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Traveler's View: There's No Lack Of GOP Chutzpa In The House When It Comes To National Parks

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In their latest effort to stir the National Park Service pot, 94 Republicans in the House of Representatives are striving to redefine "chutzpa."

Despite the estimated loss of at least $76 million a day in tourism-related business across the country, the furlough of more than 20,000 Park Service employees and hundreds more non-profit employees, and the ruination of countless vacations, the 93 members led by Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Michigan, are fretting over how many rangers it takes to keep the World War II Memorial on the National Mall open. Or should that be closed?

Really!

Not surprisingly, considered his unabashed rant against a park ranger in front of the memorial last week, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, is among the signatories.

So, too, is Rep. Michelle Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who, before she was frighteningly concerned with pinching federal pennies, pushed an earmark through Congress to spend an estimated 200,000,000 federal dollars on a bridge across the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. It was a project that four times the Park Service refused to permit because of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, as the St. Croix carries a wild and scenic designation, and which some thought was unneeded and unaffordable.

These 94 are in a tizzy over the barricades the Park Service erected around the World War II Memorial and other memorials on the Mall. They want Park Service Director Jon Jarvis to take a head count of rangers staffing the World War II Memorial and report back to them on whether the seven sighted there the other day was six too many (see attachment). Or maybe even seven too many.

They also want to know why the Park Service changed the wording on signs "placed at each of the closed memorials" from ones bearing the NPS logo to ones without the logo. Oh, and Mr. Director, please tell us how much it cost to make the switch.

Incredible.

We have small businesses that count on strong October tourism dollars to get them through the winter months that are losing tens of thousands of dollars, concessionaires that are losing almost $1 million a day for every day the parks are closed (let's see, today's October 10, so that's a tidy $10 million), and Rep. Huizenga and his co-signers are worried about printing costs for a few dozen signs.

We have had visitors from Japan, Australia, and China (and no doubt other countries) making once-in-a-lifetime visits to the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, only to be locked out, river runners seeking a life-time experience on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon stuck on the beach at Lees Ferry, and these 94 Republicans are worried about barricades on the Mall posing an "unnecessary burden" to "the American people."

Make no mistake, the Park Service has stumbled a time or three in the way it has handled the shutdown process and enforced it. Tone deaf comes to mind in some instances, poor PR in others.

Indeed, in the case at hand, Rep. Huzinega cites a section of the Park Service's shutdown plan that states that Park Service facilities "located in urban areas where full NPS law enforcement coverage is continued due to the inability to control visitor access" would remain open.

And why would the Park Service send law enforcement rangers to shut down the Pisgah Inn along the Blue Ridge Parkway while reportedly allowing the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. -- a business the Park Service is trying to remove from Point Reyes National Seashore, by the way -- to continue business as usual?

Now, this isn't to say Democrats in Congress don't float some lead balloons, for they frequently do. But this GOP faction is rewriting the definition of frivolous and misguided representation.

Why are these 94 worried so about how much it costs "to operate an open-air site such as the World War II Memorial on a typical day," at a time when gateway communities are drowning in room cancellations and empty restaurants, when Park Service staff that wants to get back to work sits idly by and has to watch as visitors ignore barricades and enter the parks anyway, when there really, really must be something just a little bit more important to focus on?

Like, perhaps, ending the impasse that is causing this incredible dysfunction?

In the spirit of Rep. Huizenga's letter to Director Jarvis, we'd like to know:

* How much staff time it took to research and write his letter, and how much in salary that cost?

* How much time it took to seek out the 93 cosigners, discuss the matter with them, and get them to sign the letter, and how many representatives told them they were wasting their time and to take a hike (not in a national park, though)?

* Whether's he's calculated how much time, at taxpayer expense, it will take Director Jarvis to take a head count of his Mall rangers and track down the appropriate number assigned to the World War II Memorial?

* Has he given any thought to the pain and economic distress the rest of the country is going through while he's calling for a headcount of rangers on the Mall?

And as Rep. Huizenga wrote to Director Jarvis, we'd like his "prompt attention to this urgent matter."

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I think this using the parks as a political football by both politicians and top bureaucrats will be a continuing soap opera in coming years until our 'best idea' is removed from the Sodom & Gomorrah Interior Department and promoted to an independent status similar to the Smithsonian Institution. The unsustainable pork-barrel system of funding the parks has resulted in too many new units of marginal quality and put the development wing of the NPS in the driver's seat as operations budgets dwindle.

