WASHINGTON, D.C.-In response to its poor performance as steward of the national parks, the Bush administration has received a "D-" in a mid-term report card issued by NPCA.
Among the criticisms raised in NPCA's extensive, fact-based assessment are administration proposals to privatize much of the National Park Service's workforce, roll back clean air regulations, and default on President Bush's promise to fully fund the parks.
"The president made strong commitments to the American people about protecting our national parks, and he has failed to keep them," said NPCA President Thomas C. Kiernan. "Instead, our national parks have become victims to the administration's failure to commit to a strong conservation agenda."
NPCA gave the administration an overall grade of "D-" for its performance since January 2001 in five broad categories:
- Protection of Resources such as air quality, wildlife, and historic places;
- Visitor Use;
- Funding;
- Park Administration and Management; and
- The Growth of the National Park System.
The administration received a "C+" for park funding, a "D" for park administration, and an "F" for the other three categories.
The report card lauds several accomplishments of the administration, such as its allocation of $205 million to buy out mineral rights in Big Cypress National Preserve and proposed funding increases for the National Resource Challenge and park transportation systems. However, the report card reveals a series of alarming administration initiatives, such as:
- Its proposal to privatize up to 70 percent of the National Park Service's workforce, including archaeologists, biologists, and entrance station staff, at the expense of the quality of visitor experience and protection of park resources.
- Its policies on air quality, which favor allowing dirty coal-fired power plants and other industrial polluters to avoid clean up, endangering the health of visitors and the condition of resources.
- Its failure to provide significant funding to the parks to follow through on the president's campaign promise to eliminate a long-standing backlog of park maintenance projects.
- Its decision at the urging of snowmobile manufacturers to allow noisy, polluting snowmobiles to continue operation in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, reversing a previous ban approved by the Park Service.
- Its interpretation of a provision in a 137-year-old mining law, RS 2477, that puts major sections of 68 national parks at risk to new roads and other development, including Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley National Park in California,Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska, and Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado.
The report card also grades the administration on its actions affecting individual parks, such as permitting new natural gas exploration and drilling on the shores of Padre Island National Seashore in Texas and reducing the instream water flow through Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park in Colorado.
"Our national heritage is at stake," said Kiernan. "The administration can easily earn a better grade by ceasing the assault on our national parks and exempting the National Park Service from wholesale privatization, strengthening rather than weakening clean air protections, fully funding the needs of our national parks, and upholding the Park Service's ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park."
In May 2001, NPCA issued a preliminary report card that gave the administration a "D."
