Republicans at a hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday questioned the effects of sequestration on national parks.  Committee members slammed National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis for overplaying the impacts on parks.  As Greenwire reported:

Several Republican lawmakers—including [Rep. Darrell] Issa [(R-CA), chairman of the committee]—also accused Jarvis of exaggerating the effects of sequestration in the months before it went into effect.

Issa hit Jarvis for his statements about the “draconian effects of sequestration,” claiming that “‘a whistle-blower’ has told the committee that a few parks indicated sequestration wouldn’t affect services at all.”  Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) accused Jarvis of making “a political statement” by highlighting only the famous places that are being impacted.

Yet the on-the-ground facts show that the predictions are actually playing out.  National parks across the country are facing $153.4 million in cuts due to sequestration.  As Climate Progress has previously reported, this means national park superintendents are forced to make tough decisions about their employees’ livelihoods—for example, nearly 1,000 seasonal employees will not be hired this summer.

Here are some of America’s national parks that are already cutting jobs and closing areas because of sequestration:

-   Maine’s Acadia National Park will open many of its popular sites including visitors’ centers a month later than normal.  The news “disappointed” nearby businesses, which make money off of tourists visiting the park.

-  Several campgrounds along the Blueridge Parkway—America’s most visited national park unit—will close for the season.  Other sites that will close include concession areas, picnic sites, and a few visitors’ centers.

-  The James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Ohio has closed on Sundays (one of its busiest days), as well as Mondays and federal holidays.  The park unit will save money on utilities and because must pay higher salaries on Sundays.  Over 300,000 people visit the site every year.

-  The Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania will start its longer summer hours on May 1^st, a month later than usual.  It will also offer fewer interpretative programs.

-  Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota has closed its famous Painted Canyon scenic overlook to save money on the costs of staff, utilities, and custodial services.  Last year 300,000 vehicles stopped at the area to catch a glimpse of the badlands where Theodore Roosevelt once ranched.

In contrast to the harsh and unnecessary cuts forced by sequestration, President Obama’s budget requests an increase for the budget of the National Park Service, to ensure that visitors are well-taken care of at our national parks.

And yet, if changes are not made soon, additional impacts will be felt.  As Jarvis said at yesterday’s hearing, sequestration will cause “every park activity [to] be affected and impacts will continue to accumulate over time.”

President Obama plans to use his executive authority to permanently protect five new national monuments next week.  This marks a significant step for the administration: It is now willing to step in and protect special places when Congress refuses to act.

The new monuments will be:

-  Rio Grande del Norte, in New Mexico

-  San Juan Islands, in Washington

-  First State, in Delaware

-  Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad, in Maryland

-  Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers, in Ohio

Of particular note is Rio Grande del Norte, which at 240,000 acres is the largest monument that the administration has designated thus far.  Also, First State National Monument in Delaware will change the fact that the state is the only one in the U.S. without a national park unit.

The announcement of these designations under the 1906 Antiquities Act fits well with President Obama’s challenge to Congress during his State of the Union address:  “If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.”  The last Congress was the first since World War II that failed to protect a single new acre of parks, monuments, or wilderness, despite millions of acres proposed for protection by adjacent communities.  As John Podesta, Chair of the Center for American Progress put it, “The last Congress was the most anti-environmental in history, so President Obama is right to respond to the calls of local communities that want their public lands protected.”

The permanent protection of hundreds of thousands of acres is also critical because it is the administration’s next step towards putting the conservation of public lands on equal ground with energy development. In the president’s first term, he leased 6.3 million acres of public lands to oil and gas companies, while only 2.6 million acres were protected by Congress and the executive combined.   Last month former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt called on the administration to permanently protect one acre for each one drilled.

Today’s news is welcome for any American who see the economic, health, and other long-term benefits of protected public lands, and is an important advancement for the president in the establishment of his conservation legacy.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

by Jessica Goad

The looming budget crisis and “sequestration” are currently the talk of the town in Washington, D.C.  But often lost in these discussions are the real impacts that Americans will feel if important government programs are cut.

For public lands, January’s massive and automatic budget cuts be will felt strongly in our national parks, some of which could even be closed if a budget deal is not reached.

That’s the message being delivered by the National Parks Conservation Association, a group dedicated to advocacy on behalf of America’s 398 national parks units.  This week, the group is launching an online and print ad campaign to warn lawmakers that slashing the budget of the National Park Service could mean:

…some level of closure at virtually every national park in the system, including reductions in park hours or seasons, closures of campgrounds or visitor’s centers, and even the outright closure of many parks in the next year. And it could eliminate as many as 9,000 rangers who serve the public, protect our parks, and keep the parks running.

