, as if they weren’t already aware, the program is in fact a

75

feeder system for future NPS holdings and crackdowns. One day,

the Park Service knocks on your door and hands you a bronze

plaque honoring your property. The next day, you find your property ensnared in a quagmire of planned progressively stronger

land-use prohibitions and sometimes outright acquisition. In a

great number of instances, the Park Service has been found to be

trespassing and snooping around on private party, evaluating it for

landmark designation without ever notifying the landowner. The

most prevalent abuse occurred in Maine where the Park Service

routinely ignored its own notification rules and refused to inform

landowners of pending designations. In fact, the Park Service was

working in collaboration with environmental organizations and

land trusts targeting private property for future landmarks.

Syndicated columnist and author Alston Chase documented several examples of Park Service misdeeds under this program. For

example, Jim Shelly, a New Mexico rancher, didn’t even learn that

his property was being considered for landmark designation until

a friend noticed it in the Federal Register. The Nature Conservancy had evaluated Mr. Shelly’s land for the Park Service without

his knowledge. Lucy Wheeler of Vermont became suspicious when

she noticed mysterious survey markers on her land. NPS officials

were in fact sneaking around her property and neglected to inform

Ms. Wheeler, because, as they reported, she was already, ‘‘sensitive.’’

Because of this controversy, a moratorium was placed on the

landmark program. However, it has been lifted about 6 years ago.

It is far past time for the Park Service to locate and notify victims

of this debacle and seek their written permission for inclusion in

the program. If the Park Service is not willing to reconcile its misdeeds, then the Natural Landmarks Program ought to be abolished.

In summary, if the Park Service is to survive for future generations, the agency’s holdings and programming must be scaled back.

Congress should direct the Department of Interior to take a careful

inventory of its current holdings and determine which of these

properties would best be turned over to States or sold to private interests. Undoubtedly, there are many national parks and recreation

areas that have no business on the Federal dole. Some examples

would be the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation area in

California or the Gateway NRA in New York. These properties

might make good city or State parks, but American taxpayers nationwide should not be forced to carry this burden. Congress should

also make certain that the Federal Government does not swallow

any more of our Nation’s land mass. The No Net Loss of Private

Land Act, S. 591, would help in this regard. The bill’s sponsor, Senator Craig Thomas, notes it is time for Congress to protect the

rights of private property owners and instill some common sense

into the Federal land acquisitions. No net loss of private lands will

provide that discipline.

Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman for allowing me to testify on

this important issue. Time is now for Congress to assert real authority and inject discipline into Federal land management agencies like the Park Service. Only this can save our national parks

76

and treasures, and I will be happy to answer any questions you

may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Knight follows:]

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

Mr. SOUDER. Let me thank each of you for your testimony today.

And if there are any materials you want to submit for the record—

and I didn’t say this at the beginning, most of you probably know

this, our intention is to have a series of field hearings in between.

Each hearing that every committee does comes out with a hearing

book that then becomes a reference for people to go and look at.

So what you put in as supplementary materials goes into that, and

we may be doing a plan—a final summary report. So it is helpful

in the particular data here of this hearing being an overview of

things we might want to look at or how to look at—and clearly,

anybody who isn’t exposed to this and every time I go to any hearing, I learn that, oh, the Park Service does this, too, that the scope

and the breadth is overwhelming. There is no way this committee

is going to get into these type of things. It becomes a matter of targeting.

Right now, however, we are trying to see the breadth so we can

figure out what type of scope we are going to have and how to get

into it, because fundamentally what we are looking at in these

hearings is much broader than what we deal with usually in the

Resources Committee, which tends to be focused either on a specific

problem that has been raised or in a—I am not saying they never

deal with the broader problem or a particular bill. But this is a

comprehensive look at what systems and structural changes and

strategy changes do we need, and try to see where, and accommodate different points of view.

Now, let me ask Mr. Galvin—and I know we will have a continuing discussion with this. And then I want to ask a couple—I want

to ask Ms. Long this, too. Is there specific information that is not

currently publicly available that you believe this committee might

want to seek that would be helpful in determining scope and data

as to some of this information?

And if you can’t think of it off the top of your head, if you can

suggest that to us, because as I have clearly explained to the Park

Service multiple times, that all data has to be made available that

is in a public source to an oversight committee. There is not the

option of declining to give it to us, whether it is e-mails, whether

it is letters, whether it is tentative reports.

