Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. KING. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague. I want to join with the chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senator Daines, to support this resolution which was adopted unanimously last week recognizing this week as National Park Week in this country.

When I left office as Governor of Maine in January of 2003, my family and I the next day took off in a 40-foot RV to see the country. My children were 12 and 9 at the time, and we basically circumnavigated America over the next 5\1/2\ months.

Just before coming to the floor, I went down the list of the parks we went to. The point I want to make is--and I get a bit emotional about this. This was the greatest experience of my life, to have taken my children to these parks with my wife, Mary; and to have seen and experienced them and experienced the people at the parks was just an unbelievable life-changing experience.

We went to Arches--I am doing them in alphabetical order, not geographically--Bad Lands; Big Bend in Texas, which, by the way, is one of the most beautiful places in the country and one of the least visited national parks; Bryce Canyon; Canyonlands; Capitol Reef; Carlsbad; the Grand Canyon--of course, every American should see the Grand Canyon. No picture, no movie, no helicopter movie, nothing can prepare you for the Grand Canyon; Mesa Verde; Olympic National Park in the State of Washington; the redwoods and sequoias in California; Shenandoah, just a few hours from here; St. John in the Virgin Islands; Yellowstone; Yosemite; and Zion. These are gems.

It has become commonplace to reference Ken Burns' statement that the national parks are ``America's best idea,'' starting with Yellowstone but spreading across the country. They mark our history, they mark our tremendous natural resources, and they are just pure inspiration.

I hope our colleagues can go, if only for 1 day. If you have 1 day, you can leave Washington and be in Front Royal, VA, in about an hour and a half and go down the Skyline Drive of Shenandoah National Park, one of the most beautiful places in the country and within a couple of hours of Washington. These parks are near every place. There are so many gorgeous and extraordinary places among this system.

In Maine, we have two--one is a national park and one is a national monument. We have Acadia National Park, which is the fifth most visited national park in the country, and it is enormously important. These parks are not only important to our spiritual well-being and the ability of our people to enjoy the wonders of this country, but they are also economically important. Acadia, for example, has about 3.5 million visitors a year. To put that in perspective, Maine has a population of 1.3 million. So almost three times the population of Maine visits Acadia every year. The estimate is $386 million of direct economic benefit to our State, with 4,200 jobs. It is a magnet. It is a national park that draws people into our State, and it is, indeed, one of the most spectacular places in America. I have been there many times. From the top of Cadillac Mountain to the place they call Thunder Hole, it is a gem of a place that is on the ocean. Acadia is on an island just off the coast of Maine. We just had a monument established about 3 years ago called Katahdin Woods and Waters, which is the other side of the coin in terms of attractive places that are important for visitors and are symbolic of the places all over the country. Katahdin Woods and Waters is inland. It is on a river. It has mountain views and forests, it is inland Maine, which represents so much of what our country looked like many years ago.

These places are deeply important to our country. I want to join my colleague in challenging all of our colleagues to visit the national parks. It is not only the physical nature, the physical attraction of a place like the Grand Canyon, but it is also about the people.

I will never forget taking our children to Kitty Hawk on that RV trip. We had a guide who knew everything there was to know about the Wright brothers, and he engaged our kids in a way I hadn't seen. This was education of the highest sort. The people in these parks are dedicated, they know their stuff, and they make the experience so dramatic and real for all the members of the family.

We have work to do in this body. We have a backlog of maintenance on our parks that the Senator from Montana and I are working on, along with Senators Alexander, Heinrich, and others, to try to find a solution to this maintenance backlog. We do have work to do. We are working with the parks to bring their admissions system into the 21st century in terms of online access for park passes. There is plenty of work to be done.

The underlying assets are so magnificent and are so important to our country economically, culturally, socially, and spiritually. I am proud to have joined my colleagues in sponsoring this resolution which was adopted unanimously. I join my colleague and invite all of my colleagues and all Americans to make it a point this year, as the weather gets warmer, to visit one of these magnificent places. You will be rewarded richly and the rewards will stay with you every day of your life.

Thank you.

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