NPCA calculates that the cuts could be equivalent to closing as many as 200 national park units.

Like other non-defense agencies, the National Park Service faces cuts under automatic budget sequestration at the beginning of January.  The White House Office of Management and Budget noted that many agencies, including the park service, will see an 8.2 percent cut in funding to critical programs.  This translates to a $218 million cut for national parks in fiscal year 2013.

Slashing this budget so dramatically could be devastating to the park service.  According to OMB, the majority of cuts are to the park operations account, which funds priorities such as law enforcement, visitor education, campground maintenance, etc.  And on top of this, the park service already faces a smaller budget and large maintenance backlog.

While it takes funding to manage national parks, it is important to note the enormous return on investment that they bring.  In addition to preserving our natural and cultural heritage, national parks contributed $31 billion in 2011 and supported 258,000 jobs.  Some have estimated that for every $1 spent on national parks, $4 in economic impacts are generated.

Recent history has shown that voters are willing to spend money on conservation.  Indeed, in the 2012 election, voters in 21 states approved ballot measures that will provide $767 million for parks and conservation.  Since the American public is willing to tax itself for the purpose of conservation, lawmakers should find a balanced approach to the budget crisis that includes revenue increases so as to continue funding important government priorities like national parks.

Whether or not Congressional leaders and the White House reach a budget deal remains to be seen. But it’s certain that we’ll see major changes at our national parks very soon if a deal is not reached.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

By Jessica Goad and Scott Keyes.

Rep. Cliff Steans (R-FL), a birther, one of the leaders of the Solyndra witch hunt and defender of subsidies to Big Oil companies, told constituents at a town hall meeting Belleview, Florida, on February 25 that “we don’t need any more national parks in this country” and that we need to “actually sell off some of our national parks”:

I got attacked in a previous town meeting for not supporting another national park in this country, a 200-mile trailway.  And I told the man that we don’t need more national parks in this country, we need to actually sell off some of our national parks, and try and do what a normal family would do is — they wouldn’t ask Uncle Joe for a loan, they would sell their Cadillac, or they would take their kids out of private schools and put them into public schools to save to money instead of asking for their credit card to increase their debt ceiling.

Watch it:

Our national parks represent America’s heritage, held in trust from one generation to the next.

Despite Stearns’ idea for a national-park fire sale, the facts show that parks, monuments, and other protected places generate a steady stream of wealth for both the treasury and local businesses.  In 2010, Florida’s Everglades National Park generated 2,364 jobs and over $140 million in visitor spending, and Florida’s 11 national parks in total provided $582 million in economic benefits.  The National Park Service also reports that America’s parks overall created $31 billion and 258,000 jobs in 2010.  In addition to their economic impacts, national parks have important value in that they are available to all of us for recreation, not just the wealthy few.

This is not the first time Republican members of Congress have advocated selling off Americans’ public lands without clarifying how taxpayers would get a fair return for them.  Last fall, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) proposed selling off 3.3 million acres of the public lands that belong to all of us.  And former Rep. Richard Pombo proposed selling national parks to mining companies in 2005.

Republican presidential candidates have also recently been confused about the tangible and intangible values of our national parks and public lands.  Mitt Romney told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he doesn’t know “what the purpose is” of public lands, Rick Santorum told Idahoans that public lands should go “back to the hands” of the private sector, and Ron Paul advocated for public lands to be turned over to the states.

HT: Florida Political Action Cooperative.

A years-long disagreement between a California power company and the federal government has delayed renewable energy projects intended to help provide power to facilities in California’s national parks and forests. The Los Angeles Times reports that federal agencies have spent three years trying to work out an agreement with Southern California Edison (SCE) to connect the project with the state’s electrical grid:

The apparent stumbling block involves contract restrictions imposed by federal law, but utilities elsewhere in California have signed similar agreements with the agencies with few problems or delays.

“There’s 24-plus systems in the Southern California Edison area that have been installed in the last three years that we have not been able to negotiate an interconnection agreement on,” said Jack Williams, who retired this month as the National Park Service’s Oakland-based regional facilities manager. [...]

The impasse has hindered the parks’ ability to meet renewable energy goals at a time when federal agencies are rushing to comply with orders to reduce carbon footprints. Equally troubling, officials say, is the financial fallout: a projected saving of tens of thousands of dollars from utility bills hasn’t been realized during the two years the park service and forest service have been negotiating with Edison.