For example, those who watched our steroids hearing in this

committee know we can also, even in nongovernment agencies, if

they have antitrust exemption and so on, ask them for briefing

memos. The only claim that is justified is executive privilege. And

even executive privilege or predecisional information is fairly limited.

Now, this isn’t an effort to try to get every document that is out

there. We get overwhelmed. When we were doing the look at the

FBI files, often we would get like a wheelbarrow of information.

There is no way to sort it through. What we are looking for is relevant information for public policy. This is taxpayers’ dollars. And

we are trying first to determine scope.

Mr. Martin seems very willing to share, but our problem is, is

we don’t even know what to request in some cases. And I wondered

if you have any suggestions to make here on process?

Mr. GALVIN. Well, in the broad scopes of the committee’s purview, I think most of the information related to this problem is

122

publicly available through the National Park Service Budget. In

the more narrow scope, I think with respect to Homeland Security,

I understand that there are some proposals to significantly modify

the way the National Park Service does law enforcement, hiring

nothing but permanent employees. I think that would be very relevant to the committee’s inquiry with respect to the impact of

Homeland Security on the National Park Service.

Also, I understand that there is a revision of the management

policies proposed by the Department of Interior. That may be

predecisional. But, generally speaking, I think most of the big problems are publicly available.

Mr. SOUDER. To what extent do you think it will be difficult to

get—I mean, you have used the example of not filling a vacancy

and moving to seasonal employees. Does such data exist at regional

offices, at the national, or is this almost like you would have to get

every park’s information and assemble it? Does the National Park

Service keep this data?

Mr. GALVIN. No. Decisions like that are pretty much made at the

park level, and the record of them is at the park level. They are

essentially decisions made by individual superintendents, once they

get their budget allowance.

Mr. SOUDER. And are those park records public?

Mr. GALVIN. Well, there is a legal requirement that each park superintendent publish a financial statement every year. Generally

speaking, I would say those statements are not consistent with respect to tracking positions. But I think legally they would be required, and at least two separate pieces of statute.

Mr. SOUDER. And so if we picked a region and ask for the parks

in that region, how many vacancies do you have——

Mr. GALVIN. That could be provided.

Mr. SOUDER. And how many and how long those vacancies have

been vacant?

Mr. GALVIN. That would be trackable.

Mr. SOUDER. And we would then be able to—and I also don’t

want to be overly burdensome for things that aren’t relevant, but

obviously these things become very relevant when we are looking

at are you meeting your scope and needs, and we talk about do you

have rangers here, what is up, what is down, that—are we, in assembling such data, how hard would that be to assemble?

In other words, if I made such a request like that, I mean, I

know how—we run into this with multiple agencies, how many

Congressmen, multiple Congressmen. I mean, I have been systemically talking to each member of this committee, and they are very

supportive of the whole direction, as well as the full committee. So

that we have a lot of leeway to work here. At the same time, none

of us are trying to do unnecessary—in other words, pulling rangers

out of talking to visitors so they are trying to do question responses

to Congress. On the other hand, we have oversight responsibility

here. How hard is this data to pull together?

Mr. GALVIN. Well, I don’t think the committee needs to pull it together out of 388 parks. I think a well-designed sample would provide a valid story. I mean, I think that the condition of personnel

management in parks is pretty much the same in any region, it is

pretty much the same at each park. Small parks may be even

123

tighter than large ones. But I think you would find that story,

given the past history of the park appropriation, at every park.

That is, they would be surrendering permanent vacancies to cover

seasonal needs.

Mr. SOUDER. Let me ask you one other kind of technical question

that is my assumption. Looking at other agencies where we have

these kinds of problems, that every agency in the Federal Government right now—almost every agency is having difficulties with

staffing. The dollars aren’t keeping up with the cost of living. At

this point I am not arguing that government employees are underpaid. We certainly could never make that argument in our congressional districts. But at the same time, there has been a lot of crosspressure because of the health and pension systems. In the Park

Service, since it is highest rated, there is not—it is very hard for

people to get in, not that many people leave until their time is up.

And I assume, although there has been some transition in park superintendents lately, that there is more or less an aging process occurring inside the park system, which means many of the people

are in under the old health care and pension systems. You don’t

have the turnover that you have in a lot of other agencies where

they come in for 5 or 10 years, never really get fully vested in the

pension programs, never really are under the old retirement systems.

What pressure is disproportionately being put on the Park Service, and is that easy to quantify? Is it there?

