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23–039 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

MARCH 14, 2005

Serial No. 109–55

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 and Chief Counsel

MARK PFUNDSTEIN, Professional Staff Member

MALIA HOLST, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 14, 2005 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

McIntosh, Robert W., Associate Regional Director, Planning and Partnerships, Northeast Region, National Park Service ........................................ 9

Thornburgh, Richard, president, the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation; David Booz, Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg; Joy Oakes, director, National Parks Conservation Association;

and James Lighthizer, Civil War Preservation Trust ................................ 34

Booz, David ................................................................................................ 44

Lighthizer, James ...................................................................................... 74

Oakes, Joy .................................................................................................. 53

Thornburgh, Richard ................................................................................. 34

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

Booz, David, Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 47

Lighthizer, James, Civil War Preservation Trust, prepared statement

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

McIntosh, Robert W., Associate Regional Director, Planning and Partnerships, Northeast Region, National Park Service, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 14

Oakes, Joy, director, National Parks Conservation Association, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 56

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

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

Thornburgh, Richard, president, the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation, prepared statement of ................................................... 37

(1)

THE NATIONAL PARKS: WILL THEY SURVIVE

FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS?

MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND

HUMAN RESOURCES, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Gettysburg, PA.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:11 a.m., in room

260 of the College Union Building at Gettysburg College, Hon.

Mark Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Members present: Representative Platts.

Staff present: Mark Pfundstein, professional staff member; and

Malia Holst, clerk.

Mr. SOUDER. Subcommittee will now come to order. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us. This hearing is the first in

a series of hearings about budget and management issues facing

the National Park Service given budget shortfalls.

The Committee on Government Reform is the oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. As such, it is the mandate and the duty of the Government Reform Committee to scrutinize the workings of the U.S. Government. House Rule X, clause

4(c)(2) states that the Government Reform Committee may ‘‘at any

time conduct investigations of any matter without regard to committee jurisdiction.’’ The Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug

Policy, and Human Resources has oversight jurisdiction over issues

outlined in its name, as well as a large swath of the Federal Government not explicitly named in its name, including the National

Park Service.

The mission of the National Park Service is to ‘‘promote and regulate the use of the national parks, which purpose to conserve the

scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner

and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.’’

In its nearly 90-year history—by the way, our subcommittee—

our full Committee on Government Reform, is 100 years old. In its

90-year history the National Park Service has grown substantially

from 36 units in 1916 to 388 units today. There are 57 units called

national parks, the so-called crown jewels of the National Park

Service. Other commonly used titles include the national historic

sites, 77; national monuments, which are 74; national historical

parks, which are 41; national memorials, of which there are 29; national recreation areas, which there are 18; and national preserves,

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of which there are 18. Each unit is distinctive, and each unit has

its own unique problems and challenges. Moreover, as the National

Park Service has grown, the demands on its resources have also

grown. This is the first of a series of hearings examining each type

of Park Service unit, or at least most of the types, and various aspects of park operations as they relate to the National Park Service’s mission.

The National Park Service is one of the most recognized and appreciated government agencies. Each year millions of people visit

the 388 units of the National Park Service. They expect to see the

friendly faces of park rangers dressed in their familiar green uniforms greeting them at the gate and assisting them throughout the

park.

I began my visits to the National Park when I was very young

and in my lifetime have visited parks all over the country, from

Alaska to Florida to Hawaii and everywhere in between. I have no

National Park Service units in my district, but I fight for better

National Park Service every chance I get.

As a member of the House committee—as a former member because I took leave this year to go back to Education for 2 years—

as a former member of the House Committee on Resources, I have

been able to focus a great deal of attention on the National Park

Service. Under the capable leadership of Resources Committee

Chairman Richard Pombo of California, the problems facing National Park Service have been brought to the attention of the

House of Representatives. I hope the fresh perspective of my hearing bring to this issue will build on whatever the committee has

accomplished and result in a better National Park Service.

We will continue to work with the Resources Committee, because

anything that comes out of our hearing would have to go through

Chairman Nunes’ subcommittee and then the full Committee on

Resources. These are oversight hearings to generally look at the

problem in a systematic way.

Each and every park is different. Each and every park I have visited tells a different part of the story of America. Although there

are vast differences from park to park, the desire to preserve and

protect our natural, cultural, and historic heritage remains constant.

The preservation of our natural, cultural, and historical heritage

is of the utmost importance so that future generations will know

the history of their country and be able to enjoy the natural grandeur of God’s creation. As the Park Service budget has come under

greater pressure, the parks have suffered. If these pressures continue to grow, I believe that the National Park Service’s ability to

adequately achieve their stated mission may be in doubt.

In the recent past President George W. Bush has devoted more

money toward alleviating the maintenance backlog. Congress has

boosted National Park Service funding, particularly in the last fiscal year. We have done a letter—Congressman Lewis and myself

and many others have supported additional funding, and we have

been able to increase that funding at a time when all the government funding has been relatively flat.

But while this interest in the Park Service is deeply appreciated,

ongoing and constant attention must be paid to this problem. This

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series of hearings will examine the National Park Service’s fulfillment of its mission. Over the course of the 109th Congress this

subcommittee will conduct a series of hearings—both in Washington, DC, and around the Nation, that examine the state of the national parks, the fulfillment of their mission, and the reasons behind it.

Our plan is to study all kinds of parks in all the regions of the

country. The hearing at Gettysburg National Military Park will

focus on historical parks, particularly Civil War-related units, and

parks in this region. We will also look at public-private partnerships.

We have a variety of witnesses here today, including a representative of the National Park Service. Also present are the Honorable

Richard Thornburgh, former Governor of Pennsylvania, now of the

Gettysburg Museum Foundation; David Booz of the Friends of the

National Parks at Gettysburg; Joy Oakes of the National Parks

Conservation Association; and a Mr. James Lighthizer of the Civil

War Preservation Trust.

Joining me today on the dais is Congressman Todd Platts, in

whose congressional district we currently sit. He is also a member

of the Government Reform Committee and also a great friend of

the National Parks. We appreciate his interest in this topic and his

presence here today. We also want to thank Gettysburg College for

being our wonderful host and allowing us to do this.

For those of you who aren’t familiar—I mentioned the Government Reform Committee does oversight on a wide variety of topics.

Our subcommittee spends about 50 percent of its time on narcotics

issues, although we do a wide range, our committee, since the time

I have been in Congress since 1994, has done a wide variety of

oversight hearings including the first Travel Office allegations in

the last administration in that and the FBI files and tribal gaming

questions, which many people in the Interior are familiar with as

well on those issues, issues related to—probably the most prominent that you may have heard of the last few days is Thursday we

subpoenaed seven Major League baseball players for a steroid hearing. Those are the things that our committee does.

It is unusual because we also have subpoena power, as Major

League Baseball is learning. We also have the ability to prosecute

witnesses for perjury, which we have done. And we have the ability

to ask for all emails and phone records, which is why our committee is substantially different, as you will see today. Each witness

is sworn in, unlike what happens in most committees because Congress has devised to have an Authorizing Committee, of which resources and the park is to set the laws and the guidelines for how

we function.

Then you have an Appropriations Committee, which is to implement and fund those. And then the executive branch takes what

Congress has passed and funded to implement the programs. The

oversight committee then says, is this being done the way Congress

intended it to do? Is it adequate for what Congress intended it to

do? And then reports back to the Authorizing and the Appropriating Committee to start the process again.

Hence why we have the right, for example, in the case of Major

League Baseball, their whole financial structure and whole leagues

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are based on the Anti-Trust Exemption of Congress. So theoretically, if they aren’t implementing steroid policy and their whole TV

advertising, radio advertising, financial structure, ability to get

public stadium financing is based on the will of Congress, we would

actually have the right to write legislation demanding an independent, outside steroid testing.

But those things will be discovered through our committee; then,

it would go back through the legislative process, and another committee will implement it if those would be the conclusions from our

hearing this week.

Well, in the Park Service a similar-type thing is we go through,

look at what we see around the county in the Park Service, any

proposals, then we go over to the Resources Committee, then to be

funded by the Appropriations. Although in many of these cases—

or least some may be able to be accomplished through the administration. So that kind of is the overview of what we are doing with

these hearings and why we are here today.

I now would like to recognize Congressman Todd Platts for an

opening statement. He is also a chairman of a subcommittee of the

Government Reform Committee on Government Management, Finance, and Accountability. And just last week we moved one of his

bills to his credit, something he has been working on for some time.

I would like to yield to my friend and colleague, Mr. Platts.

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

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Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to first just thank

you for beginning your series of hearings on the importance of investing in our National Park Service here at Gettysburg. We certainly are proud to have you here at this historic site and also appreciate Gettysburg College hosting this hearing.

I want to affirm my support for the National Park Service and

their critically important mission and your efforts in trying to raise

awareness of the needs of the Service and meeting that mission. I

say that professionally, but I also say it personally. My wife and

children and I have enjoyed the national parks for many years and

regularly each summer get out to at least one or more parks for

some tent camping, although my wife seems to be—maybe she is

ready for something other than a tent out there.

But we have enjoyed the parks, and I think the mission today

is to help raise awareness of the needs of the Park Service so that

future generations can also enjoy the parks, as we have, and past

generations. So I appreciate your efforts and look forward to working with you on the needs of the Park Service.

I do want to say up front that we are delighted to have all the

witnesses and look forward to the testimony. I want to say I am

especially honored to be here with Governor Thornburgh presenting. My first official job out of college was as an information writer

for the Governor in 1984 and honored to be in his presence once

again. So, Governor Thornburgh, great to have you.

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to our testimony.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. And I would now like to recognize

President Will to give us a greeting. I should have done that before

my statement. I apologize.

Ms. WILL. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Gettysburg College. I am Kate Will;

I am the president. And I would like especially to welcome Congressman Mark Souder of Indiana; Pennsylvania Congressman

Todd Platts, of whom you have already heard from; former U.S. Attorney General and Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh; and

I would also like to welcome representatives of our national parks,

who are here today to testify, and all of you from the general public

who have also shown interest and come today. We are very happy

to have you at the college.

And Gettysburg College was founded in 1832, which, of course,

was before the historic battle that occurred here. And we really are

on hallowed ground. If you look out that window, you will see the

national park. It is visible right from here.

I invite all of you to look around campus. As you know, it is a

historic place. There are several Civil War buildings here. In fact,

my office is in Pennsylvania Hall, which served as a hospital during the battle here in Gettysburg. And, of course, you are all welcome to take a look and see our beautiful town, our beautiful college, and, of course, the battlefield.

This is a place that calls to people. It called to me. And part of

the reason that I came to Gettysburg College is because of this

amazing park that is here. It is such a place to learn, it is an inspirational place, and, in fact, it calls to over 2 million people who

come here to visit every year.

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So I am very proud to say that through partnerships, Gettysburg

College is working with the national park and with the borough,

and we are all working hard together in a collaboration to preserve

what we think is one of the most special places in America.

So thank you again for being here. We welcome our Congressman

for this hearing, and please enjoy Gettysburg and Gettysburg College. Thank you very much.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your welcome. Before proceeding I would like to take care of a couple of procedural matters

first. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative

days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing

record, that any answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Second, I ask unanimous consent that all Members present be

permitted to participate in the hearing. Without objection, it is so

ordered.

Our first panel is composed of Robert W. McIntosh, Associate Regional Director for Planning and Partnerships, Northeastern Region of the National Park Service. As an oversight committee, as

I mentioned earlier, it is our standard practice to ask all our witnesses to testify under oath. So would you stand and raise your

right hand?

[Witness sworn.]

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

affirmative. Now we have a light system for 5 minutes, but being

a field hearing, I am not going to hold it as tight. So if you want

to add to that, otherwise we will draw out in the questions as well.

In any statements that you make or any references to other materials, as I mentioned, will also be in the official hearing record.

Thank you very much for being here today.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT W. MCINTOSH, ASSOCIATE REGIONAL

DIRECTOR, PLANNING AND PARTNERSHIPS, NORTHEAST

REGION, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Mr. MCINTOSH. Thank you, Congressman. Before I start let me

thank you and Congressman Platts for taking the initiative, taking

the leadership on this very important subject concerning the status

of budgets and the health of our national parks.

The topic today from my comments will focus principally on Gettysburg National Military Park, Eisenhower National Historic Site,

and Independence National Historical Park.

The 2005 appropriation provided an increase of $63.9 million for

operation of the National Park System, a net increase. We are obviously pleased the Congress appropriated this level of funding. The

average increase for park budgets this year is approximately 6 percent. Gettysburg received an increase of 6 percent; Eisenhower, an

increase of 21⁄2 percent; and Independence National Historical

Park, an increase of over 4 percent. Importantly, the President’s

budget in 2006—recommended budget includes an additional increase of about $501⁄2 million above the 2005 enacted level, importantly allowing for many things, but including increases for pay

and benefits and other fixed costs.

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The Park Service mission at Gettysburg is to preserve and protect the resources associated with the Battle of Gettysburg and the

Soldiers’ National Cemetery and to provide an understanding of

the events that occurred here within the context of American history.

The park was established in 1895, includes the cemetery and

6,000 acres of historic farm houses, barns, fences, orchards,

earthworks, roads, woodlots, and other key features of the battlefield.

The top three priorities for the Gettysburg and Eisenhower are

to implement the partnership agreements with the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation to construct a new Visitor

Center and rehabilitate portions of the Gettysburg battlefield; and

to continue partnership efforts with the Friends of the National

Parks at Gettysburg and others to rehabilitate the battlefield landscapes by bringing back missing features that affected the fighting

in the major battle action areas throughout the park; and finally,

to implement the Borough of Gettysburg Interpretive Plan with

partners to restore and enhance historic assets in the town of Gettysburg and to bring more park visitors into the town.

Gettysburg is the most visited Civil War site in the National

Park System and has attracted an average of 1.79 million visitors

per year over the last 8 years. Over the past 4 years the park has

received operating increases. Operational funding for Gettysburg

has increased from $5.069 in fiscal year 2001 to $5.483 in fiscal

year 2005. In addition, the park has received funds through the

Natural Resource Challenge with an increase from $24,000 in 2001

to $113,000 in fiscal year 2005.

The Superintendent at Gettysburg also manages Eisenhower National Historic Site, and the two parks share staff and resources.

At Eisenhower, the National Park Service mission is to protect and

preserve the resources associated with Eisenhower National Historic Site and to promote the understanding and appreciation of the

life and work of Dwight David Eisenhower. The 690-acre site consists of the home and farm of General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Visitation to this site is approximately 72,000 visitors in

2004, and the operating budget for the site steadily increased from

$1.036 million in fiscal year 2001 to $1.07 million in fiscal year

2005.

Gettysburg and Eisenhower meet or exceed 50 percent of their 53

Government Performance and Results Act performance goals in fiscal year 2004. Goals that were exceeded including removal of exotic

species, improved condition of historic structures, museum collections, educational programs, diversity, and donations. In addition,

the park has instituted many management reforms, including the

elimination of two supervisory positions, the site manager and the

chief of maintenance at Eisenhower, with these duties being assumed by Gettysburg supervisors; and the conversion of three positions from the Park Service employees to private sector services in

custodial work, painting, and architecture; and the consolidation of

the Personnel Services Office functions with Gettysburg now covering Gettysburg, Eisenhower, Ft. McHenry, Hampton National Historic Site, and Assateague Island National Seashore.

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In the past 4 years $20.6 million in appropriated project funding

has been provided to Gettysburg National Military Park in Eisenhower in line-item construction, repair/rehab project funding. Congress earmarked $11.9 million of these appropriated funds for the

restoration of the Cyclorama Painting and the preservation treatment of the park’s artifacts and archival collection, the $6.6 million

for the rehabilitation of the Wills House in downtown Gettysburg,

which is a recent addition to the park. Cumulatively, from 2001

through 2005 the park has received $3.3 million in funds for repair

and rehab in addition to the base operating budget increases and

another $689,000 for ongoing maintenance need.

Much has been accomplished at Gettysburg since the Park Service began the implementation of the park’s General Management

Plan, which was approved in 1999. The GMP calls for the restoration of the battlefield and sets forth clear goals for operating the

park. Recent implementation efforts including the removal of the

Gettysburg Tower, the restoration of historic vistas, the replanting

of historic orchards, the restoration of numerous monuments, and

the acquisition and restoration of historic landscapes.

The Park Service has been the fortunate beneficiary of generous

donations from local partner groups and other resources. Funds

and services from the Friends of the National Park at Gettysburg,

Eastern National, and other sources over the past 4 years have

proved approximately $11⁄2 million.