Work continues on major projects thorughout the nation, from the Washington Monument to Yellowstone, Yosemite and Olympic, while PCT thru-hikers racing early snows are blocked by rangers fifty miles from the Canadian border after two thousand miles of effort.


ecbuck wrote:

"we are not a democracy we are a republic. Our government was formed the way it was intentionlly so the majority couldn't force its will on the minority"

This does not mean that the minority can force its will on the majority. The Tea Party extremists are a minority of voters who are holding the budget hostage. Most members of the House of Representatives are ready to approve the budget and open the government.

What possible reason is there for not letting them vote on it?


Ref: Beachdum

Who gave the NPS the orders? The Office of Management and Budget.

The NPS was instructed to conduct and "orderly shutdown" of government activities that would be prohibited by the Antideficiency Act.

The Antideficiency Act requires that during a "shutdown" the federal government stop activities (of the governemnet not private citizens) that "obligate expeditures" by the government.

According to the NPS Shutdown Plan: The NPS appears to have interpreted the OMB instructions to conduct an "orderly shutdown" of activities that obligate expeditures to mean closure of all public access to all NPS owned lands and facilities.

The law that governs how a shutdown is implemented is the Antideficiency Act. No one has ever been indicted or prosecuted for violating the Antideficiency Act. The Act was created in 1870 in response to war time spending by Abraham Lincoln. The Act allows lots of room for agencies to continue staffing in order to provide for emergency response, public health and safety, and to protect property.


I didn't mean for anyone to get the idea that the Capitol Police were the ones on the mall keeping people out. What I meant was that I don't normally see many park rangers patrolling the mall. Since the DC police are in full force and do most of the inforcement anyway why close up the mall?

Mayor Gray is a hero in my book. Why can't the rest of them learn a lesson from him?


re: who "patrols" the National Mall and does most of the law enforcement there; unless things have changed recently, the correct answer would be the United States Park Police, which is part of the National Park Service. I'd guess in an emergency there are cooperative agreements that allow both D. C. police and U. S. Capitol Police to assist on the Mall, just as U. S. Park Police assist in emergencies all over the District.

The U. S. Park Police have the primary role for NPS law enforcement in the National Capital Parks in D. C. and a key if not the primary role NPS areas in the New York City and San Francisco areas. In other NPS areas, that law enforcement function is performed by park rangers who have met the training and other requirements to hold a law enforcement commission--and they are small percentage of the total NPS workforce.

I realize this can be confusing, but it's part of the reason you don't normally see "park rangers" on patrol on the National Mall. U. S. Park Police uniforms are mainly blue in color, and look like "police uniforms," so most people who see them don't realize they are NPS employees. There is a fairly significant uniformed NPS ranger presence on the Mall in normal times, and they play an important role in visitor safety and information, and provide valuable "eyes and ears" in terms of security of the area, but those employees are not law enforcement officers .

Unfortunately, I can't include a link to official info about this, since the NPS website is off-line during the shutdown. However, here's a link to a recent story on the Traveler about the USPP Aviation Unit.


As follow-up to the above about number of NPS employees working at the National Mall during the shutdown vs. "normal" times. Here's a quote in a news story from the NPS director on Oct. 3:

"We run a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year operation on the National Mall. Under normal circumstances, I would have 300 employees working on the National Mall and I currently have seven.”

"That there are the same number of U.S. Park Police on the National Mall now as before the shutdown began is true, according to the U.S. Park Police officers’ union. At any given time, there are two police officers on duty at each of the big three tourist sites on the National Mall: the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument. They are joined by a smattering of roaming officers among the less-popular sites and smaller parks."

I obviously have no way to verify the accuracy of the quote.


This does not mean that the minority can force its will on the majority.

And they are not. They are using the powers that were given to them in the Constitution to try to get the otherside to negotiate. Obama and the Dems have refused to do so. The Tea Party members don't want a government shut down any more than any one else.


"The Tea Party members don't want a government shut down any more than any one else."

Ec, what have you been smoking? (Yes, that's intended as a joke :-) The shutdown has been a pre-planned strategy for weeks by Tea Party leaders, including Sen. Cruz and Rep. Meadows, to try to force their will on both Democrats and others in their own party.

Based on every credible media report I've seen lately, the Tea Party (and Boehner's fear of crossing them) is the only thing preventing a House vote on a "clean CR" that could end the shutdown.


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