Mr. GALVIN. Well, on a nationwide basis, I am sure the budget

office could hang numbers on both the old pension system and the

new pension system. My perspective is that the old pension system

is fading as gaffers like me leave under the old system. But going

to the new system, the so-called FERS system, which has to be financed by the agency, has made a considerable impact on the ability of parks to provide services per unit dollar. The percentage

budgeted for that particular system is much higher than it was in

the old system, because it has to be fully funded by the agency.

But, yes, the budget office could certainly provide a nationwide

analysis of the impact of that on parks.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you believe that drives permanent versus seasonal?

Mr. GALVIN. Oh, absolutely. Because the park superintendent is just looking at a bottom line; $5 million, $1 million, how can I deploy seasonals? And, by the way, this is not either new or partisan.

When I ran the roads and trail system in Mount Rainier back in

the 1960’s, you know, our classic tactic was to keep—the fiscal year

used to end on June 30th, and we wouldn’t bring on the trail crews

until July 1st if we had a big snow year and were short of money.

So delaying seasonals, grabbing permanent vacancies to cover

seasonals is a sort of classic strategy at the park level.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Ms. Long, I want to thank you as—when you say past chair, that

is really recent past chair.

Ms. LONG. That is very recent. That is just a week ago.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to thank you for your strong support of your

association and your wonderful testimony today, and will continue

looking forward to working with all the regional areas as we move

124

through the hearings and also continuing to provide data for us as

we work through and how to highlight. We are even to some degree

trying to decide how much of this we do thematically, how much

of this we do geographically, identify some of the different problems.

The constraint here is, obviously, the number of hearings and

how we want to do this. But I want to thank you. And each of the

groups will continue to work with—you heard me ask, and there

are just a flood of questions that come out. As I told you at the beginning, my biggest problem is I only have one plane I can get to

Indiana; and, in fact, Mr. Cummings ran into the same problem.

He has a speech in Indianapolis tonight and he could only get one

flight out that was earlier than mine, so he was taking off to Indiana as well.

But let me suggest a couple of things. I would appreciate if you

can each give me maybe a brief comment here, but to look at some

additional written comments. One is that where park by park and

many Americans—and this is one of the things we are wrestling

with this, is we have the kind of crown-jewel system, we have then

the kind of the—which tends to be favored by the natural parks.

Then you have this huge question of the cultural parks, of which

you kind of have another word of crown jewels for that. Then you

have a whole range of parks. Then you have parks that kind of the

Park Service got involuntarily, which my friend Jim Ridenhauer

says now are called ‘‘park barreling,’’ which of course started with

getting the first four parks that—where Congress mandates things

that the Park Service wouldn’t have necessarily wanted. And

then—but that would be kind of the traditional park system.

Then we developed the heritage areas, which Mr. Ridenhauer developed because he felt that the Park Service was getting too many

parks that were under—so it was kind of ironic that the heritage

areas were developed because they didn’t want the Federal Government to own the land. The heritage areas were developed because

they didn’t want them fully under the Park Service.

Now, what has happened is we have had this proliferation of cooperative type of agreements. In other words, because the idea was

not to add the direct land to the Federal Government, we have

seen this proliferation of—and the most common thing right now

currently, particularly with this administration saying no net new

land most of the time, that is that the Park Service is given responsibility to coordinate but only be a partner with it. And partly in

the budget, then, you don’t have as much direct control. It is not

favored by the Park Service and the budget advocates, and this

ranges from the whole thing of historic preservation. It gets into

much of what Ms. Wadhams testified about, whether it is Indian,

Native American questions; it gets into building preservation-type

things, trails, a whole range of categories that most people don’t

even realize are there that the Park Service works with and goes

to meetings with and provides resources for.

Now, my question is, do you think that this is a healthy trend,

a manageable trend, should be increased, decreased? How much

should this be looked at as its impact on the park budget? Because

it is clearly a bigger and bigger portion and a potential management nightmare. I don’t even know how you begin to get ahold of

125

it. Any comments here? And would you submit comments for the

record?

Mr. Knight.

Mr. KNIGHT. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

That is the crux of one of the issues, your example about heritage

areas, when you are talking about public and private partnerships.

Well, one example of how this has gone already is the Rivers of

Steel Heritage Area in Pennsylvania. Since its inception, it has

openly been nothing but a lobby on behalf of the Park Service for

a future national or a future urban park within the boundaries of

the heritage area.

There is a bill before this Congress right now, I think the sponsor is Senator Arlen Specter, which would grant that heritage area

and the Park Service land acquisition authority to create a 30 or

40-acre urban national park within there.