Gettysburg includes a major partnership with the Gettysburg

National Battlefield Museum Foundation for fundraising, design,

construction, and operation of the new Museum/Visitor Center for

the park. The new facility will solve longstanding park problems

associated with the preservation of the park’s museum collection,

preservation and display of the Cyclorama painting, and the provision of a museum complex to provide visitors with an understanding of the significance of the Battle of Gettysburg within the context of the cause and consequences of the American Civil War, and

finally, the removal of two outdated visitor facilities and the restoration of historic battle landscapes where the buildings currently

reside.

The partnership will provide infrastructure funding at Gettysburg amounting to $68.3 million, which is the total cost to design

and construct the Museum/Visitor Center facility, including the

museum exhibits. Conservation of the Cyclorama painting is currently underway and is estimated at $9 million. The Museum

Foundation’s total fundraising goal is $95 million. They have secured $67.4 to date, including the $11.9 million of Federal funds

appropriated by Congress in fiscal year 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005.

Under the agreement signed by the Park Service and the Museum

Foundation, all operation and maintenance cost of the Center will

be covered by the Foundation for the next 20 years.

Groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for June 2005, assuming

the Foundation has raised the $68.3 million by that time. And the

hopeful opening of the Center will be 2004 or early 2008.

An older National Park Service non-profit partner is the Friends

of the National Parks at Gettysburg. Founded in 1889, the Friends

is a multipurpose support organization with 25,000 members and

supporters from all over the world. Since its inception, the group

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has donated more than $6 million to the park at Gettysburg, and

the Friends members have logged in more than 15,000 volunteer

hours. The Friends have acquired historically significant battlefield

lands, and in many cases clearing the way for the National Park

Service to remove non-historic buildings and rehabilitate the landscape, and most notably, the fields of Pickett’s Charge and along

the Emmitsburg Road Ridge. They have also acquired conservation

easements in the Battlefield Historic District.

As the park’s primary partner in battlefield rehabilitation—an

effort to bring back missing features that affected the fighting at

Gettysburg in 1863—the Friends purchased the orchard stock for

the replanting of five historic orchards on the battlefield in November 2004. Friends have converged on the battlefield to rebuild historic fences, help visitors get a better picture of the obstacles the

soldiers faced during the heavy fighting. The Friends also acquire

and donate artifacts for the park’s museum.

Finally, Gettysburg and Eisenhower’s active volunteer programs

include visitor services, Adopt-a-Position volunteers, Park Watch

patrol volunteers, Civil War living history volunteers, Senior Ranger Corps, and others.

At Independence, the purpose of that park is to preserve and protect the historical structures and properties of outstanding national

significance associated with the American Revolution and the

growth and founding of our Nation.

The park was established in 1948 and includes Independent

Hall, the Liberty Bell, and other national historic landmarks. It encompasses 55 acres in downtown, city center Philadelphia. In 2004

nearly 1.9 million visitors visited the Liberty Bell.

The top three priorities of Independence are to finalize the longterm security plans for the Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell,

especially in light of the city’s decision to reopen Chestnut Street,

and to complete construction of the landscape treatment of Independent Mall and to complete the President’s House Site Interpretation and Commemoration.

Funding for Independence has increased from $15.18 million in

fiscal year 2001 to $21.856 million in fiscal year 2005. These increases primarily funded additional visitor services and security

costs following the attacks of September 11th. Augmenting these

base funds were $21⁄2 million from 2001 to 2005 for ongoing repair

and rehabilitation.

Congress has addressed the infrastructure needs of Gettysburg

by appropriating $17 million in the past 4 years in line-item construction and repair/rehabilitation projects. $61⁄2 million of this was

for the rehabilitation of Independence Square, and $6.6 million was

for the utility and exhibit work at the Second Bank of the United

States. Funding was also provided to continue work on Independence Mall landscape project and to replace hazardous walkways

elsewhere in the park.

Independence and the Liberty Bell have been designated by the

Secretary as key resources that merit special anti-terrorism security measures. Since September 11th the budget for the park’s law

enforcement operation has increased by approximately $5.2 million,

from $2.4 to $7.6 million.

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Independence has been at the forefront in establishing effective

partnerships to provide high-quality services to the visiting public.

Most notably, these efforts include the jointly operated Independence Visitor Center, which recorded about 1.9 million visitors in

2004. The new National Constitution Center, which saw almost

800,000 visitors in 2004, and Historic Philadelphia, Inc., which provides costumed actors throughout the park. In addition to these,

there are about 40 other different partnerships in the park. In fiscal year 2003, 211 volunteers logged about 13,000 hours in contributions to the park.

Once again, let me thank you both for being here and conducting

this hearing. And I would be pleased to answer any questions you

might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McIntosh follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I will start with some questions, and

some of these may be more detailed than you are prepared to handle today. And if so, could you indicate and we will submit them

as written questions. I want to put some of them on the record

even knowing that because it is kind of fundamental to the information that we are seeking in the hearings. I am going to address

a few that will include Gettysburg and some about Gettysburg, although I may go a little broader and into some of the other parks

in a little bit more detail, because the second panel will be almost

exclusively—or at least for the most part focused on the Gettysburg

Military Park and Civil War Parks.

Could you clarify for the record that your regional office—what

territory you cover.

Mr. MCINTOSH. The northeast region encompasses 13 States,

Maine to Virginia, West Virginia.

Mr. SOUDER. And for purposes of today’s hearing, since we are

planning at least at this point to do something most likely in the

Boston area—we will separate New England—so basically—and

any materials I request or questions would be New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia, West Virginia region. You said that there are approximately 1.7 million people who

go through Gettysburg National Military Park, about 1.9 million at

the Liberty Bell. Do you know from their statistics you had 7.2 million, I think, for the whole—all the buildings at Independence——

Mr. MCINTOSH. That is correct.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Does anybody—what percent don’t go

to Liberty Bell? Would you say the Liberty Bell is pretty well a barometer of the——

Mr. MCINTOSH. I think that the way the security operation operates now that the Liberty Bell tour includes the Independence Hall

as well, so it is—I think that is the—from the tourism, you know,

destination, that is the majority of visits, but there are a lot of

other assets in the park that attract visitors, many in some respects more local, recurring visitors. So there is a number much

more significant and——

Mr. SOUDER. So——

Mr. MCINTOSH [continuing]. I am not sure exactly how it is

counted, but that number does exceed the 1.9. And the——

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, so maybe 21⁄2 or something like—because if I

went to three or four sites, I would be counted three or four times

in the——

Mr. MCINTOSH. That is what——

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. System.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Is the largest attendance in your area the Gateway?

Is it around——

Mr. MCINTOSH. The recreation area?

Mr. SOUDER. Isn’t it like 12 to 14 million, something——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Yes, the—yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Which is an interesting challenge for the Park Service because Golden Gate, Gateway, Santa Monica are actually now

five times bigger than the biggest single park in attendance. Now

at Gateway is that predominantly because of the beach there? Is

that the No. 1 attended——

20

Mr. MCINTOSH. Most of the visitation at Gateway is day use at

the beaches. That is correct.

Mr. SOUDER. Because that makes it very hard to figure out how

to use attendance and how to qualify attendance when we are looking at it in terms of budget. For example, Natchez Trace Parkway

is seventh, but that is because people use the road.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. The danger here is because some of my questions

are going to be—and I want to put that on the record so people understand the complexity, and that we understand the complexity,

of when we get into a budgeting process, do you look at attendance—how do you determine when you are allocated funds internally or you are making recommendations from the regional area?

Do you look at something like Gettysburg National Military Park

as opposed to, say, the Eisenhower site or as opposed to several

others that you have clustered together here in this region where

you have, for example, Ft. McHenry and Hampton, do you look at—

that there are 1.7 million at Gettysburg and 70,000 at Eisenhower

in your budgeting requests? What kind of tradeoffs do you have in

making decisions about what backlog you are going to fund, what

land you are going to add, and can you go through a little bit of

that process?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Well, I think that the numbers, as far as visitation are concerned, indicate impact on the resources. And be it a

day visitor to Gateway Beach or a visitor to a historic house, the

continuation of those visits obviously impacts the resources. But

the primary factor that we use in determining the allocation of

money is not the visitor, but the condition of the resource. So that

while there may be a contribution of condition as far as visitor use

is concerned, that is not as important to us—it may be a causal effect in terms of condition—but the real budgetary criteria falls in

the condition of the resource. So even though we had low visitation,

if a nationally significant resource was in danger, we would certainly give that its appropriate place on the priority list.

Mr. SOUDER. So, for example, when something like the Wills

House came up where Lincoln stayed with the Gettysburg Address,

what would be some measurements of how you would determine

whether that would become on a request list as opposed to something at a site that may not get as much visitation or may not be

as nationally significant——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Well——

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. That needs maintenance, for example?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right. Well, first of all, the, you know, the multiple factors that we use in project justification and condition of the

resource is, generally speaking, the primary one. At the park level

the park needs to make a decision as to what its priorities are, and

then that is through the region and then into a national priority

setting analysis. We use it across the board annually to try to set

or readjust our annual priorities.

So the condition of the resource is a factor in the budget analysis

that we use. The cost of repair is also a factor. So it is a balancing

act, obviously, between condition of resource and how much it is

going to cost, and we try to set the priorities in that respect.

21

Mr. SOUDER. So when you would—you see yourself in the regional office speaking for the Park Services, predominantly looking

at how to maintain what you have the best, not looking at historic

resources outside the park that would be important to add to the

system?

Mr. MCINTOSH. I am not sure if I——

Mr. SOUDER. In other words, when I use the example of the Wills

House, let us say before the Wills House came into the system,

would you look at something like that in Gettysburg and say adding that to our system is more critical than, say, taking down and

replanting the peach orchard on the battlefield, maintaining a

monument from a given state? I am trying to sort this out.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Well, I mean, that question directs us to the general management lending process. And through that process we try

to do, you know, maybe on an average of, say, 10 to 15 years for

every park. We have the opportunity to look at the resource that

exists within the boundary, and in certain cases we look at important resources that may have not been appreciated at the time the

park was originally established, but over a historical work or public

appreciation or otherwise, become more important to us. And we

look at what the opportunity or what the appropriate role for the

National Park Service is in protecting those resources. And in

many cases you will find that our General Management Plans result in minor boundary modifications where important resources

should be protected within the park’s resources.

The tradeoff sometimes is restoration work of an orchard can

wait because nothing is being lost particularly in that sense. You

are recreating a scene as opposed to a historic structure that, if the

roof isn’t fixed or the foundation or whatever the problems may be,

that structure could be lost permanently. So that clearly is a tradeoff factor that gets very serious consideration.

Mr. SOUDER. Let me ask you a couple of technical things if you

can provide them for the committee if you don’t have it. Do you believe the park budgets of the last 3 years have eliminated the

shortfalls identified in the business plans? In other words, as you

have laid out these business plans, the funding hasn’t kept up with

those plans. What percentage of the gap has the supplemental covered?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Well, I can’t answer the question specifically in

terms of what the supplemental gap has been recovered. I think

the General Management Plans and the business plans present the

service with an interesting opportunity to get a comprehensive

snapshot of the condition of a park, and it provides the park the

opportunity to develop what we call the investment strategies,

which may not—and in many cases do not—rely solely on appropriated dollars.

The example here in the testimony with respect to Gettysburg

and the partnerships with the Friends and the partnership with

the Foundation are key elements to implement the General Management Plan are to work toward solving some of the problems

that were identified in the business plans. The percentage of gap,

I am not sure if that is an answer that has a real black-and-white

answer, but if you would like us to followup on that, we could do

that.

22

Mr. SOUDER. Actually, rather than that, let me ask you these two

questions I would like followup on, and just arbitrarily pick a small

number of parks so we don’t have a huge paperwork question. Let

me pick Gettysburg, Independence, Valley Forge, Antietam, and Ft.

McHenry to pick a pretty wide range. Actually, rather than Ft.

McHenry, let us do Gateway because it is the biggest. And of those,

what I would like is the percentage of rise in the fixed cost; that

is, the salary, the benefits, etc., in the parks and the budget—how

the budget of the parks has risen so we can see the proportionate

shift, which shouldn’t be too hard to get because sometimes Congress makes all these long questions with lots of detail, but that

should be fairly simple.

And then second, if you can give me the actual raw number at

those parks of the permanent and seasonal staff that were there

4 years ago, and how many they each have today. Now, I want to

say up front that this is happening across the board of the government. In other words, every place has had to make adjustments.

And that isn’t—I think it was the case of whether there was overstaffing before or understaffing today, but we need to have the raw

data. And by showing—we need to get a feeling for how fixed costs

are changing to the variable costs, which is impacting the backlog,

and also what this means for actual numbers of staff in the park.

Clearly Gettysburg, Independence, and Valley Forge are three

very significant parks here in Pennsylvania, and if we do that Antietam as another Civil War site and Gateway, that gives us somewhat of a range. Now, I would like to——

Mr. MCINTOSH. In terms of the span of time, we will use 2001

to 2005?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Mr. MCINTOSH. OK.

Mr. SOUDER. Or whatever works. 2000 to 2004, I don’t—might

not have 2005——

Mr. MCINTOSH. OK.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to maybe continue a little bit on the same line. And, Mr. McIntosh, I first want

to just thank you for your service and efforts on behalf of the national parks and especially the Northeast region. I have had the

pleasure of visiting many of the sites in your region, last summer

up in Boston in Constitution and Lexington, Concord——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Excellent.

Mr. PLATTS [continuing]. And it is just a great resource, not just

for us adults, but especially for our children and for my son and

daughter. It is so great to go experience history through those sites.

Here at Gettysburg, I guess probably every member who has the

privilege of representing a national park who believes theirs is the

most important—or one of the most important. I certainly feel that

way about Gettysburg and the key role that this battle here played

in our Nation’s history.

In what manner does the Park Service go about prioritizing funding from a historic and cultural significance within the Park Service? In other words, within the general budget of the Federal Government, we have set our priorities of what we have funds to spend

on. We are going to, you know, make decisions about what we can

23

spend money on and what we can’t within the specific Park Service.

Is there a, you know, additional weighting given to, say, Gettysburg because of the huge historical significance of this site versus

some other sites in the Park Service itinerary?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Well, the first rule of thumb is that every park

is a crown jewel, so it doesn’t make for easy decisionmaking as far

as priorities are concerned. The large blocks of our funding are not

generally distributed through natural or cultural, and primarily because you cannot go to a ‘‘natural resource park’’ and not find cultural resources and the vice versa. So within the line-item construction program, which is probably the biggest block of funds

that goes toward rehabilitation of historic structures, that is followed by what we call the repair and rehabilitation fund program.

Those projects are individually competed on the status or the

condition of the specific resource in that park. So if it is Independence Hall or the Wills House or something in San Francisco in the

Presidio, they are independently competing on the conditions of

those particular resources. And time and again you will find special

initiatives within our budget.

Vanishing Treasures was one of them where we had longstanding issues with adobe structures in the Southwest, and that was

a special category of funding that was set up. It was receiving several million dollars a year over many years.

So there are certain situations in which there is particular response, but in general, it is individual resource against resource.

Mr. PLATTS. Is there any thought that you may add in a way—

Park A has the most deteriorating, you know, most at-risk structure, but compared to Park B, a structure that maybe isn’t in as

bad of shape, but it has a greater historical significance to our Nation, is there any thought of giving that type of weighting?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Those independent factors are in the evaluation

system, but it is not Gettysburg versus Independence; it is the historic house versus the historic house.

Mr. PLATTS. The commitment—I look at Gettysburg as a Subcommittee Chair for Government Management, Finance, and Accountability, I spend a lot of time on GPRA and didn’t maybe know

a whole lot about GPRA 3 years ago before I became subcommittee

Chair and now know a lot more about the process.

And you reference Gettysburg in the 94 percent of the time

where they met or exceeded the 53 GPRA goals, and I think that

is a testament to our Superintendent John Lassiter and his great

staff. It says we are doing a pretty good job here at Gettysburg

with the resources provided.

And the challenge is the level of resources. And I appreciate

there have been—and I think in your words—steady increases, but

I think it is important that we have a frank dialog about what

those increases really mean.

And the chairman kind of alluded to while we have seen increases in money, we, at the same time, are seeing reductions in

staff because those increases really don’t amount to current value

increases when you factor in inflation, fixed cost increases, salaries

being mandated by us, and we are not keeping up.

24

And my understanding in just one may be a snapshot of what

the chairman was talking about on permanent staff is that we

went from 90 permanent staff in 2002 here at Gettysburg to 80

permanent staff in 2005. So 1/9, 11 percent reduction if my numbers are correct while we saw ‘‘steady increases.’’ The request—I believe it is $50 million in this year’s budget—is

that, in essence, to just hold the status quo to keep up with, in essence, inflation but not really start to reverse the trend we have

been seeing?

