National Park Service

Floor Speech

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Mr. KING. First, Mr. President, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for bringing forth this proposal that makes so much sense and that, as he points out, has bipartisan support. In fact, I don't know if I have ever heard the Senator make so much sense twice in the same time of being on the floor--about this bill and about Senator Alexander. He is right on both counts. We are certainly going to miss the Senator from Tennessee, but like the characters in ``The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,'' when Tom and Huck were in the attic of the church during their own funerals, he is still here. He is going to be here for another 2 years, and we are going to get a lot done.

I had a very formative experience as the Governor of Maine. Every year, we used to go to New York to talk to the rating agencies about our bond issues and the bond rating. Of course, the desire of any Governor of any State is to have a good bond rating so that you will pay less interest.

At one point, I was making a presentation to the bond council and the rating agencies in New York, and I said: We have low debt, and we don't take on much in bonds, and we pay them off in 10 years. We are really keeping the bond indebtedness down.

Then one of these green eyeshade guys stopped me. He said: Governor, when you are not fixing things, it is debt just as if it is on your balance sheet.

That is what we are talking about here. We are talking about a debt that is going to have to be fixed sooner or later, and we will have to come up with a method of funding it that will be very creative and that won't take funds for another purpose. It will be symmetrical because it will take funds from the utilization of Federal lands to provide the maintenance and support of other Federal lands for the National Park System.

The Senator from Ohio mentioned that 330 million people visited our national parks last year. That happens to be the entire population of the United States.

We have a wonderful park in Maine--Acadia. We had 3.5 million people last year at that park. The problem is, I have seen leaky roofs and roads that need repair, and if we don't do that, we will not be serving the public, and we will not be serving the next generation of Americans that wants to enjoy the parks. Now we will have an opportunity to do so.

It is supported on a bipartisan basis in this body, in the other body, and by the administration. This is something we ought to be able to do, and it is a responsibility we have. I would say maintaining what we have is one of our most fundamental responsibilities, and this is a bill that will enable us to do that in a way that is responsible fiscally.

I emphasize that if we don't do this, we will be adding to the national debt. We are adding to the national debt, and that is going to have to be paid. Construction costs always go up. So, in effect, it is going to have to be paid with interest.

Now is the time to take this step in order to maintain the national parks in the condition that our American public deserves. They expect us to meet this responsibility. So I want to compliment and thank the Senator from Ohio, the Senator from Tennessee, as well as our colleague Mark Warner from Virginia, for bringing this bill forward. We have now added cosponsors from both sides of the aisle, and we are ready to make this happen. There is no reason that we can't move forward, hopefully in this Congress, if not very early in the next Congress.

This is one of those things that is not all that glamorous, repairing roofs and doing trail maintenance at national parks, but it will mean something to the people who come. Someday, years from now, a family will walk through Acadia National Park or Yosemite or the Great Smokies or the great parks in Ohio, and they won't know who fixed that trail. They won't know who repaired that visitors' center. They will just know that they have had one of the most memorable experiences of their life, and somebody helped that to take place. I just hope that that somebody is us because we are able to do it. We have the means. We have the vehicle. Now is the time to move this bill, to do something to pay a debt that we all have to the American people.

I yield to my esteemed colleague from Tennessee.

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Mr. KING. My only final comment is to suggest a friendly amendment as to how to allocate these funds. I suggest alphabetically, and the fact that Acadia is in Maine is a mere coincidence.

Seriously, I think my two colleagues have made the case. Hopefully, we are going to be able to move this again through the committee. As Senator Alexander reported, it has already been considered and reported favorably by the committee and, hopefully, it will be one of the first items of business in the new year.

As Senator Portman has said, this is a win. It is a win for the American people, and I think it will be reassuring that we can, in fact, find ways to work together on important national problems. Senator Alexander listed the things that have been done. The only one he didn't mention was the farm bill that passed last week, I think 87 to 13--heavily negotiated, entirely bipartisan, makes a real difference for rural America. Here is a chance to make a difference for all of those who love and treasure our national parks. I look forward to working with my colleagues to make it happen.

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