Millions of dollars have been invested in renewable energy projects, like an $800,000 solar project at Death Valley National Park, that remain used while the parks instead continue to buy Energy from SCE. Parks officials at Death Valley told the LA Times that they hoped the project would cut an estimated $31,828 from an annual electric bill of $45,724, a 70 percent drop in energy cost. “It is disappointing to see this big investment sitting idle when we could easily flip the switch and produce benefits,” said park superintendent Woody Smeck.

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last week the Bureau of Land Management took an initial action towards approving the dramatic expansion of Utah’s only strip coal mine located in the Alton Coal Tract in southwest Utah by releasing a draft environmental impact statement for the project. The Coal Hollow Mine is currently located on 635 acres of private land, but the Alton Coal Development company has applied to expand it onto 2,280 surface acres of public lands and 1,296 acres of private lands for a total of 3,576 acres—a more than 500% increase.

The enlarged mine would be located merely 10 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park. The draft environmental analysis of the coal mine released by BLM last week found that there would be major impacts on both the environment and the community surrounding it. In addition to the release of criteria air pollutants, the increased risk of solid waste spills, and impacts to Bryce Canyon’s famous night skies, the BLM’s draft environmental analysis found that:

There would be an adverse impact to recreation, and adverse impacts to sense of community, social well-being, and tourism-related businesses.

In the press, a BLM official did not play down the adverse impacts of the mine—district planner Keith Rigtrup said “It’s a project with significant impacts.”

Of note is the fact that the BLM did not analyze the effects of mining and burning this coal on global climate change because, it claimed, “existing climate prediction models are not at a scale sufficient to estimate potential impacts of climate change within the analysis area.” In essence, BLM officials declared that the amount of recoverable coal generated by the mine (46 million tons) is insignificant on a global scale, and therefore the agency should not be bothered to analyze its “possible” effects on the climate. The analysis also assumes that “United States demand for coal is expected to increase by approximately 0.4% per year through 2035,” a catastrophic scenario.

A report from the Department of Energy released last week found that global output of carbon dioxide increased by the biggest margin ever recorded last year. As the Associated Press explained, “levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.”

This step in the wrong direction with regard to the Alton coal project is not the Secretary’s first miscalculation with regard to coal development on public lands. In March the Interior Department announced plans to auction off more than 2 billion tons of coal. As ClimateProgress’ Joe Romm said at the time, “This decision certainly eviscerates Salazar’s green street cred.”

The Salt Lake Tribune framed the decision as one that forces Utahns to “debate which kind of economic development is best: heavy industry or tourism.” Bryce Canyon National Park is an economic generator for southwestern Utah, creating 1,628 jobs and $101 million in visitor spending in 2009. Because of the effects of this dirty coal mine on recreation and the national park, the Salt Lake Tribune called the development of the mine “unconscionable” and noted that residents are “right to worry.”

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Late last week Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) and James Lankford (R-OK) introduced the “Regional Haze Federalism Act,” which would impede efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to combat dirty haze that is polluting national parks and wilderness areas. Haze is caused by sunlight coming into contact with small particles of pollutants in the air, which can also harm humans by way of respiratory problems.

National parks such as the Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, and Mesa Verde all suffer from haze pollution, which causes poor visibility and impedes two of the most important reasons these places attract hundreds of millions of visitors every year—fresh clean air and the views. As the EPA explains, “In eastern parks, average visual range has decreased from 90 miles to 15-25 miles. In the West, visual range has decreased from 140 miles to 35-90 miles.”

This map shows the 156 national parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges that must receive protection from or alleviate haze pollution problems. To combat this pollution, all states must submit a plan for reducing that haze to the EPA. Usually these plans involve requiring dirty coal-fired power plants, refineries, or other industrial sources of emissions to add technologies that would clean up their pollution. If the plans fail to clean up the air quality in national parks, the EPA may reject them and implement its own haze plan. Both North Dakota and Oklahoma recently had their state plans rejected because they would not adequately reduce pollution, prompting these Congressmen to introduce this bill.

Berg explained the need for his bill as a way of fighting against the Obama administration and its “overreaching” EPA:

With each new overreaching, one-size-fits-none mandate, the Obama administration continues to burden the states with unnecessary costs and regulations that are hindering job creation. That’s why today I introduce the Regional Haze Federalism Act. This will rein in the Obama administration and prevent a federal takeover of state haze management. States like North Dakota continue to act responsibly to create well-researched plans and to implement EPA-mandated policies.