Mr. MCINTOSH. To my understanding of the 2005 and the request

at 2006 is basically to try to stabilize against that erosion. That is

correct.

Mr. PLATTS. Because the challenge is that we were blessed with

great rangers and staff throughout these parks, and I will use the

experience of visiting the Oregon Caves National Monument two

summers ago and just had a wonderful visit and tour through the

cave and a great seasonal ranger who was guiding our group. And

I wasn’t identified as a Member of Congress. I was just a dad there

with my wife and children until afterwards I actually then identified myself when we were all done and had a frank conversation

with the ranger. And I was saying my daughter, who is 31⁄2, just

by a couple of curls of her hair made the height restriction to get

into the cave. But when we got done we had a conversation with

the seasonal ranger, and what came through to me is we were asking one heck of a lot of these individuals and the sacrifices they are

making because of their desire to serve, whether it be our permanent positions or our seasonal positions.

And the importance of us kind of leveling off, hopefully, and reversing that trend, and my hope is that the Park Service will really

be pushing Congress to meet the needs of those staffing requirements, because we clearly have a long way to go.

In your identifying priorities at the parks, I want to give you an

opportunity to talk about the top three priorities at Gettysburg as

well as at Independence. And the items you talk—these certainly

are critical items, but one of the ones to me that was missing in

the sense of what I would hope you were looking at is the everyday

experience of a visitor is that day-to-day operating and that dayto-day funding. Because most of what was identified are capital efforts that are important and we must go forward with and

prioritize, but nowhere do you mention just the visitor coming out

there. And it relates to a specific percentage.

And my understanding is that today, because of staffing levels,

only 5 percent of visitors to our parks are able to access a ranger

program or to have the services of a ranger because of the limited

number out there. Is that accurate?

Mr. MCINTOSH. I couldn’t answer that specifically to my knowledge. I mean, the reality is that a lot of visitors have a very limited

interaction with a ranger, and in many cases those services are

supplemented by volunteers or supplemented, as in Gettysburg,

with Gettysburg tours and other providers. But over the years the

ability of the service to maintain a ranger presence, a very visible

and active ranger presence, has declined.

Mr. PLATTS. And as one who has benefited again from those

interactions, I think that needs to be a priority and would hope

25

that in the front office in the region that while we look at those

capital needs, we make a priority of the day-to-day experience of

a visitor. We certainly, I think, are doing that at the local level

with our park superintendents and rangers.

But, again, their ability to fulfill that mission is guided by how

much money they have, how many people they have. And when you

go from 90 to 80, 11 percent reduction, that greatly impacts it.

I want to touch on a specific item, and it relates to the importance of the partnerships. Because we are blessed here in Gettysburg with great partnerships with the Friends, with the Foundation. And if you look at the dollars contributed and the man hours

contributed since 1989 by the Friends, tremendous investment in

this treasure here at Gettysburg.

And with the Foundation, looking at the capital investment of

tens of millions of dollars, it is going to be so important to the future experience of visitors. But as we promote those partnerships

here at Gettysburg, one of the issues that, I guess, is of concern

to me if I understand this issue correctly, with the new Visitor

Center moving forward with the plan—groundbreaking as of—now,

I guess, in June of this year and hopefully maybe 87 and opening,

one aspect of that partnership between the Friends and the Foundation and the park itself and the Borough is an ability for visitors

to experience Gettysburg in total through a transit system.

And I wonder if you have any specific information on funding

that was to be provided for the shuttle system that was going to

kind of be a key cog in this partnership here in Gettysburg that

my understanding is not going forward as planned within the Park

Service budget. And I would appreciate your commenting on that.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Congressman, I don’t have any real specific information on that. We can followup as a question and provide you

that information.

Mr. PLATTS. If you could—actually, on both items, the last two

questions, one is if you have any information about visitors’ interactions with rangers and if there is any internal review that has

been done and how that has been impacted by the budgeting of

staff positions.

And then on the specific issue of funding for the shuttle system

here and providing information to the committee, that would be

very helpful. Because I raise that not just because it is the park

I represent, but it is an issue here, and it is important because as

we get close to 2 million now visitors to Gettysburg, getting them

to come downtown because if they don’t, they are going to miss one

heck of a big part of the picture of the Battle of Gettysburg and

the role the Borough played in the battle—and the sites here, Wills

House and the train station and other historic aspects of the Borough.

Mr. MCINTOSH. I would add that we have had some very recent—

in the last 4 or 5 years—success at Acadia, in which we have joined

with the State and the local communities, and together with donations as well from the private sector operate the Island Explorer,

which has many routes throughout the island, but connects the

community and the park and takes the cars off the road and gives

people a——

Mr. PLATTS. It is a win-win——

26

Mr. MCINTOSH [continuing]. Much better experience.

Mr. PLATTS [continuing]. I think from—I mean, getting all the

vehicle traffic out of the park to better preserve that scene and

from convenience—I know you have done it at Zion——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Zion.

Mr. PLATTS [continuing]. Where we have camped and camped

there many years ago before it was in place, have camped there

since—when it has been in place and think it is a win for the parks

and for the visitor of being able to easily access the sites. But is

also important that we keep the commitments in. I see the funding

for the shuttle system here in Gettysburg—one of those commitments between all the partners, the Foundation, the Friends, the

park——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. PLATTS [continuing]. And the borough, and that we on the

government’s side keep our side of the commitment. And I would

welcome some specifics on where that funding stands for the shuttle system here at Gettysburg.

Mr. MCINTOSH. I will followup on that.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I want to followup with a few more detailed questions. In the question of Independence Hall and the reopening of Chestnut Street.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Is that the street that goes on the Mall side?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Between the Independence Hall and the Mall,

yes.

Mr. SOUDER. There has been a lot of pressure on the city to open

that for some time. Did they account for the fact—I mean, one of

the things we have been trying to do is not have more traffic go

right through the heart of parks. When was that decision made?

How recent?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Immediately following September 11th the

Chestnut Street was closed. It was closed for some period of time,

and then—I would have to research to give you the specific date

but——

Mr. SOUDER. It was a year ago.

Mr. MCINTOSH. A year ago. There was a decision on the part of

the city to reopen Chestnut Street between the fifth and sixth

block, which is the block that runs immediately in front of Independence Hall. That is, you know, it was of concern to the city in

terms of the flow of traffic and business, and it certainly continues

to be a concern to the National Park Service.

That decision on the part of the city has resulted in the Department of the Interior, the Park Service risk analysis coming back to

indicate that is probably the most vulnerable icon in the system because of that decision.

Mr. SOUDER. With the additional rangers that you have had to

put there, did you draw those in from other parks?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Originally that was the plan in which we addressed concerns at all the icon parks. More recently, we have

changed that venue and actually have contract service security people.

27

Mr. SOUDER. So for the funding of the contract service security

for Independence, was that in addition to the budget or did that

come off of that park’s budget?

Mr. MCINTOSH. No, Independence received—I don’t remember

the number exactly. It is in the testimony——

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, I saw that.

Mr. MCINTOSH [continuing]. Of 5 million or so for significant increases, and part of that was for increased——

Mr. SOUDER. And when——

Mr. MCINTOSH [continuing]. Security cost.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. The Park Service came up with that

Homeland Security dollars with which to do the—was that part of

a national icon budget? Did you have other icons in your region

that received supplemental Homeland Security funds——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. As well?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Did that come out of a pool of money that you each

submitted, then, proposals for? How did that work?

Mr. MCINTOSH. That was a national service-wide assessment of

what the needs were. For our region that includes the Charlestown

Navy Yard where the U.S.S. Constitution is, even though that ship

is an active ship in the Navy we hosted at the Navy yard. That includes the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and Independence

Hall and the Liberty Bell. Operating funds as well as capital dollars were provided sort of at the top of the budget for a couple of

years to provide that supplemental funding.

Mr. SOUDER. We will followup on whether we want 2000, 2004—

2001 to 2005. Can you show us the dollar and the fixed cost? What

I am trying to identify is whether, when your region got an increase, how much of that increase went for pensions, health care

costs, and staffing, and how much of that went for Homeland Security, and whether, if you take out those two categories, your region

actually had a net reduction in funding? So what I think I am seeking is just the total funding for the region——

Mr. MCINTOSH. OK.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. And the total funding of the fixed

cost—personnel cost for the region or other fixed cost, and then the

Homeland Security costs, and to see, for example, if you have a 3-

percent increase, did, in fact, those two things chew up 7 percent?

That clearly there has been some backlog addressing, but there has

also been—as we will probably discover because we have seen it all

over the Nation—a reduction in the number of permanent and

part-time personnel, and to some degree, in spite of putting additional dollars at the backlog, we have not had a net gain on the

backlog because when one thing gets fixed, another thing is coming

along——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Stream. So it is a challenge in trying

to figure out, as Congress, how we balance that in tradeoffs. And

by the way, I want to make it clear again that I believe there are

some efficiencies. The question is how we identify and work these

efficiencies. Now, addressing that question, have you—in the Pacific Northwest they have had some networking among the parks

28

in order to save costs, and so have you done that in your region

as well?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Yes, sir, absolutely. In the ‘‘good old days’’ everybody had to have one of those, but with the ability of the electronic

services of things like personnel actions, budget documenting, and

payroll expenses, and all that type of stuff, is automated and you

can achieve great efficiencies by—as in the case of Gettysburg

being the personnel servicing office for several parks in a cluster

around this part of the region.

Mr. SOUDER. So you have consolidated certain personnel and administrative functions. Have you worked as they have in the West?

And I don’t know whether—I am trying to think whether you

would have any parks in your area where you have national forest—we don’t have much BLM land east of the Mississippi—where

you have done joint operations with Fish and Wildlife or with other

Department of Interior or Forest Service agencies for campgrounds,

for example, and other things?

Mr. MCINTOSH. We don’t have that opportunity as much in the

East and the Northeast as they do obviously in the West. The park

in our region that is surrounded most by national forest lands is—

and it is not contiguous either—is Shenandoah in the Western Virginia.

But there is a lot of—at the local level, at the park level—there

is a lot of work with other public lands, State or local, and even

private operators in trying to achieve a balance of service delivery

and understanding whether or not more campgrounds are needed

in the park or less, and those types of decisions.

But it is not as—you go to Yellowstone, and there are three property owners on your boundary, and they are the Forest Service and

the Jackson Hole and the Official Wildlife Service. In this part of

the world you have hundreds on——

Mr. SOUDER. So you think like us at——

Mr. MCINTOSH [continuing]. One side.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Delaware Water Gap?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Well, there is no Federal land adjacent. There is

significant State land. And I know we work pretty hard with both

State Departments of Transportation and certain visitor facilities

and——

Mr. SOUDER. And one of my frustrations from the time I got involved as a Member of Congress was—before I was a Member of

Congress frustration as well, but it is—as a management person—

is to why we don’t thematically cluster certain parks, both for

cross-promotional purposes at the parks—Lewis and Clark was

kind of our classic——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. And now—partly because it crossed

multiple agencies, but we were kind of forced into it as we have

moved toward a long-term planning—but enables the system-wide

to look at it and say, here are some parts that are significant that

need to be preserved. Here is where the upgrades are. And to look

at it across zones and across parks, because much of what you described earlier was internal inside a park prioritizes and then the

park gets a budget, but there is no kind of cross-prioritizing. Even

in some of the personnel that I believe your testimony listed that

29

you had a fairly diverse group of parks that have been consolidated

for management purposes.

Do you have anything that—because clearly in the Revolutionary

War period with the exception of some of us in Indiana and—with

George Rogers Clark, there wasn’t much activity in the Revolutionary War.

Do you look in your zone—do you have a Revolutionary War

management subgroup that would be looking simultaneously at

things like Valley Forge, Brandywine, Independence, the Boston

parks, Washington Crossing?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Yes, we look at it two ways; we look at it geographically. Most recently we have established the National Parks

of New York Harbor, which would include the Manhattan sites,

which is several historic—about a half-dozen historic sites in Manhattan—Gateway, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the new

national monument at Governor’s Island. We have established a

senior position in New York to oversee that group, and the whole

thrust there is that my experience in New York in the 1980’s was

I was this column over here and there were three or four other columns. We talked but we didn’t really work that actively together.

This approach will underscore opportunities in terms of philanthropy. We will underscore better transportation opportunities, or

at least try to evolve better transportation opportunities given the

potential of the harbor and water-born transportation to move people as we do now, obviously, from Manhattan and New Jersey to

the Statue of Liberty, but to provide water access to the beaches

as well as the historic sites throughout the park. We also look thematically.

Maybe almost 10 years ago we convened the Civil War Parks—

on their own initiation convened a symposium. That resulted in a

document called ‘‘Holding the High Ground.’’ That spoke to impacts

of land use adjacent to battlefield parks. It spoke to issues of interpretation. It spoke to issues of battlefield preservation, landscape

preservation, and so on. So that has been a very successful effort

that has helped give visibility and some momentum in terms of a

budget response to those issues.

There is a parallel effort. We are approaching the 225th with respect to the American Revolution. There is a parallel effort underway involving the Revolutionary War parks. There is a report being

finalized—a parallel report to the Civil War Battlefield Commission

Report. Congress asked us to do the same thing for the Revolutionary War battlefields. That is substantially completed at this point,

so we should see the results of that pretty soon.

So there are activities, but on the other hand, our budget formulation process is still more or less oriented on a park-by-park basis.

So there is some evolution that could take place there.

Mr. SOUDER. On the Valley Forge Visitor Center, could you

elaborate? Apparently the Park Service has some concerns about

the proposals on the table, and how do you see this working

through? Could you——

Mr. MCINTOSH. The opportunity there manifested in the discussions between the park and then the Valley Forge Historical Society. We obviously have the park, the park has a collection, the Valley Forge Historical Society had a significant collection that was

30

99.9 percent in storage. And the conversations between us evolved

into the concept of a new Museum Visitor Center for the park. That

effort has been in discussion approximately 10 years.

The concept is the creation of a museum to be operated by the

non-profit partner, the American Revolutionary War Center, and it

to be a self-sustaining project. The estimates for construction are

in the order of $80 million. The estimates for the annual operating

cost are in the order of $10 million.

And I think the issue—there is several issues, but the issue centers most directly on the financial feasibility of the operation. As

well all know, it is easy to raise the capital dollar, but sustaining

a $10-million-or-so operating budget is the challenge.

And there is concerns on the part of the Park Service, and there

is concerns on the part of the Appropriation Committee that if, you

know, all the projections are good, but if they fail, what is the risk

and exposure to the National Park Service after you have built an

$80 million building? That project is being very actively worked on.

It has the direct attention of one our Deputy Directors, Don Murphy. We are now at a stage in which we are doing two things very

specific to the budget question; one, undertaking a fundraising feasibility study; and two, we have some third-party interests looking

at the pro forma in terms of the operating cost, the revenue

streams, the potential revenue streams, and the operating costs, be

it from revenues in the museum, be it from donations, or be it from

appropriated dollars though the National Park Service.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, I have lots more questions, but I will submit

the rest for the record. And before I yield to Mr. Platts I want to

do one followup with that. A number of years ago—because I understand the concerns about long-term when we—the public-private partnerships are clearly the way we are going with Visitor

Centers, Gettysburg being a classic example.

And let me reiterate, we have to address the transportation question because one of our major selling points that we had for moving

the Visitor Center off the grounds was how to integrate into the

community.

And I actually, by then, remember Mr. Goodling spoke to one of

the retail merchant’s groups because he was getting so much heat,

and said no, this was how we were going to do it. And we need to

figure out how we are going to address that.

Now, some of them need to be public-private partnerships. And

the town needs to probably help with this too, and we need to figure out—because these transportation systems—Zion is working

reasonably well, Bryce has had multiple problems, Rocky Mountain

has been up and down, and Grand Canyon and Yosemite are wild

cases that we are trying to work through. Acadia has been no piece

of cake.

And as we do this, we have to figure out how we are going to

fund it, given the fact that Congress isn’t given adequate funds into

the park’s maintenance budget, let alone for new transportation

systems.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. Yet it is absolutely critical, and we made a promise

there in this pledge.

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But coming back to the Valley Forge Visitor Center that I really

don’t have a dog in the hunt on the Visitor Center because I am

concerned too that these things—if we can raise the capital—how

we are going to maintain these given the fact of what we are likely

to see as we go through the series of hearings on the staff reductions.

And there is only so much volunteering that is going to be able

to cover the gaps. But I am very concerned about historic collections. And my understanding—because we saw what happened at

the Adams Historic Site as the private group lost the patience and

they split up Adams. And now we will never get it back together.