So when you are talking about these partnerships and what role

the Park Service plays, oftentimes it is a much more heavy-handed

role than they purport. So. And it is part of the backlog problem

as well.

Mr. SOUDER. Any other comments on the heritage area questions,

or other? One of the challenges—and I think this is a huge question on the Santa Monica, Golden Gate, and Gateway—those are

the three highest attended areas, I believe, in the whole National

Park Service, and that we are talking in terms of 14 million versus

3 million.

And then the question is, how do you count Jones Beach? Is that

something that is a traditional national park function? These are

huge questions. And the real challenge to me came from the Yosemite Park superintendent a number of years ago when he said:

If you take visitation beyond 50 miles, the percentage of people visiting—maybe it is 100 miles, and this may have come from—I am

blanking on the name of the wonderful superintendent at Golden

Gate. If you take beyond 100 miles, the percentage of visitation at

Golden Gate from beyond 100 miles is greater than the percentage

at Yosemite, which is counterintuitive. You think of Yosemite as

people coming for a big family vacation and you think of Golden

Gate as a city park. But in fact, because conventions come in, because people go to the city of San Francisco and visit, that means

that the bulk of the people or a higher percent of the people using

Golden Gate are not local than Yosemite.

And it shows how we are, in thinking about our park system, we

kind of think of it in terms of the crown jewels. And in terms of

budgeting, that is not true. In terms of expenditures, that is not

true. In terms of visitation, that is not true. And how do we adapt

and figure out what we actually have as a national park system

here?

Mr. GALVIN. Mr. Chairman, if I might. I worked in New York

City when Gateway was established, and it was established during

the Nixon administration; and it was concurrently established with

Golden Gate, where I did not work in San Francisco, but I have

had a lot of experience with Golden Gate.

If you read the hearings leading up to the creation of those two

parks, there was a very strong equity principle expressed by the

administration and the Congress. It sort of went like this: The peoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:18 Oct 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00129 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23406.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
126

ple who live adjacent to Gateway will probably never get to Yellowstone, and therefore they deserve the services that a National Park

Service can provide.

Now, whether or not that principle is correct, it was an important selling point during the Nixon administration for those parks.

But I think in both cases, and in the case of Gateway you had a

suite of interests from Reese Park to abandoned—or to military

bases that were closing. And the only convener, in a sense, of that

suite of real estate that the Congress could find was the National

Park Service.

Certainly New York Harbor is a nationally significant resource,

as is San Francisco Bay. Both of those parks I think have served

the public extremely well, both in terms of their original intent,

that is, to provide recreational services to urban populations, but

also in the protection of important historic resources for the Nation

at large and natural resources as well.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, I thank you each for your testimony. We are

going to submit a series of written questions to each one of you,

if you can respond. I have some particularized that—I didn’t see

Ms. Norton come in.

Let me yield to Ms. Norton. Let me at least say one other thing

on the historic; that in the historic, how we would prioritize—because we are not going to be able with the dollars to maintain

every single historic or structure that will move toward historic in

the Park Service.

And then, second, on what basis we determine what is culturally

significant versus what is naturally significant, which became a

huge issue at Gettysburg when those tradeoffs with their vistas

versus cultural.

And we will want to get that from other groups as well, because

that is another huge question, and see whether we are going to do

that.

Ms. Norton, thank you for coming.

Ms. NORTON. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And although you have heard me say that your tastes this year have become a bit more eclectic in hearings, I did want to stop by this

hearing, as I stopped by for a few minutes in your last hearing. I

have to go speak to some senior citizens, but I am very intrigued

by this hearing, because the network, of course, of national parks

in our country is unusually broad and comprehensive.

These parks are such great treasures. And we in the District of

Columbia feel very fortunate at the number of extraordinary national parks, some within our city in small plots of land, and the

two great national parks in our city, the National Mall, and Rock

Creek Park.

I have been working with some of my own constituents and people outside of the District who are concerned about the fate of the

National Mall, which of course receives literally millions of visitors

every year. It may not be Yellowstone Park, it is a smaller plot of

land, which means that of course it has taken its share of beatings.

And the Mall doesn’t look a lot—the biggest change in the Mall

since I was a child growing up in Washington are those horrific

Navy barracks that were there during World War II were finally

taken away. But in a real sense, it is not the inviting place to walk

127

that similar parks across the country are. And some have proposed

that the Mall be put into a conservancy. The difference is that

some of the parks in conservancies, like Central Park, for example,

had wonderful businesses that surrounded them who took on some

of the costs of maintaining the park and bringing the park alive.

