NPCA submitted the following position to members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Since 1919, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has been the leading voice of the American people in protecting and enhancing our National Park System. We also work to protect the surrounding landscapes to safeguard wildlife corridors, historical resources, watersheds and more. On behalf of our nearly 1.6 million members and supporters nationwide, we urge you to oppose the reconciliation language from the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Supporting this language is a vote against America’s national parks.
Last year, there was a record 331 million visits to America’s national parks, and for good reason. These cherished places protect and share some of our nation’s most important cultural and natural resources with visitors from around the country and world. The National Park Service (NPS) is considered the most favorable government agency.
Despite this, NPS has been chronically underfunded for more than a decade. The hiring freeze instituted in January, rescission of job offers and forced departure of 2,500 staff only makes matters worse. Instead of pushing back against these attacks, this bill robs the National Park Service of critical staffing funds. Section _0307 rescinds $267 million in funding for rangers, emergency responders, curators, scientists and other critical staffing needs. This dedicated funding fills critical roles in the Park Service’s workforce to help them plan, implement and maintain infrastructure and other improvements across the system. In addition, Section _0307 also rescind $12 million, which is helping prepare national parks across the country for floods, fires and storms. These dedicated investments are small compared to the big results they produce in protecting the natural and cultural resources people want to see when they visit their parks.
Under Section _0301, millions of acres of public lands – specifically U.S. Forest Service (FS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands – would be auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder with no public input or guardrails on what could be developed. These lands are critical to the ongoing protection of national parks, wildlife habitat, clean water sources and public access points to nature. Over 120 national park sites, from Yellowstone to Zion, are directly adjacent to lands managed by the FS and BLM and could be eligible for sale. This could result in accelerated and intense development surrounding national park units without consideration for wildfires, invasive species and a host of impacts that could change the ecological health of our parks. This proposal is ill-conceived and short-sighted.
National parks do not exist in isolation and are part of larger interconnected landscapes. What happens on nearby lands has a direct effect on the water, air and wildlife which move across park boundaries. Oil and gas development on lands adjacent to national parks can have lasting impacts on park resources. Section _0101 seeks to open more federal lands to oil and gas development until all available lands nominated by the oil and gas industry in Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Nevada are leased. At a time when the Department of the Interior is offering as many leases as possible, this bill aims to take in less revenue from industry. Section _0101 also lowers the royalty rate paid by oil and gas companies from the current 16.67% to 12.5% - the rate that was set in 1920. This rate is lower than the royalty rate in the states listed above with oil and gas development on their state lands. The rate is also lowered to 12.5% for offshore oil and gas development in Section _0102. Money from royalties goes to states to use for education, health and safety programs. The money that stays with the federal government goes to help manage western waters, contributes to conservation programs including the Great American Outdoors Act Legacy Restoration Fund and helps fund the U.S. Treasury. This bill would ensure fewer funds flow into these accounts while making it easier to drill for oil near national parks.
The bill also rescinds needed protections where local communities have tried to balance the multiple uses of lands that surround national parks. Section _0201 would force NPS and BLM to approve permits for the Ambler industrial mining road through Gates of the Arctic National Preserve in Northwest Alaska, ignoring the destructive impact this project would have on Alaska Native communities and subsistence food resources, including caribou and salmon. The previous administration’s decision to revoke the permits was based on science, Traditional Knowledge and a robust consultation process that involved the input of numerous Tribes and community members, with 82% of all public comments opposed to the project. The fees this bill imposes on the right-of-way would bring in a scant $5 million over 10 years, placing an insultingly low value on the destruction of a way of life this road will cause.
These provisions are anti-national parks. We urge you to remove them from the bill and to oppose a final bill that includes them.