And then that came into question of what can we do to at least

purchase certain things; how can we keep in storage? Somewhere

around 8 years ago when I went up—the Bennyhoff collection was

in a little museum next to the church on the grounds. Is that the

collection that was there?

Mr. MCINTOSH. That is a private collection, and the society’s collection was in the building at the church.

Mr. SOUDER. Did they get kicked out——

Mr. MCINTOSH. I wouldn’t——

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Or are they still there?

Mr. MCINTOSH [continuing]. Put it in those terms, but they have

agreed to relocate, yes.

Mr. SOUDER. I think that they did get their lease renewed, which

is a nice way of saying it. But they had diaries that were not protected.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Absolutely.

Mr. SOUDER. They had, I think, one of Washington’s uniforms.

They had the pewter cups from Anthony Wayne, Alexander Hamilton, Von Steuben, De Kalb, all in one place. It was, even at its best,

a dusty, musty, little place that probably has the largest collection

of Revolutionary War materials in the United States. If this deteriorates and is lost while we are trying to figure out how to do a

Visitor Center, what can be done in working with the group to

make sure that the artifacts aren’t ruined by the time we get a visitor center worked out?

Mr. MCINTOSH. Well, that is a very important question. In the

Northeast region we have approximately 25 percent of the collection of the National Park Service. There is another 25 percent in

the intermountain region. So between those two regions, which is

about 160, 170 parks, are those collections. We were fortunate with

Congress’s help about 15 years ago to start the real investment in

our collections. And as a result of that, you know, step one obviously is the inventory, and whatever number we thought we have

is more than has gone out of sight. Because as we tried to count

or did count under professional standards, the numbers just continued to get bigger and bigger. You know, somewhat because of new

sessions, but probably more importantly, because of our new standardized professional counting, in this region we have a 13-percent

growth in our documented collections between 1999 and 2004.

And discoveries in this process—startling discoveries are made

every day. In the Longfellow home—the Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow’s home in Cambridge, MA, only the students of that site

know that was also Washington’s headquarters during the RevoluVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:34 Sep 08, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23039.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tionary War when he was in Boston. In the basement, in the

shoebox, we found documents signed by George Washington that

had survived through generations and fortunately have not been

harmed. And the point you raise is a critical, critical point.

We have a collections management plan for the region that is

being updated as we speak. We meet about 73 percent of our standards across the region, some parks in very good shape, some parks

needing a lot of help. We did a project, again, starting about 10

years ago in the archival conservation of the Olmstead drawings at

the Olmstead sight in Brookline, MA. Here we found these drawings, not in the tube to be protected but just roles of paper in the

basement in a vault that had two exterior walls. And over time the

damp and deterioration of those documents was significant. We

were able to set up a conservation lab and preserve them—or conserve them. And we just completed that last summer.

So there is a steady stream of activity, but nonetheless, there are

certainly collections in peril in certain locations. The collection at

Valley Forge is stored in the administrative buildings at Park

Headquarters. It is also stored in some of the houses and buildings

throughout the park because of inadequate space that meets professional standards.

The project as it is being developed now would include a territorial storage facility that would house the Park Service’s collection, the collection from the Historical Society, and Mr. and Mrs.

Bennyhoff have pledged to donate their collection to the park as

well. But certainly, they won’t do it unless the standards that they

would ascribe to are achieved.

So I am not sure what the interim strategy is. I know we continue to monitor our collection and take those safeguards that are

necessary, but certainly in the long-term, we are not meeting the

standards that we should.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, I really appreciate that the National Park

Service has worked hard for kind of the last—certainly 4 or 5 years

to get the first standards of how you make these kind of decisions,

evaluation of the inventory structures, starting to make some kind

of baby steps to, pulling together clusters like Lewis and Clark,

like the Lincoln Cemetary, like Civil War battlefields have always

been actually a step ahead because the private sector has been so

active.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. They need this in the Revolutionary War; we need

it for the other major developmental periods of the United States.

As someone who sat on park hearing after park hearing where we

move many relatively obscure but regionally important or even

State important sites into the Federal system——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. And then have a blind eye when formative documents are being destroyed that are foundational to our

republic——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Where we have cities and towns across

America named after the individuals and where we wouldn’t even

have all the other here if we didn’t have those foundational principles. That somehow there needs to be a hierarchical ranking inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:34 Sep 08, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23039.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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side the system of primary importance versus kind of mid-tier versus things that are regionally important. And how that regional

story fits into the national story is important——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. But not if the national story falls

apart. And somehow we have to have some of that kind of effort.

Mr. MCINTOSH. I should add a thought that came to my mind

while you were speaking. Thanks to Congressman Frelinghuysen of

New Jersey, we were able to achieve in the 2004 budget, I think,

approximately $31⁄2 million for the rehabilitation of the museum at

Morristown National Historical Park, which is significant because

it houses that park’s collection, which was definitely in peril.

Mr. SOUDER. I am a little more sensitive than others because

those of us in the Great Lakes area basically came right after the

formation of the American Republic, and when I see these different

things that are at Valley Forge or in some of the Revolutionary

War period, and I come from the town of Ft. Wayne, which is

named after Anthony Wayne. I have—Hamilton is a town in my

district, Steuben County is in my district, De Kalb County is in my

district. The map reads like Valley Forge and the Revolutionary

War——

Mr. MCINTOSH. Right.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Section, and if you lose kind of the

foundational things, they are gone. Mr. Platts, do you have additional questions?

Mr. PLATTS. Just a brief comment. As a native of York, PA, the

first capital as those of us in York claim with the Articles of Confederation having been signed there, the first official document

uniting us all, your focus on the Revolutionary War history is one

that is, well, appreciated by those of us here in the 19th District—

and those collections—whether they be the collections here at Gettysburg or the Revolutionary War.

My request is that you take back a message, really, to the Central Office, because there are a lot of issues in Washington that are

politicized to a great degree of republican versus democrat. The National Park Service, I believe, is one that has well embraced the

importance of it by all Members of the House and less politicized

I would hope.

But what is important—because we are pushing you and what

you are, you know, representing service and what—you are generating funds for Gettysburg or Independence and all the different

sites, but the more frank the Park Service is with Congress in the

needs and the examples—some of the examples, because we are

lucky here today to have a chairman who has such a passion about

these issues and a knowledge. That is not the case with every

Member of Congress. But when they hear examples of these collections of our Founding Fathers that are at risk and being lost, not

just at risk but have been lost, that is going to hit home.

So my request is that you encourage the Central Office to be very

frank, and say yes, we have increased funds in past years, but here

is what that really means: we lost staff. We have more for capital

investment, but here is what we didn’t preserve because of not acting quickly enough. The more frank the Park Service is with Congress in total, especially Appropriations hearings, you know, the

34

more beneficial it would be to our shared mission here and doing

right by the Park Service and all of its assets. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony, and we

will be following up with some additional questions. But I gave you

a few that would be very helpful.

Mr. MCINTOSH. Good, thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. If the second panel could now start to

make their way to the stage, the Honorable Richard Thornburgh,

former Governor and attorney general who is representing the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation; David Booz,

Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg; Joy Oakes, Director

of the National Parks Conservation Association; O. James

Lighthizer, Civil War Preservation Trust. Now that everybody is

seated, we will have you stand again for the oath. Will you each

stand and raise your right hands?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of the witnesses responded in the affirmative. Thank you. I will wait a second. We are

moving a little fast, and I want to make sure we get the pictures

for the new Visitor Center there for the Governor’s testimony. We

thank each of you for coming today. This is a unique opportunity.

I know for the NPCA testimony, we will cover more of the whole

region, but a great opportunity to look at Gettysburg is kind of the

keystone of the Civil War battlefield.

And then I will also look at the area where we have, at least thematically, driven by the outside, started to look at the Park Service

as a—looking at a theme as a whole.

So first, we will start with Governor Thornburgh. Thank you for

coming today.

STATEMENTS OF RICHARD THORNBURGH, PRESIDENT, THE

GETTYSBURG NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD MUSEUM FOUNDATION; DAVID BOOZ, FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL PARKS AT

GETTYSBURG; JOY OAKES, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL PARKS

CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION; AND JAMES LIGHTHIZER,

CIVIL WAR PRESERVATION TRUST

STATEMENT OF RICHARD THORNBURGH

Mr. THORNBURGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very

much for your attention to this very significant challenge that we

face in our country. I am particularly pleased that you are accompanied by Congressman Platts, a fellow alumnus of Pennsylvania

State government.

My name is Dick Thornburgh. I am the former Governor of Pennsylvania with a long-time interest in preserving our historic heritage. I appear today as a member of the Board of Directors of the

Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation. A copy of my

biography is attached to my written testimony, which I ask be

made part of the printed record.

With me today is Bob Wilburn, president of the Foundation.

In his Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln talked of a new

birth of freedom. I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear

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before you today on behalf of the Gettysburg Museum Foundation

to discuss our partnership with the Gettysburg National Military

Park in what I believe is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a new

birth for Gettysburg.

This subcommittee is familiar with the challenges that confront

the Gettysburg National Military Park. Today I would like to spend

my time here reviewing our partnership with the National Park

Service, our progress, and how our efforts can help address the

park’s financial needs.

First, let me tell you of some of the goals we plan to accomplish

through out partnership with Gettysburg National Military Park.

First, we want people to have a rewarding experience, to stir their

emotions, and imagine what it was like for the soldiers who battled

on Gettysburg’s fields and hills in those first days of July in 1863.

Second, we want people to leave Gettysburg with a deeper, more

lasting appreciation of what exactly happened here. Third, we want

to create a connection with the events of 1863 and to extend that

connection to the community, its architecture, its history, and its

people.

To accomplish these goals we are seeking to raise a total of $95

million to restore and preserve this national treasure for future

generations. Together with the dedicated staff at Gettysburg National Military Park, we will provide the American people with a

new, state-of-the-art Museum and Visitor Center, we will ensure

high quality interpretation and educational opportunities, restore

and fully protect the historic Gettysburg Cyclorama painting, protect and provide for proper display of the artifact and archival collection, and return significant portions of the Battlefield now paved

over and covered with buildings as closely as possible to their state

during the battle in 1863.

Through our partnership we have the opportunity to accomplish

something that the National Park Service would likely never be

able to do on its own. As partners, we can provide the time, the

resources, and the talent that ensures the Gettysburg experience

reaches its full potential.

I might say that the Foundation considers it a genuine privilege

to play a role in providing for the future of this historic site.

That is our vision. And now a brief report on our progress. In

January 2002 the Foundation released the conceptual design for

the new Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center. The new building

will showcase the battlefield, invite visitors to walk the land and

more easily appreciate the significance of what happened here.

Teams from the Foundation, the National Park Service, our Advisory Committee of distinguished historians, licensed battlefield

guides, and exhibit design consultants have developed plans for the

museum’s main exhibit galleries, which we organized to help visitors understand and appreciate three major themes. First, the unfinished work of the Declaration of Independence, the causes of the

Civil War, and the war itself until June 1863. Second, the actual

battle and campaign of Gettysburg, which will comprise about 2/3

of the exhibit galleries. Third, the Gettysburg Address and the

Civil War from Gettysburg to Appomattox, reconciliation, and the

consequences of the war.

36

In addition to the new Museum and Visitor Center, the partnership is designed to enhance roads and infrastructure, acquire land,

restore the Gettysburg Cyclorama painting, rehabilitate historic

landscapes, preserve and enhance display of the park’s collection of

Civil War artifacts, and equip and furnish the new facilities. The

Museum Foundation will operate the new Museum and Visitor

Center and after 20 years will donate the land, building, and facilities to the Park Service.

In this regard I should note, in light of the subcommittee’s legitimate interest in the financial needs of the park, that this partnership’s objectives will do more than provide necessary funding to address significant infrastructure needs of the park.

Since the Museum Foundation will operate at its own expense,

the new Museum and Visitor Center for the Park Service for a period of 20 years, the Foundation also will alleviate any additional

operating costs the park would otherwise have incurred.

Of our $95-million campaign goal, $68.3 million represents the

cost to design and build the new Museum and Visitor Center, including museum exhibits and restoration of the Gettysburg Cyclorama painting.

Last year the foundation announced that we wanted to have in

hand $75 million in funding commitments before we actually broke

ground. This would ensure that we have sufficient funds to complete the new facilities, while at the same time accounting for gifts

and expenses that support the overall project, but not necessarily

the Museum and Visitor Center component.

As of today, I am pleased to report that the Foundation has identified $69.4 million toward our $75-million goal, and we will break

ground on the new facility on June 2 of this year. Of the total, 17

percent—$11.9 million—has been appropriated by the Congress; 29

percent—$201⁄2 million—comes from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which is investing in the project through its Capital Assistance Program. The remaining 54 percent—$37 million—comes

from the private sector with $12 million of that to be borrowed

from commercial lenders, and the remainder already in hand or

pledged from private foundations, corporations, and individuals.

Our partnership with Gettysburg National Military Park is an opportunity to help the park address its infrastructure needs and to

put in place funding sources that will alleviate future expenses the

park will incur.

But more than that, we consider this effort the opportunity of a

lifetime to build something of lasting significance. By bringing to

light the experiences of 1863, we can help Americans better see the

links between the struggles of the Civil War and the challenges we

face today.

Nearly 142 years ago, President Lincoln came to Gettysburg to

honor the dead. On that occasion in his Address, he urged Americans to be dedicated here to the unfinished work of freedom and

democracy. Preserving the battlefield at Gettysburg and making it

a classroom of democracy is certainly one way to advance to unfinished work that Abraham Lincoln laid before us.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thornburgh follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. Mr. Booz.

STATEMENT OF DAVID T. BOOZ

Mr. BOOZ. Thank you, Chairman Souder and Congressman

Platts, for this privilege to speak with you today. My name is Dave

Booz, and I am the executive director of the Friends of the National

Parks at Gettysburg. We work hand-in-hand with the park. Our job

is to help supplement and support the operational needs of the national parks at Gettysburg.

Earlier in some of the comments Congressman Platts made questioned the efforts and the everyday routines. Much of our work

goes a long way to helping with interpretation and understanding

of the visitors when they come here.

We believe this to be hallowed ground. We believe this to be a

place where the souls of thousands of people have gone through a

great struggle, and it is our job, our duty, and our sacred trust to

honor that struggle.

As we all know, this battlefield is a place where over a million

people come every year. Our mission, the Friends of the National

Parks at Gettysburg, is to honor, support, protect, and enhance the

resources associated with that site. To that end we have given over

$6 million to the national parks and more than 15,000 volunteer

hours. The vast bulk of that service has come since 1994.

We greatly appreciate Dr. Latschar’s comments when he says

that the Friends are the margin of survival for the park. And our

efforts continue to make sure that people come to this park and get

a first-class interpretation and experience.

We have done a great deal to paint fences, barns, sheds, build

fences, things that are very visible to visitors once they understand

the battlefield. If you go across this battlefield and you see a white

fence, it has been painted by the Friends. Headstones in the cemeteries, you know, we sort of think they are there forever, but Congressman Souder, as you pointed out, these artifacts, these treasures disappear very easily, and we have done a great deal in repairing and working with those.

The peach orchard, as was mentioned earlier, well, when you

think of Gettysburg, the peach orchard is always Sherfy’s Peach

Orchard, but there were a number of peach orchards here in 1863.

We have donated trees to the parks so that these peach orchards

can be maintained. The peach orchard will be reworked, I believe,

starting in October, and our membership is donating the money to

buy the trees so that the new Sherfy Peach Orchard will be a place

that really does represent 1863.

We have been involved in land preservation. We have worked in

partnership with the National Park Service and its excellent staff

to try to identify and purchase and then donate land to the parks.

Over the time that we have been here, over 400 acres have been

donated to the parks.

One of the ones that we are most proud of was the Home Sweet

Home Motel, which was right on the edge of the Pickett’s Charge

field along Emmitsburg Road. This structure in partnerships with

other organizations was purchased and then cleared and donated

to the park. If you were here at a time when the motel was here

and look at it now, I believe you can see a great improvement.

45

The first shot marker, which many people weren’t even aware of,

we were able to see to it that was preserved and brought into the

National Park Service.

We can go through a large number of plots of land, but I think

the important point is that, as a private institution, we have tried

our best to support the park. Even now we are in the process of

donating a 9.3-acre parcel of land to the park.

We have worked extensively with monument rehabilitation. The

Pennsylvania Monument, which is one of the largest and most famous on this battlefield and I believe any, underwent almost a $2-

million rehabilitation effort, and we were instrumental in leading

that.

