onventional wisdom holds that the results of the 2004 election portend disaster for environmental and conservation causes. To be sure, the coming months will pose some threats to the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to name a few. But what do the next few years hold for our beloved parks?
The election appears to have done little to change the landscape for our parks. Control of Congress and the presidency remain unchanged but the ideological make-up of the Senate has shifted to the right, and fiscal issues will continue to pose enormous challenges. But bipartisan support that emerged for the national parks in end-of-session negotiations on appropriations is encouraging.
In 2004, national parks defied conventional wisdom. Despite a strong bias against federal land acquisition, a broad NPCA - led coalition of ranchers, local officials, and chambers of commerce prevailed to pass legislation to add a 128,000 tract to Petrified Forest National Park. And with bipartisan support emerging from Capitol Hill, the final appropriations bill provided every park with at least a 4 percent increase in base operating budgets. Not all the news was good, but we beat the odds and won real victories.
The coming congressional session will see new chairs of the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over the National Park Service, and new chairs on the House and Senate appropriations committees. Secretary Gale Norton will remain at the Department of Interior, but changes are expected there and in the Park Service as well.
Much will be revealed in February when the president's proposed budget is released. Congress stepped to the plate last year to provide the national parks needed cash, but the administration's proposal will play a critical role in sustaining or slowing that momentum.
An important new addition to the debate is the National Park Centennial Act, introduced in 2004 by Reps. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) and Mark Souder (R-Ind.), and 18 of their colleagues from both sides of the aisle. The act will be reintroduced this year in an effort to eliminate the maintenance backlog in the parks and help Congress wipe out a $600 million annual operating deficit.
The massive transportation overhaul that Congress nearly passed in 2004 also means big stakes for national parks. The bill that passed last year in the Senate included $320 million annually for park roads and parkways, doubling the amount that current law provides. The Senate and House bills also authorized a new Transit in the Parks program to infuse much-needed resources into alternative transportation efforts across the system. Because no formal bill was enacted, Congress will try again soon.
Clean air will be another challenge in the coming year. The importance of a strong Clean Air Act is obvious to anyone who has ever visited Sequoia on a smoggy, hazy day, or hiked through the Great Smoky Mountains when rangers warned that outdoor activity was unhealthy because of air pollution; that debate will continue in 2005.
Finally, rumblings have begun that political appointees in the administration may seek to modify the regulatory management policies that have governed the national parks since the year 2000. While this issue may sound rather legalistic, it has everything to do with the experiences our families will encounter in the parks in the coming years.
Congressman Baird has said that America's two most defining legacies are our Bill of Rights and our National Parks. Let's hope Washington treats them that way.
-Craig Obey