But I think the entire Congress has a huge investment in what

happens to the Mall and the way it looks now, and in making it

truly inviting; not simply to look at as you go into one of our great

museums, but as a place to be, to rest, to enjoy.

The other, of course, great park is one that most Americans

would die for, and that is Rock Creek Park. And that is a great neglected park. It is a kind of wilderness. I have to tell you, when

I was a child, the Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia,

that wasn’t nearly the cultural mecca it has become today, was a

great meeting place for residents on both sides of the park. The

park does not have a lot of crime in it. It has some, but it isn’t

known for crime. And yet Rock Creek Park has been poorly maintained. There is insufficient appreciation of what it means to have

this great wilderness in your own city, so that you don’t have to

travel long distances if you really wanted to see what that kind of

nature was like.

I think that both the Congress and locally we have devalued

what it means to have such a great park. Of course, the District

of Columbia has to keep up its own parks. Here is a national park,

it is for the national government to keep it up.

I am all too aware of the great pressures, financial pressures on

the Park Service, but I hope that this hearing will be counted

among the many efforts that I think are going to begin, Mr. Chairman, this year to try to focus Congress more on what wonderful

treasures these parks are, what is happening to them before our

very eyes. And when you see something somehow becoming less

beautiful before your eyes, you don’t see it nearly the way you

would if you went away for 5 years and came back and you say,

my goodness, what happened to the Mall? Or when I go in to Rock

Creek Park, to say, is this the same Rock Creek Park that we came

into for outings all through the summer and spring? And why don’t

tourists—why aren’t tourists who come to our city invited on tours

through Rock Creek Park to see that their National Capital has

this wonderful wilderness within it, and, to the great glory of the

Congress, preserved.

They know about the zoo; they go to the zoo. But there is no invitation to go into Rock Creek Park. Of course, you may drive

through it if you are going to one part of the city or to Maryland.

But all of this, it seems to me, is a waste of one of the most glorious resources we have here. And so I appreciate the attention you

are drawing to our national parks throughout the country, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentlelady. One problem is theoretically

this subcommittee has oversight jurisdiction over 70 percent of the

Federal budget, which means we cover less of a percentage of what

we could cover than any other subcommittee in Congress. So we

kind of pick and choose, and we are trying to develop a little wider

scope to try to do our different agencies. And that what you hear

and what I have been finding, because unlike the Resources ComVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:18 Oct 11, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00131 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23406.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
128

mittee which is mostly people who have long been interested in

this issue, this committee is different. The people didn’t get on the

Government Reform Committee or the subcommittee because of an

issue like this. Yet there is a passion. And part of this that is really

changing in America, particularly the western Republicans tend to

feel that there is absolutely too much land in the public domain,

particularly of BLM and Forest Service use changed.

And some areas, people have been sitting next to me, have 97

percent in public land. In Indiana it is 3 percent public land counting city, county, State, and township. And that what you see is a

drive east of the Mississippi that has precipitated this diversity of

the Park Service, as Mr. Galvin mentioned about New York, and

looking as people want more trails, as people want their historic

sites preserved, and they want them regionally.

You heard Mr. Cummings talk about people in his city not being

able to go to Disney World. They are asking much closer, how do

we accommodate this, how are we going to do this, how do we accommodate new and expansive subsections of our thing? And it is

a lot tougher in the urban areas in the east, because you get into

all kinds of land rights questions much more, questions about values of property, the difficulties that we run into, and some of the

Civil War battlefields around Manassas.

So we will try to get this scope, but what we are ultimately doing

here is saying, do we have adequate resources to develop the parks

and maintain them and protect them for future generations like

they were passed to us?

And then the second question with this is, is there a vision, like

Mr. Galvin referred to Mission 66, is there a vision of where the

Park Service is headed?

In other words, there are two aspects of this. One is, can we sustain it? And the second is, what are we looking to leave our kids?

What are we trying to protect in our heritage? We never evaluate,

as was alluded to by Ms. Long, we really don’t evaluate. It is like

we, other than at the very beginning, hardly anything ever goes off

once it gets in. And maybe we have to make some of those kind

of decisions. But we certainly need to look at prioritizing and making sure that this system reflects where we want to go. And, one

way or another, we are going to force some of those kind of discussions.

I thank you each for coming today. And, with that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

Æ