The cannons that are on the park, well, there are over 400, and

for years they were never maintained because the money just

wasn’t there. We rent a facility and provide volunteer hours to rehabilitate those cannons. And if you ever have a chance to visit the

cannon shop and go through that process, believe me, you will come

away amazed. It is 144 hours on each carriage after it has been

sandblasted. So the gentlemen who worked that particular project

do a fantastic job. Unfortunately, once those cannons are back onto

the field, they must be maintained again. So we have a new problem that we are pleased to deal with.

We also have worked with other monuments on the field, and unfortunately, sometimes monuments are damaged. So we are active

in trying to support the efforts of the park police and the local police agencies in apprehending the criminals.

Education is a major part of our job as well as the National Park

Service. And we have, at the Rupp House, a history center in which

we present an interpretation of this battle and what it did to the

community. We believe that is extremely important.

We also sponsor seminars and conferences so that people will

better understand what happened here, the actual battle as well as

the ramifications. Often people think that everything ended on July

3rd, and that is grossly untrue.

We support a number of programs that the park has, such as the

Military Park ‘‘sleepovers’’ and the Junior Ranger Program. We

have a Traveling Trunk Program where we send trunks filled with

reproduction artifacts across this Nation so that people can better

appreciate the life of the everyday soldier and civilian.

One of the things that we are most proud of is that we were able

to help, along with a number of other organizations, in burying the

utility lines along the Emmitsburg Road and the Mummasburg

Road. These lines were definitely a blight on the scene, and

through a large number of people’s efforts, we were able to have

those buried. The National Tower, which I know that you are familiar with, was demolished, and we had a hand in that along with

others.

I could go on for a long time; however, what I think the important part is we spend a great deal of effort helping to provide the

operational needs of this park. Dr. Latschar and his staff do a superb job. I am amazed at the dedication and the professionalism of

these people.

The Friends of the National Parks have that same kind of dedication and interest to make this place into a place where people

46

come and never forget. We work with the town; we work with the

park to try to make an experience that we all can be proud of.

Sir, we thank you very much for your efforts because what you

are doing is absolutely essential in the success of the Park Service

and in preserving our heritage. I know that if you would spend

time—if you could have the luxury of spending time here on this

hallowed ground, before long you would have the feeling of many

ghosts—and not ghost tours—but the experiences of the past and

understand completely how much this means to the United States.

So thank you for your efforts, sirs.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Booz follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much, Mr. Booz. I will go to Ms.

Oakes.

STATEMENT OF JOY M. OAKES

Ms. OAKES. Mr. Chairman and Mr. Platts, thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. I am Joy Oakes; I am the midAtlantic Regional Director of the National Parks Conservation Association. Since 1919, the nonpartisan NPCA has been the leading

voice of the American public speaking out on behalf of America’s

National Park System. I will briefly summarize my remarks and

ask that the entirety be included in the record.

Our 300,000 members nationwide thank you for holding these extraordinary hearings and oversight hearing on the critical and

chronic funding needs of the National Park System. It is extraordinary. Thank you so much. And for your leadership on the Centennial Act, working with a bipartisan group of your colleagues to

address the maintenance needs in the national parks.

Americans from all walks of life and from the spectrum of political belief can and are rallying around the cause of protecting, restoring, and fully funding America’s national parks. Approximately

one of every five national parks are right here in the mid-Atlantic.

Many are icons of America’s democracy like Independence, Valley

Forge, Gettysburg, of course. Others preserve ancient geology, rich

biodiversity, spectacular landscapes, and endangered species.

And as we have heard, parks are living classrooms. I brought my

fifth-grader here to Eisenhower last year when he was doing the

report on the President, and walking through the sunroom where

President and Mrs. Eisenhower entertained Nikita Khrushchev

and other cold war leaders and gazing at that rural landscape that

the President painted from that very sunroom, made the Eisenhowers and their times come alive in a way that is very difficult,

even in the best of textbooks, to understand.

My remarks will focus on how this $600-million annual operation

shortfall, the enormous maintenance backlog, and the scarcity of

lands money place out in the national treasures in this region.

Here we are at Gettysburg, the world’s classroom on the American Civil War. This park has 63 cents for every dollar it needs for

day-to-day operations, reasonable, routine maintenance, resource

protection, interpretation, law enforcement. The world’s classroom

on the Civil War holds a lottery every September to determine

which of the requests for ranger-led tours it will respond to from

school groups. And last year, one out of every four requests were

denied.

While the park’s budget has, in fact, increased in absolute dollars, as we have heard, over the last few years, since fiscal year

2002, their purchasing power has actually declined. And you can

see that in the additional loss of staff positions, 19 FTE’s just in

the last 3 years. Two of those include the maintenance specialist

on the cannon restoration, making the Friends’ volunteer work

even more important.

Despite the maintenance and project money that has been talked

about, the maintenance backlog here at the park actually grew in

the last few years. Gettysburg saw a decrease in its purchasing

power in fiscal year 2005 of more than $60,000 despite the admiraVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:34 Sep 08, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\23039.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ble efforts the Congress made to try to get additional funding, and

actually getting absolute dollars to the parks, their purchasing

power declined. This decrease in purchasing power is a result of a

number of unfunded mandates, which has been discussed today.

The last time Gettysburg received land acquisition funding was

fiscal year 2001. And this despite about 20 percent of the land inside the park’s designated boundary is owned by others. Just in the

last few months, two inholders have approached the park asking if

they are interested in talking about selling. But the park has been

unable to respond because there is no money in their land acquisition account for this park.

With 80 other parks in the region, I should talk about a few of

the others very quickly. Shenandoah National Park also did a business plan just as Gettysburg has done. Their analysis is very similar. That park has 65 cents for every dollar it needs for routine operations. Of particular concern, Shenandoah has employed the

budget cost projection model that the Park Service is using to assess what its purchasing power will be in future years. And that

analysis, through fiscal year 2009, shows that, in fact, appropriated

moneys should continue to increase in absolute dollars, but the

budget gap at Shenandoah is predicted to continue to increase also

to the tune of $2.6 million. Shenandoah is one of the most polluted

parks in the country, yet it has left open its air resources specialist

positions since 2003 due to tight budgets.

Delaware Water Gap recreation area in New Jersey and Pennsylvania is a four-season recreational park with a two-season budget.

Its business plan analysis showed the park has 56 cents for every

dollar it needs for annual operations. Its staff collectively drive

about 800,000 miles each year in vehicles that are almost 14 years

old on average on roads that are in some of the worst condition of

any parks in the Northeast region of the Park Service.

George Washington Birthplace in Virginia: Congress expanded

the boundary 2 years ago in order to include privately owned land

at the agreement of the owner, land that is surrounded by the park

and the Potomac River. It is a hole in the donut, and yet it hasn’t

gotten the lands money to be able to make a deal. And so now that

land is on the commercial real estate market. I was just looking at

the listing actually.

A high profile battle at Valley Forge in recent years concerning

the Waggonseller farm really shows—is a great illustration of just

how critical the lands money is here in the mid-Atlantic. Development is knocking at the doors of these parks.

Throughout the region and throughout the system, you can find

countless examples of extraordinary leadership and dedicated, mission-driven staff, who leveraged limited resources to get the job

done. At Petersburg Military Battlefield in Virginia, that staff leveraged $8,000 in fees to accomplish a $30,000 restoration of the

Dictator, the largest weapon used in the siege and defense of Petersburg. And they did a very nice job.

But even the best elastic can only stretch so far. Even with all

the creative thinking, the strategies for revenue enhancement, the

leveraging, the partnering you have heard about, the volunteering,

big gaps remain. And Gettysburg is one of many poster children.

Even with two of the most effective Friends groups in the region

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and possibly in the country with skilled fiscal managers, they have

a long list of park needs.

More and more Friends groups are providing and philanthropy is

providing not the margin of excellence for our national parks, but

the margin of survival. And that itself may not be sustainable.

In closing, we would like to thank you for this unprecedented series of hearings that you are holding, for your leadership on the

Centennial Act. We hope your colleagues will allow Americans to

donate all or some of our tax refunds to invest in our national heritage. We also hope your colleagues will approve an increase in the

annual operations budget for the parks, $100 million more than

what the President’s budget has proposed. We hope you will be

generous, that your colleagues will generous in providing lands

funding. Nothing less is at stake than the future of our national

parks. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Oakes follows:]

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

clean-up witness is Mr. Lighthizer. Thank you for coming.

STATEMENT OF JAMES LIGHTHIZER

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. Mr. Chairman, good to see you again, Congressman Platts. My name is Jim Lighthizer; I am president of something called the Civil War Preservation Trust. It is an organization

of some 70,000 members nationwide. We are non-profit. And we

have as our primary mission to preserve as much important and

significant Civil War battlefield land that is unprotected in the

time remaining with the emphasis on important Civil War land,

which is documented, and in the time remaining, recognizing that

this will be the last generation that will have any real opportunity

to preserve that part of our national heritage.

It gets interesting, gentlemen, that probably the first effort to

preserve Civil War battlefield land was done right here. I think it

was 1864 when a private individual from this community bought

some land along Cemetery Ridge, and, of course, it expanded from

there. And later the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania bought some

land for the cemetery. So it, in a sense, the battlefield preservation

movement started right here over 140 years ago. And the Civil War

Preservation Trust continues that tradition in the sense that the

private sector is vitally involved.

Now, our organization, which is the product of a merger in 1999,

has saved about 15,000 acres around the country of Civil War battlefield land. That land is land that has been identified through a

Congressional Civil War Studies Advisory Commission Report,

which was done in 1993, commissioned by the Congress in 1990.

And it identified 384 battles around the country that were ‘‘determinative of the outcome of the conflict.’’ The vast majority of that

land is not within the confines of the National Park Service boundaries, as you gentlemen well know. And, in fact, speaking of the

boundaries, of course, the first movement started with individuals

to save battlefields.

In 1895 the Congress created the Battlefield of Chickamauga,

which was the first wholesale purchase of land on a battlefield.

After that, I believe, came Antietam and then Gettysburg, all in

the 1890’s. In the 1920’s and 1930’s the U.S. Government got serious again about saving battlefields, places around Spotsylvania and

Chancellorsville and other very significant areas.

But, interestingly enough, they developed a plan of preservation

that involved, in part—it is called the Antietam Plan, and what it

did was—they only bought land around monuments and around

areas that they deemed important, for example, trenches at

Chancellorsville and the Wilderness. And right now those trenches

are preserved, but about 6 feet on either side is still in the private

sector. And, of course, the thinking was back then that the land

would never be developed. It would always remain woodland or

rural or farmland. And that was true for about 50 years or so, and

then in the 1980’s it all changed.

And what you see now—and Mr. Chairman, I believe you are a

student of the war and I am sure you have been to battlefields. As

you can see trenches in the Wilderness with 4 feet away you can

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body’s house, which certainly does detract, if not denigrate, what

happened there because men fought and died for reasons that were

very, very important to them and our country.

So that land, as well intentioned as it was 60 or 70 years ago,

simply is not helpful today. And while the U.S. Government,

through the National Park Service, has purchased land and continues to purchase land, it is nowhere near keeping up with the pressure of development.

Now, we have estimated that there is a maximum of 20 years left

to save the important land. And I am not just talking about anything that had something to do with the Civil War, but significant

core battlefield land. And if you look at places like Virginia, around

Richmond or Fredericksburg or the Valley, that timeframe is really

more in months. It is no more than 4 or 5 years. And then the

issue is going to be decided. And it is not going to be decided as

to cost. It will either be saved or paved over, one or the other. And

it is a general proposition, and there are one or two notable exceptions, but as a general proposition, once the land is developed, it

is gone forever. And the opportunity to save it and gain a full appreciation of our heritage is gone forever. So we are really in a race

against time.

The Congress in 1999, to their credit, through by the way the use

of an earmark created a program that funds something called the

American Battlefield Protection Program, which is a small unit of

the Park Service. And what it does is provide money to groups like

myself can compete for, and it provides at least a 50/50 match. In

other words, for every Federal dollar in this fund, 50 percent has

to be raised from somewhere else, non-Federal money. Over the last 5 years approximately $26 million have been appro- priated and about $20 million has been obligated. But what that

fund has done—and I invite your comparison, gentlemen—that

fund has saved over 13,000 acres of land outside of the National

Park Service boundaries. Now, if you do the math, that is about

$1,500 or $1,600 an acre of Federal Government money. Compare

that to Stuart Hill, which in 1988—it is a little bit before your gentlemen’s time—but was a highly controversial land development

that was about 550 acres at Manassas, extremely important

ground. A developer was going to pave it over for a shopping center, and the Congress did a congressional taking—very unusual.

But it cost over $120 million or $220,000 an acre. Now, I know you

gentlemen agree that not even the U.S. Government can afford

that kind of significant or continuous expenditure of moneys for

land.

So my point is the Land and Water Conservation Fund that Congress created by the way and that President Bush, to his credit,

has included in his budget the last 2 years, has saved a significant

amount of ground for a very reasonable price—historic ground. And

that effort, with the support of the Congress hopefully will continue.

And by the way, just as an aside, the $20 million that has been

obligated, $1 million of that went to fight forest fires out west. So

it is really $19 million. But I digress just a little bit.

Let me just conclude, gentlemen, by saying this: that I hope that

you all in the National Park Service will look inward as well as

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outward when it comes to funding that part of our national heritage. Certainly, the money is needed to buy land within the Park

Service boundaries, as Joy mentioned. But there is also a great

deal of land outside of the boundaries that is just as important,

just as significant, just as hallow that the Civil War Preservation

Trust, a private group, is saving in partnership with the U.S. Government.

Once again let me just compliment both you gentlemen for having the interest and caring in bringing the focus on this overall

very important subject. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lighthizer follows:]

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

Platts, before we scheduled this hearing, had a commitment that

he had made, so I am going to yield to him first so he can do his

questioning.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I unfortunately won’t

have the time to get into questions. I have a veterans group at

noon in York that I committed to address some veterans’ issues

and do have to run to keep that appointment.

But I want to first just thank each of you and through your respective organizations for your tremendous work. Specific to here

at Gettysburg were two organizations and then in a broad sense to

all of our parks out there and to the Civil War in particular and

with the Preservation Trust. I hate to think of where we would be

but for each of your organization’s efforts, both in dollars and volunteer hours and public awareness of the challenges.

And each of you gave important testimony, and Ms. Oakes, your

frank assessment of Gettysburg in particular and then in a broad

sense is what we need to hear. And, you know, to Mr. McIntosh,

that was my message I hope he takes back because Congress needs

to hear these frank examples. When you hear one out of four school

groups not being able to get—you know, and because that is what

we want to encourage, that experience.

The purchasing power as we talked about with Mr. McIntosh, 53

cents on the dollar here at Gettysburg, 57 cents—your example of

the 14-year-old vehicle, when I was at Lexington in Concord in

driving with the superintendent there, I think it was about a 20-

year-old vehicle, and I think a Dodge K-car or something. I wasn’t

so sure about the safety of the vehicle as we traveled.

But the one that hit me especially was your example of your

fifth-grade son and you standing in the sunroom, two summers

back we were—my kids had the pleasure—by good timing we were

at Ft. McHenry on my wife’s birthday. To celebrate her birthday

we visited Ft. McHenry, and my kids got to lower the flag with 20

other guests there. It was, you know, the huge flag—and to participate in that lowering and folding of the flag. A month later we

were at Ft. Clatsop and had the privilege in there because of a very

small crowd at the closing, my son and daughter got to help lower

and fold the flag at Ft. Clatsop and understand some of the history

of Lewis and Clark.

That is what this is all about, is our children getting to experience the history and the beauty of our Nation. And each of your

organizations is doing a great job. Here at Gettysburg, Governor

Thornburgh with the Foundation and with the Friends working

hand-in-hand, what we will have in the years to come—as one who

grew up not far from here in York, my parents were very wise.

With five kids they said, where can we go where there is lots of

open space where the kids can learn and maybe give us a little

break from the noise of five kids? And Gettysburg was the spot we

came to regularly.

The first time—my mother-in-law is from Buffalo—was in the

area, and I was excited and brought her over here to Gettysburg.

And we went into the Visitor Center about 10 years ago, and I was

excited for her to experience the Visitor Center and the Electric

Map. My emotional tie to the Electric Map growing up here was

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little different than her experiencing what she expected to find at

Gettysburg and—as a visitor.

And the opportunities we will have in the years to come when

I bring her back when the new Visitor Center is done and truly a

world-class experience for her and the visitors to come will be exceptional. And just really encourage you to go forward with your

efforts in working with the Park Service and look forward to not

just that ground-breaking, but ultimately that opening.

I apologize that I need to run and don’t have a chance to give

any questions, but certainly will do my utmost to support Chairman Souder in his efforts working with the Park Service and each

of your organizations in the months and years to come. And we

hopefully together will achieve success for the future generations.