Watch it:

Berg’s argument is inaccurate—EPA’s actions are not a hostile takeover of state prerogatives to address haze, but a backstop authority if states fail to take care of their citizens’ public health and landscapes. Additionally, utilities have had many years to prepare for the implementation of the plans—the EPA’s Regional Haze Rule was finalized in 1999. Reduction of haze and parks and wilderness areas is a longstanding goal, not an under-the-radar effort by the Obama administration to usurp states’ rights.
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By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last week, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced plans to withdraw 1 million acres around Grand Canyon National Park from new mining claims for 20 years. After a two-year stakeholder involvement process, nearly 300,000 public comments were received on this proposal, 90 percent of which were in favor of the full withdrawal according to Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey. But that has only caused Republicans from both chambers to hurriedly introduce bills that would prevent the Department of the Interior from taking this action and throw open the areas to new mining.

One such bill is Congressman Trent Franks’ (R-AZ) Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011. This morning the House’s Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands held a hearing on the bill, and Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the subcommittee, downplayed the threat of mining near the Grand Canyon. He described the great distance between the Grand Canyon National Park and the new mining claims by stating that the administration’s decision to withdraw 1 million acres around it was:

…something akin to saying that if there was a terrorist threat to the Statue of Liberty they would close down the boardwalk of Atlantic City.

As this map from the Pew Environment Group shows, mining claims have actually been staked right up against the border of the park. Indeed, exploratory mining on one claim just three miles from a lookout into the park began in 2008. Much closer than the 122 miles that separate Liberty Island and Marvin Gardens.

Republicans have been on a warpath in their efforts to allow uranium and other mining around the Grand Canyon to continue. Indeed this is the third time a bill or amendment has been introduced in this Congress to achieve such a purpose — others are S. 1690 from Senator John McCain (R-Z) and a portion of the budget bill H.R. 1 inserted by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Because Flake proposed throwing open 1 million acres to mining companies on a budget bill, Rep. Jesse Jackson referred to that section of the bill as the “Flake earmark for the mining industry.” Flake has already accepted $47,750 from mining interests in the 2012 election cycle.

ThinkProgress reported last week that Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), chairman of the subcommittee in charge of this bill, called the size of the area that would be mined under Frank’s bill “the size of the state of New Jersey” and that “whether we mine or not will have no impact on the Grand Canyon water or tourism that happens to be there.” In today’s hearing Flake called the administration’s decision to protect the Grand Canyon “regulatory overreach based on specious environmental concerns.”

Contamination and discarded waste from uranium mining in the Colorado River and surrounding areas has plagued the national park for years — the contaminated water leaking from the Orphan Mine Site on the South Rim of the canyon is just one example of the legacy of uranium mining. Additionally, in May, the representatives from water authorities in Arizona, California, and Nevada wrote to the committee saying “federal agencies with oversight over mineral exploration and mining operations in the Lower Colorado River Basin must use their authority to prevent any potential for deterioration of this critical water supply for millions of people.”

At the Western Republican Leadership Conference, a GOP summit held after the CNN-Las Vegas presidential debate, ThinkProgress spoke to a set of lawmakers with a history of targeting public lands for privatization. However, Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) bucked the trend, telling us that she actually has never heard of any “single American” from any party that has called for developing the National Parks.

Lummis seems to be ignoring her own colleague, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who called for drilling for oil in the Everglades. But Lummis, for whatever reason, claimed that such ideas were completely foreign and unheard of to her:

LUMMIS: I don’t know a single American — Republican, Democrat, Independent, or other — who wants to develop our National Parks. They’re set aside for the enjoyment of the people of this country. And everybody wants to see that unique resource protected.

KEYES: Including the Everglades, for instance?

LUMMIS: The parts that are National Parks in the Everglades, absolutely.

Watch it:

Its not only Bachmann. Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND), while campaigning for Congress last year, called for drilling for oil underneath North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park and other federal lands as a scheme to pay for Social Security. Additionally, dozens of Republicans in Congress, including Lummis herself, have cosponsored bills that would severely limit the president’s authority to designate new national monuments. Many of the national parks that Lummis defends so easily started out as national monuments, including Grand Canyon National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, and Zion National Park. Just yesterday President Obama designated his first national monument at Fort Monroe, a historic Civil War site in Virginia.