So thank you. So, then, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do apologize.

I need to run.

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks a lot. But first let me say to Mr.

Thornburgh and Mr. Booz that I wish we had this in every park

in the United States. I mean, what you have done here is extraordinary, and clearly part of our national challenge as we lean more

on private sector and public sector cooperation is that it is easier

for Yosemite or Grand Canyon and Gettysburg than it is many of

the others. That said, it is still hard.

And I wondered, Governor, if you could maybe for the record—

let me ask a more directed question rather than at first a general

question. As we look at the difficulties of the public-private partnerships—because clearly if we are going to expand and build new

Visitor Centers given the fact that we are having difficulty covering

staffing dollars, given the difficulty that we have in inholdings, let

alone new purchases, but even lands inside the park that could be

sold—that visitor services are becoming much more difficult.

One of my first things when I went onto the Parks Committee

was the process that we were going through with this Visitor Center. And I am curious how some of this was resolved. I think it is

extraordinary design, absolutely beautiful, absolutely the model,

and I am kind of curious, and if you could talk a little bit about

how some of this was resolved.

I remember that one of the criticisms was that moving the Visitor Center away from the heart of the battlefield would isolate it,

and visitors might not get involved in the town and how that relates to the transportation questions, the Wills House, and other

things, and how you see that in relationship.

Another was that the proposal was to make this public, private,

and self-funded. At one point it was going to be the largest Civil

War bookstore and a huge cafeteria. Then Congress more or less

mandated that those had to be reduced and then complained that

it wasn’t going to be self-funding. Can you talk about some of the

tradeoffs as to how you work through inside the community and

the potential competitive pressures; at the same time how to make

these things financially viable so the taxpayers as a whole don’t

have to do it; and how you put together a team to develop a Visitor

Center like this.

Mr. THORNBURGH. I would be glad to, Mr. Chairman, but my testimony would be secondhand, and I would like to ask Dr. Wilburn

to deal in detail with your questions since he has been right on the

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firing line. But let me first say how important it is, both from the

point of view of participation and support, that organizations like

the Foundation and like the Friends are involved in this process of

upgrading and refurbishment of this important site.

We have an unprecedented and unique-in-the-world tradition of

philanthropy and volunteerism in this country. And I think the

work of the Foundation and the Friends represents the finest tradition in that regard in making an important contribution to the

preservation of our history for future generations. And I think both

David and I are proud to be part of that in terms of Gettysburg.

But let me get to the question——

Mr. SOUDER. And let me—may I say——

Mr. THORNBURGH. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. First that having public figures like

yourself willing to come forth and be part of the fundraising effort

that many individuals who are history buffs may not have the connections or the ability to gain the media attention that flow from

people like yourself being willing to take a leadership role on something like this, and that should not be underestimated.

Mr. THORNBURGH. That is very kind.

Mr. SOUDER. It has been really interesting for me to kind of go

from this kind of history buff all of a sudden to a public position.

But in watching many of the people, when you get to be in a public

position, let alone a Governor or attorney general like yourself, you

meet different people and can do more matchmaking than the people who necessarily are burrowed into the project. And I know that

has been critical part of this——

Mr. THORNBURGH. Well——

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. You and the other leaderships. So don’t

downplay your——

Mr. THORNBURGH. I hope that is——

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Role in this.

Mr. THORNBURGH [continuing]. Useful, but my wife refers to me

as a Gettysburg nut.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, good.

Mr. THORNBURGH. So that is——

Mr. SOUDER. You are both——

Mr. THORNBURGH [continuing]. Really——

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Two halves.

Mr. THORNBURGH. That is the real genesis of my interest in this.

Mr. SOUDER. OK, well——

Mr. THORNBURGH. Bob, why don’t you step up to the——

Mr. SOUDER. I am going to need to swear you in, so if you will

raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn]

Mr. SOUDER. Spell both your first and last name for the record

because the other witnesses all had it in their testimony.

Mr. WILBURN. Robert Wilburn, W-i-l-b-u-r-n.

Mr. SOUDER. Now my question was a little bit on the evolution

that you are well aware of and know what we battle through and

how you resolve some of those questions as we look at other publicprivate partnerships.

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Mr. WILBURN. And you mentioned specifically some of the criticisms or concerns I should say in terms of the interaction with the

town and moving the Visitor Center some distance from town——

Mr. SOUDER. And second, on the funding because obviously, to

pay for operating costs for 20 years, as you are proposing to do, you

have to have a source of revenue. When you have a source of

revenue——

Mr. WILBURN. Right.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Is it a zero-sum game or do you think

there will be a bigger pool of revenue from which to pull?

Mr. WILBURN. Right. OK. OK, first of all, in terms of the relationship to the town, I think everybody involved with the project

is committed to the concept that you can’t experience the battlefield

without experiencing the town and that we want to make sure that

visitors go to the town. And so I think the fact that we are developing at the same the Wills House—not we as a foundation, but the

Park Service and the community is developing the Wills House and

the train station—is going to add to this flow of visitors between

the town and the Visitor Center.

The Visitor Center is only moving about a half a mile from the

current site. So it is not being moved that far away. Also important

to this is the shuttle system that we are working on in trying to

make sure that there will be a shuttle system that will go between

the Visitor Center and the town.

And then finally, the third thing that we are working on is to

make sure that there is not development around the Visitor Center

so that we are not going to create another sort of place for visitors

to go. And we have been acquiring strategic properties and making

sure that there would not be development along Baltimore Pike.

So the combination of all those things have, I think—I believe

that people in town now appreciate the fact that we have a real

commitment to making sure that visitors experience the town, and

that it is not becoming an isolated place some distance away from

town, but rather an integral part of the entire experience.

In terms of the long-term operating cost, the actual—and we are

convinced—we have done our pro formas—that it will be self-financing. We have limited the size of the bookstore and we have

limited the size of the restaurant facility. But there will be some

revenues that will come from the restaurant facility. There will be

revenues that will come from the bookstore.

And, in addition to that, we expect a significantly larger amount

of revenues coming from attending the film experience that will be

there as well as the Cyclorama. Co-locating the Cyclorama and the

film experience together in and of itself is going to generate an additional considerable amount of revenues, because now, while you

have 600,000 people each year, for example, go to the Electric Map

Program, only half that many go to the Cyclorama, and part of that

is just the fact that they are separate and more difficult to do both.

By bringing them together, we believe that we are going to increase

revenues rather sizably, which will also help in the financing of the

building so—I mean, I am sorry, in the financing of the operating

costs going forward.

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cient to provide for reserves for the building, to make sure that it

is maintained in top condition, also to have reserves for keeping

the exhibits fresh, as well as to return not just the funds that are

now going from these activities to the Park Service that we think

will be actually additional funds in the future.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you foresee, then, at the Visitor Center in seeing

the operating funds, what kind of management—since you are paying the operating, does that not include the rangers that are

present? What is the interrelationship that you see at the Visitor

Center?

Mr. WILBURN. OK. I mean, the rangers would continue to be

funded, we assume, by——

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Mr. WILBURN [continuing]. The Federal Government. We are

talking about just covering the actual costs of the building.

Mr. SOUDER. The maintenance of the building.

Mr. WILBURN. And the staff that would be necessary to run the

facility, you know, the maintenance of the facility itself.

Mr. SOUDER. So that would be——

Mr. WILBURN. There is still a significant amount of Federal moneys that are necessary——

Mr. SOUDER. Right.

Mr. WILBURN [continuing]. To pay the salaries of the rangers and

the staff of the National Park Service.

Mr. SOUDER. So, for example, where rifles would be stored or

anything in storage——

Mr. WILBURN. We would still have curators from the National

Park Service that would——

Mr. SOUDER. But the——

Mr. WILBURN [continuing]. Be responsible.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Cost of the storage facility, maintenance, temperature control, for example, would be borne——

Mr. WILBURN. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. By the——

Mr. WILBURN. We would bear that cost, right.

Mr. SOUDER. For 20 years?

Mr. WILBURN. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. And that the—is it Eastern National that they have

the concessionary contract? Or would this now be under the Visitor

Center or how does that work?

Mr. WILBURN. At the current time Eastern National has the contract for the bookstore.

Mr. SOUDER. And would they continue as a—is that a bid process

or the people who bid the center now would have that contract?

Mr. WILBURN. The agreement with the National Park Service

gives the Foundation the right to determine who would run the

bookstore. We are currently having discussions on going with Eastern National to see if we can work on agreements acceptable to all

parties, for them to do it.

Mr. SOUDER. And then you would get the percentage of revenue

that comes from the contract to go toward covering your operating?

Mr. WILBURN. Right, with a couple of conditions that have

been—as part of the original agreement. As you, I am sure, are

aware, Gettysburg has been a very successful bookstore operation

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in the past and has provided funds to other parks around the country. That has been capped at $420,000 of dollars that go from Gettysburg to support other parks. We have agreed to continue at that

level to provide that support for other stores, or other parks. But

with that condition and with the understanding that the Park

Service would continue to get the same amount or more income

than they currently get from the operations, those are the restrictions we have on it.

Mr. SOUDER. So the Park Service would continue to get the same

that they were getting more——

Mr. WILBURN. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. So you are banking on additional revenues to be

able to cover that?

Mr. WILBURN. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. The Governor mentioned that the 17 percent that

was Federal, which included mostly money for the Cyclorama. Did

that cover all the Cyclorama cost?

Mr. WILBURN. The first three appropriations total just under $7

million, and those are exclusively for the Cyclorama. The last appropriation was for $5 million, which was to cover the remaining

cost of the Cyclorama painting as well as any additional funds were

to go to the care of the collections. There may be some support for

the Cyclorama that comes from private sources, but essentially, it

is covered in its entirety, if necessary, by Federal funds.

Mr. SOUDER. So in effect, since the Federal Government paid for

moving the Cyclorama and the artifacts, they put nothing into the

actual center itself? Or minimal?

Mr. WILBURN. Minimal amount into the Visitor Center. There

will be some addition between the total cost of the Cyclorama and

the $12 million.

Mr. SOUDER. I mean, this is a fascinating case.

Mr. WILBURN. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. Each public-private partnership and visitors centers

are slightly different. But clearly, as we head this direction, Mesa

Verde has one of the huge problems in the National Park System

because they have all these historic artifacts in trailers right now

for the most part, if they are protected at all.

And they are looking at building a new public-private Visitor

Center. Should it be on the park land? Should it be right outside

of the park land? Luna Moore’s wife has been one of their key fundraisers to try to put this together. Similar questions at Valley

Forge, how big, how you do the balance, and all these tradeoffs.

Rocky Mountain had a private developer built the Visitor Center,

which uses a model by the National Park Service. Until I went

there I couldn’t figure out why this person decided to do it, but

clearly, when you go to find a restroom, you have to go through all

the eating places and through the gift shops to get to the restroom,

but hey, it saved the taxpayers millions of dollars.

And we don’t have these dollars to put out right now when you

are talking about, do you give Medicaid to a poor individual who

doesn’t have healthcare? Do you make sure that you are safe going

to the airport? I mean, these are tough budget decisions we are

working through right now. In the degree we can leverage them

the better we can.

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Mr. WILBURN. Sure.

Mr. SOUDER. And you are a very interesting model of how to do

that, and that was why I was trying to get into the——

Mr. WILBURN. I think that the most important thing that is

done—and you mentioned it when you talked about Governor

Thornburgh—is getting the right Board of Directors and the right

people to be working with you. And I can’t stress how important

it is to have individuals who do open doors for you and make it possible to go places where you otherwise couldn’t go.

But I would add to that everyone that we have recruited to our

Board of Directors, without exception, is not only can they have access to individuals, but they are totally committed to what we are

trying to do at Gettysburg. And it is a combination of those two

things, of having people that care about preserving our past and

making sure that it is told as effectively as it can be told, as well

as having the ability to bring others sort of into the fold, if you will.

Both of those things are so important. And we have been very successful.

Governor Thornburgh also chairs our Nominating Committee for

our Board of Directors. And I think if you looked at our Board of

Directors, you would see that we really do have a very distinguished group who are not just able to open doors, but also care

deeply about what we are doing.

Mr. SOUDER. We shouldn’t neglect to mention the State which is

a huge partner.

Mr. WILBURN. Absolutely.

Mr. SOUDER. And also Pennsylvania has been a model, because

at Independence Hall, the Visitor Center for that park——

Mr. WILBURN. Right.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. State and city had been involved because the other Visitor Center is at a ramp that never came, and

going to Independence it is always hard to find where the Visitor

Center is. So there is another example where the State put up a

lot of dollars. And to a degree, I believe that in addition to the

prioritization of what is historically important, part of it ought to

be what is the level of support that community has shown, the

State has shown——

Mr. WILBURN. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. An ability to do that, because to a degree we can leverage these funds if things are relatively even in

importance. It is a very valuable thing.

Mr. Booz, one of the debates that you alluded to in a couple of

places in yours, and without groups like yours, as the Friends, I

don’t know how we would do interpretive-type questions and other

types of things. A fundamental question of—and I would be interested—in the record this relates in funding and prioritization and

management of parks quite a bit—is how you view integrity of battlefield questions.

This became a big question where the Visitor Center was on the

angle, and what is ground versus historic structures because where

the Cyclorama was was a historic structure.

But I want to get into another question of how much should a

battlefield look like, and how much of our money should be spent

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to make it look like the battle so that people who come can get a

sense for the battle.

How can that be balanced with the question of the vistas aren’t

the same because there is private property up some and maybe

having trees there makes you feel more like it was the battle than

if you didn’t have the trees blocking, say, this swing set next door.

And in particular, obviously the peach orchard was one of the

questions here. Vicksburg is a huge question because when you go

through Vicksburg it is like, well, if you can imagine the cannon

shot through that group of trees but we wanted to preserve the

drive—the role of monuments, which is a somewhat debated question, although kind of moderated now. Could you comment on a few

of those questions?

Mr. WILBURN. Well, they are very good questions. And your

Vicksburg comment, I agree with you on that one for sure. There

is a general management plan to restore the battlefield as closely

as possible to the 1863 existence. And the Friends of the National

Parks are firmly in agreement with that.

Currently, a large number of trees have been cut down near

what we call the Sedgwick Monument if you are familiar with that,

on the southern end of Big Round Top. And when those trees are

gone, the interpretation is so much different than it was 5, 10, even

50 years ago.

It is absolutely crucial I believe and the Friends believe that we

create as realistic as possible of a setting and an interpretation for

visitors. In order to do that we have to have input from virtually

every possible source.

The town, you know, the town of Gettysburg needs to have input,

the local governments, the State government, and National government, people who are interesting in this area. The reason being,

whatever we do is going to cause controversy. So we have to form

coalitions to get as much support as possible. The money that is

needed, quite honestly, has to come from a variety of sources.

We have always felt that we will do our part and then some if

at all possible to help with that. As a historian and an ex-history

teacher and, you know, background for a long, long time trying to

convince people of the importance of history and correct interpretations, I firmly believe that we need to restore this ground.

The peach orchards, for instance, and I mentioned that there

were seven of them around this town in 1863. Now we cannot

knock down half of this college to make it look like it did in 1963.

And we can’t, you know, destroy a large number of properties and

all that. There has to be reason. There has to be logic.

But once we create a plan, we need to follow through with it.

And the plan that was created a few years ago is really a good one.

So I don’t know what else I could tell you.

Mr. SOUDER. Would you—and I am going ask other witnesses as

well—maybe you can—Ms. Oakes, Mr. Lighthizer can comment on

this too—is that when we have a question in a somewhat zero-sum

game—not appears zero-sum, but a somewhat zero-sum game of

inholdings, additional purchases, preservation of assets and of

them looking at this question of trying to get the battlefields to

look as much like the battlefields, where would you put the

prioritization?

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And more particular, let me ask this question about the

inholding question that was raised about Gettysburg. In certain

places we do these land use questions where we can negotiate a 50-

year land use—this is usually more used in rural settings—but I

am wondering how this can be used in cultural and historic parks

as well for limited change of the landscape in return.

Is that a way to leverage some of the funds? Has that been

looked at at Gettysburg? And how do you prioritize these kinds of

tradeoffs? Because in real dollars Gettysburg has a management

plan. Other places are developing those. Others haven’t even—we

haven’t even added to it.

So it is more of a philosophical question, how it has been resolved at Gettysburg, but you have some questions inside Gettysburg as well. What is your advice on something like that? And has

it been done here, to keep a vista that somebody would keep their

land and negotiate it for half of the price of what it would cost to

buy the land? This is what we did with Elkhorn Ranch in North

Dakota on Teddy Roosevelt’s farm.

Mr. WILBURN. We have tried some things like that and are in the

process. Some of the programs that the Federal Government has

where they provide matching funds, they just don’t apply here because when we are looking for land that is within the park boundaries or contiguous to the park, we can’t find those funds. But we

have tried living estates with some folks.

I think the most crucial point is that we need to pick the properties that are going to be the most beneficial to a good interpretation and then try to secure them. If you were on the first day’s battlefield and you looked across that broad field, much of it is safe,

much of it as close to the 1863 scene as possible.

But there are a few spots that need to be adjusted. If we could

find programs that would allow either Federal or State money to

be matched with privately raised money, that would be a great

help. You have a difficult task, an extremely difficult task to weigh

all of these issues. We weigh them on a smaller scale of simply trying to find the money. We actually need some more sources for government funding for places like Gettysburg.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Oakes, do you have any comments?

Ms. OAKES. Well, a few thoughts. Having been involved in the

Toll Brothers controversy at Valley Forge, it is so much better if

you can make the funding available before the rezoning gets done,

before the land is platted, because the price just goes up. And I am

so happy that Congress expanded the boundary of Harpers Ferry,

this last Congress, and area people moved to Jefferson County,

West Virginia because they can’t afford housing prices in metro

D.C. and so that is on kind of the leading edge of being proactive.

But some of the land inside the expanded boundary already has

its perk test done, so we are not ahead of the curve entirely there.

One place we can get ahead of the curve or at least stay even with

it is Petersburg where the park has gone through a very meticulous analysis of the historic significance, the existing integrity of

land identified by the Commission 10 years ago now, and come up

with a very reasonable proposal for expanding. My feeling is that,

just as been mentioned, you put asphalt on it, it is likely gone forever. If it is not gone forever, it costs you a lot more to get it back.

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And so taking advantage of those opportunities, being proactive,

is critical. And also providing funding to take care of the assets you

have, to fix the leaky roofs. One of the maintenance backlog keep

growing is because the parks don’t have the maintenance staff to

do the day-to-day maintenance, to fix the shingle this year instead

of having to fix half the roof next year.

And so that is critical, and that is why expanding the pot a little

bit through the Centennial Act is so important.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, Mr. Lighthizer.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, you had mentioned

inholdings. We have land also inside the park boundary that isn’t

necessarily an inholding in the sense that it is not surrounded by

federally owned property. We do that all the time. We have done

it at Gettysburg. In fact, Bob will tell you we went and bought

some property right near where the new Visitor Center is proposed

to protect it from development, not so much because it was historically significant.

We are talking right now down at Fredericksburg about a piece

of property that is in the park service boundary that is looking in

the $6 to $8-million range, real money. And Joy mentioned the

park boundary extensions. That cuts both ways for us because once

it becomes part of the—boundary has expanded, we can’t use that

land in water conservation money, as you probably know, Mr.

Chairman, for purchases inside the boundaries.

So we have to go it alone or we have to find other Federal or

State money to match it, which is significantly more difficult.

And last, she mentioned Petersburg. Petersburg has presently—

the current government owns about 2,700 to 2,900 acres of land.

We will buy, outside of their boundaries over a 6 or 7-year period

starting from 3 years ago to about 4 years from now, we will buy

about that same amount of Petersburg core battlefield as the Federal Government presently owns now. The Civil War Preservation

Trust will. And we will do it largely through the Land and Water

Conservation Fund, matching money, that you all created. But it—

we do it all the time.

I think probably the main mechanism in the county other than

the National Park Service for buying land within Park Service

boundaries.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you use the easements?

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. Oh, yes, sir. We use both. In fact, we did easements at Fairfield here and in East Calvary Field where we used—

interesting enough, in Fairfield, the western part of the battlefield,

the cavalry engagement, we used Farm and Ranchland Protection

money that the Congress authorized to buy the developer rights

still in the private sector—private hands.

Mr. SOUDER. And how long did the easements generally last?

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. That is forever.

Mr. SOUDER. OK, so that——

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. That is——

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. That is a long time.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes. That generally will work.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. Yes.

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Mr. SOUDER. Because sometimes there are times—it is just timedelayed.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. But the cost varies based on that. And kind of if

I can go through—I am going to finish with Ms. Oakes on a broader question. But in your magazine that listed your most endangered sites that I went through last night, you also had some that

didn’t have some detail, and one of those was Glorieta, which is the

far western battlefield in the Civil War, Mr. Lighthizer. Do you

know why that was listed in particular, Glorieta Pass?

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. Mr. Chairman, if my memory serves me right,

I think there is a significant road expansion there.

Mr. SOUDER. OK.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. That is my recollection.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. That is right out of Santa Fe I think.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. I haven’t been there.

Mr. SOUDER. But that was interesting because it was this one

battle that was the far western battle and also is——

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. I think it was the last Confederate victory, too.

Mr. SOUDER. Is it? I think it is part of Pecos National Park,

which has a mix of different things, but that is a road question

there predominantly. That in this fund that you use for the

matches, if it was bigger, would you get more dollars to match? Is

it predominantly a limitation of—you said there are 26 and you

have used 20. Is that because you don’t have enough demand or

match dollars, or if the fund was bigger, would more be preserved?

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. If the fund was bigger, we could easily match it. Mr. Chairman, the authorization bill is for $10 million a year

over 5 years. And the first year the President put $2 million in, the

Congress approved it. Last year it was $5 million and the Congress

approved it. This year it is back to $2 million. I am telling you if

it was all $10 million every year we would easily match it. I absolutely guarantee. And the other groups besides us compete for that

money. We are not the only ones, although we tend to get the lion’s

share because we are the only national group.

But the answer to your question is that sole limitation is what

Congress appropriates. If they did $10 million, we would do $10

million. We would match it. If they did $15 million, we would do

$15 million. Because it is a tremendously great selling tool to be

able to tell a private sector donor or a State or a local government,

would you like to double your money or triple it or quadruple it?

Mr. SOUDER. Now it just seems to me from a budget standpoint

that things that have matches should be sought out by us. What

are some of the downsides of what that would do in a prioritization

system? In other words, if we move more dollars to matching programs, assume that you are in a relative zero-sum game—I am not

saying the budget wouldn’t go up a little, but it is not going to go

up as much as you would be by moving it—would then you get

which battlefields are most popular, which are by big metro areas,

who has a particular wealthy person who is willing to donate to

that fund, that could distort the preservation of history to some degree, and is that not—since a lot of this is value judgment, is that

not how democracy works to some degree and the government can

fill it in?

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Could you walk that through what that might do to Civil War

battlefields if some of the dollars actually went out of—instead of

an increase in the actual what goes to the parks but to the land

acquisition fund that is matched 50/50.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. Yes, I think the Park Service worries about

that. First, we only buy from willing sellers, so that is defined by

the free enterprise system and the market.

Second, with all due respect to the Park Service, we move a lot

faster. And we don’t have the restraints that a government has.

I used to be in government. I was an elected official once, and

we don’t have the constraints that governments have, so we can

move faster. Sometimes we can get it for a better price. There is

a lot of things we can do that they can’t. I would like to think that

it wouldn’t be a zero-sum game in the sense that anything we get,

the Park Service wouldn’t.

But certainly, the Congress, who represented, of course, the citizens and the taxpayers, is getting a greater bang for their buck if

they can double their money or triple their money or quadruple

their money. And that certainly is the case here. We have the advantage of the tax laws as a nonprofit. You can make a charitable

donation for part of the purchase price, as you know, and get if off

your taxes, whether it is State and Federal. And we use those.

I mean, for every $1 of our member’s money, we multiply it by

seven. And some of it is Land and Water Conservation, some of it

is the tax law, some of it is State money, but it is a huge multiplier. And that is a historic fact, and it is documented.

But I would hope that the National Park Service wouldn’t look

at our gain and leverage and the taxpayer’s gain as their loss.

Mr. SOUDER. And one of the difficult things, as the Governor

would certainly say, is that while it is not a perfect zero-sum game,

in fact, the parks gain to some degree means somebody may not

get a flu shot or a soldier doesn’t get an armored Hummer as

quick. I mean, that is what we have to do is decide how much do

you put into preservation of things. If they are lost, they aren’t

going to be there. How much do you put into the education of a

ranger at a park, and we have to figure out how to leverage the

dollars.

But to do that we have to have adequate information for what

tradeoffs we are actually making, which sometimes, because nobody wants to show us the actual numbers and what is happening,

it is very difficult to make a real tradeoff. Clearly, it doesn’t matter

whether Republicans or Democrats are in control in any given

State or at the Federal level right now, everybody is feeling the

budget crunch, and all sorts of programs are under pressure.

I happen to believe that the parks need more money because if

you lose them, you don’t get them back. And the cultural resources,

much of the natural, and you have an obligation to pass that on.

But we also have to be very wise stewards of the dollars.

Another very, very difficult and explosive and emotional question

is ranger interpretation and education. Clearly, we cannot provide

the same levels as the public demand increases if you look at it in

decade periods as opposed to incrementals of where a park may go

up and down in a given period.

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But looking, Mr. Lighthizer and Mr. Booz, in particular, at the

Civil War parks, I know, for example, this interpretation question,

the number of—Ms. Oakes, can I ask you—you said basically three

of four are getting the tours and one of four are being left out? Is

that the way I understood—and that to some degree even that is

a skewed figure because, for example, I know that school trips coming from my district into Washington, DC, if they even knew it was

offered, would, alone, take up the entire year’s ranger supplies.

That I only learned about this when my son, when he was back in

the fifth grade at Antietam, they said they were going to stop at

Antietam, and could we set up any type of thing? And I learned

then that there was a ranger program.

But generally speaking, the park’s ranger programs orient to the

school districts around them unless somebody discovers it. It is not

possible, quite frankly, if one congressional district in northeast Indiana could take up all the rangers who do education at Gettysburg

or Antietam to meet all that school demand.

So the question is, how do we creatively provide this, because we

are investing all this taxpayer money in these parks, which are

both cultural and scientific, that I believe there ought to be more

on the Internet; I believe there ought to be more for teachers’ aids;

I believe there ought to be pacts that the teachers can do some of

this. It becomes, then, a ground management as opposed to an education management.

But how do you see the volunteer groups at the various parks

doing this? Are there things that we can do to give incentives

there? Do they get tax deductions for mileage, tax deduction for

volunteer time? Should there be a standardized training program

if it is a supplemental program? What can we do to make the education experience as accurate as possible without losing a qualitative and have the rangers—where we are never going to meet the

public demand, but have them be an integral part of the training

and key programming and making sure that there is historically

accurate presentations rather than kind of very partisan interpretations, which I know from time to time get into even Civil War

history. Not Republican/Democrat, but certainly different people

have strongly divergent views of the same battle.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. My response is that I guess certainly you have

hit the nail on the head as far as the Internet goes. Our organization is free to any teacher. We have a curriculum for different age

groups or different grades and age groups that is on the Internet

that is free to any teacher. And that certainly a teacher that was

going to take his or her kids to Antietam as an example can go and

get smart real quick if that is the only way they can do it.

Mr. SOUDER. Is there any attempt by your organization to integrate with what the Park Service does? Or is it up to the teacher

to read samples over here and samples over here and sees which

one they like?

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. To my recollection we don’t integrate real close

with the—as far as teaching goes. I mean, the second part of our

mission is education, and part of that is teaching teachers how to

teach the war. And we have teachers conferences, etc., but Mr.

Chairman, I can’t think off the top of my head where we work specifically with the national parks.

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Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Booz.

Mr. BOOZ. In one of my previous lives I was a high school principal, so that question is very meaningful to me. I would encourage

my teachers to apply for the program. On the first day that we

knew it was available, they sent in the applications, and we were

in Central Maryland, half an hour from here. We never got in because there was such a demand. So I don’t know that it matters

whether you are from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana,

you know, it is just such a demand.

The conference that Jim referred to for teachers, one of my teachers went there, regarded it as one of the most outstanding conferences and educational experiences he had ever had. And he was

a 30-year veteran with plenty of accolades.

I believe that Gettysburg is real fortunate in that we have the

licensed battlefield guides who do a superb job of enlightening people. But we could also expand that. The volunteer programs like

the Friends would be thrilled to be involved.

I doubt that the Park Service will ever be able to provide enough

rangers or enough guides for the park when the real heavy tourist

season comes in. I believe it would be extremely helpful to create

a plan where a volunteer organization such as ours could help out.

We have hundreds of members who would love to do that. However, the training would have to be, you know, a good training

where people needed to go through it so that we don’t get the extremists that you are talking about. And the demand is there.

Mr. SOUDER. As we kind of look at it nationally, this is—and you

kind of take the subparts out—how we are going to do Visitor Centers, how we are going to do land acquisition? Education and information is a huge component of this. And it has been very interesting because this battlefield is arguably the most studied and written about of anything that we have in the National Park Service.

And if it can’t work here, how is it going to work elsewhere?

But I have run into just—in wandering around through the Park

Service, this is a huge question. In New Orleans they are having

this argument right now because they have had these populous

tours that go through, and if you take those, you would think that

it is basically brothels and ghosts. And the Park Service would like

to have it be somewhere in the buildings and some other things including brothels and ghosts. And how do you balance that?

In the Klondike Gold Rush there is a similar type of thing that

wants to happen there because there, the cruise ships come in, and

they want to sell their tours on the cruise ship. And to get the attendance they jazz it up. And the history becomes less precise as

they go through because they are trying to sell more tours. And so

the question comes, as we privatize in trying to leverage this, what

are we going to lose in the quality of the history, and at the same

time realize that it is something that is inevitably going to happen

to a degree?

Is there some kind of a way, if the Park Service says no, only

our guides are going to provide the tours, this isn’t sustainable.

Even if we increase the budget, it isn’t going to be sustainable.

How can we get some kind of a marrying here, and your system

here has to be a model because if it can’t work here, I don’t know

how we are going to work it in New Orleans and the Klondike.

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Mr. BOOZ. The Friends have our headquarters in the Rupp

House, and we have the Rupp House History Center. When that

was created—and the History Center has been opened—this will be

its third year I believe—when that was created we worked very

closely with the park and with the plans, you know, that the park

had to make sure that our interpretations were appropriate. And

even in the last 3 weeks we have made some revisions because we

have come up with some more information that would help the interpretation. So, you know, we are trying to do what I think you

are asking.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, not to mention I remember at Saratoga being

told that there was a Pentzler’s operation, and now we are finding

out that it was a bluff. So history is not necessarily locked in place

either. Ms. Oakes, you covered the broader region in addition to the

Civil War parks, and I wanted to go through—you have some of

this in written testimony, but I wanted to draw it out a little bit

more. In Gettysburg you said 63 cents for every dollar. Could you

explain what the gap is and elaborate on that a little bit?

Ms. OAKES. Right, and in fact we could provide a copy of the Gettysburg business plan that was completed in partnership with

MPCA. That gives all the detail you would want. But we found

that in each of the five basic areas of park services there were

shortfalls. So visitor services, resource protection, the law enforcement, maintenance, there were shortfalls in each one. The details

aren’t in my head, but I am happy to provide that for the record.

Mr. SOUDER. I would. And for each of the places you refer to is

if you could——

Ms. OAKES. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Give us a more detailed——

Ms. OAKES. Absolutely.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Because when we publish, the record

of course will have a—each one will be a little book on each region,

in effect.

Ms. OAKES. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. And then we hope to combine them into a final report that is more abbreviated, and then what my former boss—

when I worked for Dan Coats—referred to as the 1–5–20 rule. The

memo reads 1 page; if he gets a little interested he reads 5 pages,

and then if he gets real interested he reads 20. Well, this would

be a more elaborate version of that. But he wanted to know that

we had the 20 each time we did a 1 even if he never looked at the

20, because we need to be able to sustain the details of the arguments that are made in the shorter part.

Ms. OAKES. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. But if I understood your statement that, in fact, it

is made up a number of series of areas, and then you look at that

and say the shortfalls are each of those areas. When you define a

shortfall, is that a combination as a principle? Now, not Gettysburg

in particular. As a principle, how did you determine what the dollar level was? What the needs are stated in the business plans as

goals? Is there a rating of the severity of—in other words, is it

based on they used to have this many rangers; now they have this

many rangers? And to keep it funded at that level, that added to

the dollar. Is it they had backlog that was deteriorating, needed to

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be done? Does it also include, for example, a row that they would

like to have or the land acquisition of inholding that they would

like to have as well?

Ms. OAKES. Right, for Gettysburg, the 63 cents that they have for

every dollar they need is based simply on the annual operations,

although the plan does identify the major maintenance backlog

projects and does not—I don’t believe, but we can check that—identify the land acquisition needs in dollar amounts, probably in acreage amounts. And I think I mentioned it is about a 20-percent private ownership.

But that annual operations budget is based on really taking the

budget apart and putting it back together in a process that was

vetted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers that we worked—when the

MPCA was directly involved in producing these plans, we would

hire graduate students from the top business school in the country—Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, etc.—and they would live in the

park for 2 or 3 months working on a daily and sometimes hourly

basis with the park financial managers to take that budget apart

and look at given Park Service standards, given visitorship, given

the assets in the park, what are the needs. And the students, their

basic question was why. I mean, their job was to challenge and

analyze everything, and that is what they did.

Mr. SOUDER. What would be helpful, and I know you have done

a thorough examination in that basis, and that should be a core,

because one of the things we are looking at, how do we keep up

the basic operating——

Ms. OAKES. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. But then, as we have discussed, as we

have looked at the funding question, there is—to the degree that

doesn’t take into consideration backlog, because this isn’t going to

be possible to do for every park, but if you can pick a couple—this

is kind of as we move through the hearing process that are not

kind of outrageous examples, throw out the biggest here and the

lowest here and kind of give what is a pattern. What are the opportunities that we may be missing as well, and if there are certain

backlog things in that. Because it is one thing to argue to Congress, look, the basic operating is not being covered.

And there are several possible ways to address that. One of

which I have been advocating with the Appropriations Committee

is Homeland Security ought to be treated as a separate line item.

I saw the—out of Homeland Security not in the parks budget. That

others are similarly making that argument.

I saw in this morning’s newspaper that the airports are making

this argument—that we ought to be not charging the airports for

homeland security. Other agencies are having the same challenge,

but in the Park Service, particular with icons, disproportionate—

their budget, I believe, they are being hit, and they don’t have the

means with which to pass through—like on an airline ticket—for

users.

To the degree that there are, I am one who believes the demonstration fee, building fees, and the people who are using the park

should pay a portion of it just like I believe people who use the airports should pay a portion of it, but that is not always easy to collect.

98

At Apostle Island, for example, 80 percent enter the islands there

don’t go through a Visitor Center anywhere, so how in the world

would Apostle Island be funded? Different parks have an easier

time of that. But the other tradeoff is while we are looking at the

operating, we don’t want to get everybody so obsessed just on the

operating that we miss huge opportunity costs because we say look,

we are so far behind on maintenance, we are so far behind on operating, we can’t add this piece of land that then gets paved over,

and we can never do it.

There is a very interesting balance here that we are trying to

work through when we look at the funding question because, to

some degree, our philosophy thus far has been grab the land, we

will worry about staffing it later. Now we are finding out we don’t

have the dollars with which to staff it because we have grabbed so

much.

And then we have had this kind of—other than boundary adjustments, very minimal adding at critical places, particularly in areas

where there are inholdings with right to sell. For example, there

was one little piece—my argument was at Grand Teton—that because everything else was gradually taken over in the area, we increased the value of that inholding beyond of which it used to be

valued, and now it is millions of dollars. But they can put up apartments right in the middle of—I think it is by Jenny Lake.

And, you know, while we have to get that one—or the example at Manassas where it is $220,000 an acre, that because he got a

zoning ability by that, it gets outlandish if you don’t act. And then

your kind of goose is cooked so to speak when you get to the end

and how to do this tradeoff.

But clearly, we have a lack of understanding in Congress about

the basic maintenance. And that is one of the things that we are

trying to illustrate here. You mentioned a number of parks in the

region. Do you see these as being—you picked these because they

were relatively typical. Have you looked at the budget pressure of

some of the—what colloquially call ‘‘postage stamp’’ parks?

Ms. OAKES. The little bitty ones. Well, Fort Necessity would be

one that is an example—fairly small part in southwestern Pennsylvania. And their actual budget remained the same from fiscal year

1994 to fiscal year 2004. And we all know the cost of living didn’t

stay the same in those 10 years.

And in fact according to the Consumer Price Index a 1994 dollar

bought you 79 cents worth in 2004. And so the purchasing power

of that park eroded more than $200,000 during that time period,

so that meant, you know, less ability to do that day-to-day maintenance, and do interpretation.

And that is a park where—it is very interesting because despite

all that, they have done some really fabulous things. They have a

full-time curator who has actually cataloged all of their artifacts.

And so they know what they have; they can make it available to

the public. There are such benefits from that kind of being on top

of your collection. And they have done that, this little park that is

losing purchasing power every year.

They also have a really extraordinary public-private partnership

that, again, the Commonwealth as well as the Park Service and

private citizens stepped up to build an $111⁄2-million Visitor Center

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that should open later this year. But surprise, surprise, the operating funding is a concern. And the building is several times larger

than the existing Visitor Center, which was very small and is high

tech, state-of-the-art. Lots of electricity will go through that building even though it is built to be efficient. And they need a bump

up in funds in order to staff this state-of-the-art jewel that will be

open to the public in a few months.

Mr. SOUDER. Would your position at MPCA, at least within your

region, be that if we have these difficult tradeoffs to make—because obviously, even if we increased from 3 to, say, 6 percent,

which I am not holding my breath we are going to do— that would

move us, what, from 63 cents on the dollar to, say, 66 cents on the

dollar—are there certain units or pieces of parks that you would

see us all turning over to States or trying to look at different management things? Because quite frankly, one of the problems with

the Park Service from the very beginning has been that individual

Congressmen make a decision that they want to put something in

the Park Service.

Sometimes—I know former director Rydenhower, who came up

with this whole idea of heritage areas to keep us from adding new

parks, and now watch the heritage areas start to take the money

from the parks, even more loosely defined, but, for instance—which

we do—my response was yes, well, that was two of the first four

parks in the Park Service. That is not new.

And in fact, Mackinac Island was one that is no longer a National Park. Do you think that is a justified look in the Park Service as we look at the budget to say look, is Grant’s Tomb really

something—not to pick on that one—that should be an integral

part given the operating costs of the tradeoff of what that means

for Gettysburg or other parks?

Ms. OAKES. Well, that is quite a tough question. I think it is reasonable to ask a question like that. I am not sure what the answer

would be. I think there are a lot of tradeoffs that aren’t obvious at

the beginning of answering that question that could have detrimental impacts from taking a unit out of the system. And so it is a reasonable question to ask, but I hope we would be very careful and

thoughtful and analytical in how it would be answered.

Mr. SOUDER. It is a very, very difficult question, but as we look

at challenges such as we don’t have very many Asian history things

in our park system, as we look at Hispanic-type things. If we just

get into frozen history—and by the way, I am not one who believes

that—I don’t want to overstate this point because as a conservative

Republican and somebody who believes that individual leaders are

a key part of history and we shouldn’t just give up because the

bulk of the early leaders were White males to use what I often

hear—the fact is, is that individuals do have extraordinary decisions on a battlefield, and those decisions, for example, may determine which way the course of the country went, and I am not

against that type of thing. But I do believe that we need to look

at other types of categories that aren’t covered in the system.

And if we are never willing to step back and say, did we get too

strong in one area? We get ourselves in an intolerable budget situation, even as somebody who is advocating huge increases in the

Park Service. Governor.

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Mr. THORNBURGH. I just wanted to add one thought, Mr. Chairman, that when it comes to either making up a shortfall or deciding upon the desirability of an expansion, either a physical expansion or service expansion, that the checklist for making those determinations always include the question of whether or not there is

an opportunity to establish a public-private partnership that relieves some of the budget pressure on the agency in question, in

this case, generally the Park Service.

I think there are a lot more opportunities out there that are

being availed of at the present time. And if that kind of item was

included on such a checklist, you have an opportunity, I think, to

kind of draw out community resources to participate in these

projects and maybe dampen some of the negative effect that comes

from limited dollars in the public sector.

Ms. OAKES. If I may, I think parks are looking more at opportunities for enhancing revenues; for example, Shenandoah is looking

at having a license plate that at the Smokies, I believe it was, has

generated several hundred thousand dollars. And that is real

money for that park. So they are also looking at automated fee collection at some of the access points. Of course, you can walk in

from neighboring property and other ways, but there are a number

of roads that transect the park, and there are some places to have

those fee collections that would increase revenue in addition to a

number of strategies. And a lot of parks are looking for that.

So, you know, the questions include how do we make the pot a

little bigger? And obviously the Centennial Act would help with

that. But also, with these partnerships—and the Museum Foundation here at Gettysburg is a great example—they are building the

building and they are raising an endowment for that. And that is

fundamentally important for future such partnerships.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. That is particularly true with respect to land

acquisition. As I said, my organization in 5 years has done over

15,000 acres. That is far, far more, my guess is, than the National

Park Service has done as far as battlefield. And the vast majority

of that land will never be owned by the National Park Service or

controlled by it or administered by it. You know, that land will be

in State parks, local parks, or we will own it, or other individuals.

So certainly when it comes to land and as the Governor mentioned, facilities related to that, there is just almost an infinite variety of opportunities for the private sector. Because these things

are popular. I mean, they haven’t raised $69 million by accident

and most of it in the private sector. It is because people care.

And we haven’t raised the tens of millions of dollars that we

have from the private sector by accident. It is because people really

care about this stuff.

Mr. SOUDER. One of the things—I know this is my MBA temperament, it drives me crazy that coming from the business sector

and into government and first coming in in social issues, it bothered me there too.

And then looking at the parks it is the same way, that it almost

appears from the budgeting standpoint forward, it is a cash-management decision that is looked at park level then geographically

rather than thematically. And that visitors come at the parks in

two ways: both geographically and thematically.

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If you are interested in the Civil War, you are going to go to Civil

War sites—if you are interested in the Revolutionary War. And it

would seem to me from a management standpoint of prioritization

as well in budgeting that you would then look at it thematically

and say if it is Lewis and Clark, we don’t need to have every interpretive center in the United States tell the entire story of Lewis

and Clark. You have a major, major center of Lewis and Clark; you

have here how these different things go in. It drove me crazy going

through the Lewis and Clark that I could go into multiple National

Park Service Centers and not see, if you want additional information on the Lewis and Clark, go see Ft. Clatsop over here up in

where they wintered in the Mandan area over here, go down to the

arch for the launch—that there is not even a concept of integration

well across the region. They may even be out of State, that not

thinking like the consumer who is paying for it.

But also then saying, what are our holes in the management system? What are we missing? How do we make the decision whether

this collection is more important than this decision? Because if the

decision is being made within each park and then within each region, it is not being made as part of a category.

And in a budgeting standpoint, to me that would seem to be

missing a key element. When you are looking at the battlefields,

for example, in the Civil War, how do you balance off Pea Ridge

and Glorieta Pass with additional space at Gettysburg? How significant was it? If that is not occurring, all you are doing is doing

a regional cash management decision, which Congressmen can get

something written in.

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. You are deciding it in a vacuum, which is not

the way to decide it. In the case of the program I am talking about,

Land and Water Conservation Program that you all fund, there are

performance measures that the Office of Management and Budget

applies to that program. How efficient is it? How much needs to be

saved? How do you define what needs to be saved? What kind of

bang are you getting for your dollar? Where is the leverage, etc. So

performance standards, in addition to looking at it from the big picture, like you say somatic, is also important.

Mr. SOUDER. Are the Civil Wars looked at thematically in the

system? Do you see that any?

Mr. LIGHTHIZER. I don’t think so.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Oakes, do you see that in other categories, not

just Civil War, but for example authors, former presidents, Asian,

Hispanic? There has been some attempt on Hispanic because it is

a rising tourism category. That categorically to look at this—I

know more or less the Lewis and Clark Caucus forced it on the

Lewis and Clark.

Ms. OAKES. Right, well, one of the park brochures that I have

bought a lot of and given to my friends with kids my son’s age is

a Park Service brochure on the Civil War, ‘‘Civil War at a Glance’’

and they pack a lot in to one brochure, but it does give you a sense,

both of how the war played out geographically, and also the actual

conduct of the war. So that is a small thing.

There has been a lot of controversy, I think, over the recent years

about interpretation of Civil War battlefields. Some folks wanted

just to hear military tactics because if you don’t hear them on a

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battlefield, where else are you going to hear them? The superintendent of Gettysburg, in fact, has been one of the leaders in advocating to his peers that the causes and consequences of the war

be interpreted not only at Gettysburg but other sites.

So that is something else that is going on. Another initiative in

this region that you may know about is the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, which is a truly fabulous effort that we are hoping

that at some point there will be one or more new units of the National Park System in the Chesapeake Bay region.

But for now, what that does is exactly what you are talking

about, is linking interpretation and themes. You can go on that

site, and if you are interested in Civil War history, among the units

that have signed up for the Gateway System, you can find that out.

If you are interested in African American history, you can find that

out. So that is something happening right here in part because of

the leadership of the just-retired regional director of the Park Service in the Northeast.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, I thank you all for your input. Is there anything anybody wants to add? We may do some individual followup

questions. One of the things we are doing is looking at the—but not

precisely, we are not the Appropriations Committee at the funding.

We are looking at the management structure, how it is set up, is

there adequate funding, can we preserve it.

But also internally, obviously you get into all sorts of decisions

on the role of public-private partnerships, the role of demo fees, the

role of outside groups and interpretation, all sorts of supplemental

things that go into the pieces of that budget and how you meet the

difficult dollar questions.

It is important in these hearings that we look not only at the

shortfall, which is one of the primary things to illustrate the fact

of what I have been hearing at the grassroots, that there are adequate dollars to even keep the parks at the current level of interpretation and environmental sensitivity and the road upkeep no

matter whether it is visitation or scientific and environmental.

At the same time it is to look at, in addition to Federal funds,

can we do public-private partnerships? The first time I went to Yellowstone as a furniture retailer my background was—do you have

licenses for this furniture to go out and get some additional revenue?

And this has been one of my pet causes, and if any of you have

any suggestion, we are stumbling over how to do it, but there is

a lot of receptivity as we look at the demonstration fees and making more fees on whether it is a vehicle, whether it is a tour guide,

whether it is all this type of stuff.

And I believe, basically, that our national parks pass needs to go

up in dollars. But how to give a basic cost breakthrough for the

fees for low-income families, because that is the only argument.

Will it make it the upper/middle income and rich people’s playground?

And we have talked about whether if you have submitted in your

taxes whether it could just be a straight credit off, but even whether the low-income target groups would save the receipt until they

get to the year to put that in, because that would be the simplest

way to do it: save any receipt you have at a Park Service, submit

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it. Rather than a deduction it would come straight off as a credit.

In other words, you get the full dollars back if you are below a certain income.

What would be another way to do this? Because to me that is the

only real fundamental question underneath the fee structure. The

fees are so minor compared to the cost of going to the movies, compared to going to amusement parks. That is not the fundamental

question. The question is, access for people where it may make a

difference, at the margin.

And we have been toying around as the demonstration fee bill

moves, is there a way—and there is basically agreement in concept

to try to address this. An agreement in concept is different. I mean,

is there something we give somebody at the gate, but then does

that have a stigma to it?

It is not easily resolved, but it is one that as these costs go up, if it is $20 to get into Yosemite, it is a whole different ballgame

than the old days.

Ms. OAKES. And if I can just add something to that. Shenandoah

has a great record on collecting fee demo money and using it. They

just invested about $300,000 in restoring President Herbert Hoover’s home that he built at Rapidan Camp at the headwaters of the

Rapidan River. And what that fee money doesn’t provide, though,

is the funding for the annual operations, for routine maintenance,

and for the interpretation. They offer——

Mr. SOUDER. Right.

Ms. OAKES [continuing]. Ten ranger-led van tours from the Visitor Center last summer. They are not sure they are going to be

able to provide that same level of interpretation this year. They

have a series of volunteers that live in one of the houses there at

Rapidan Camp who then can unlock the buildings and let the person who hikes in to actually see, but they are not providing the interpretive stories that rangers can provide that really make the

place come alive.

Mr. SOUDER. If you have any suggestions such as that one in

your region on the fee demo, the whole idea is to improve visitor

services.

Ms. OAKES. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. The second thing is, can it be used on maintenance

backlog? And historically, there has been a prohibition on being

used for maintenance. If we changed that, and a certain percentage

could go to maintaining, what would that do for operations to the

backlog? And would the backlog just get bigger proportionally?

What impact would that have?

An argument would be, as a park goes, and particularly those

who get bigger demo fees get their list presumably worked down

from where it was.

On the other hand, of course, I think it was where I said had the

most controversy because they used the demo fee, which they

weren’t supposed to do, to subsidize the transit system early on

and then get called on it. But to some degree is that one place we

got for certain—rather than do it broad for maintaining operations,

could there be certain limited operations that it could be used for

that we could experiment with and see how that works? I would

be interested in any ideas on that because——

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Ms. OAKES. OK.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. It is a huge category. Well, thank you

all for your testimony and for coming this morning. And with that,

this subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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