Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Boundary Adjustment Study Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1487 authorizes a special resource study of portions of the Los Angeles coastal area in California to evaluate alternatives for land management, including designating the coastal area as a unit of the National Park System.

While I do not oppose authorizing a special resource study of this area, I hope that Congress will exercise caution before adding significant amounts of coastline to the existing Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which is already struggling to manage its current resources and is increasingly beginning to resemble Lincoln's story of a farmer who said, ``I ain't greedy for land. I just want what joins mine.''

In 2018, because of bad land management, the vast majority of this same area burned in the massive Woolsey fire. More than 21,000 of the 23,595 National Park Service acres, about 88 percent of the land, were burned. This included most of the Western Town at Paramount Ranch, the 1926 Peter Strauss Ranch home, most of the joint National Park Service/ UCLA La Kretz Research Center, two ranger residences, and an attached archives building.

Further, the National Park Service is already stretched perilously thin and facing a nearly $12 billion deferred maintenance backlog that we discussed in an earlier bill.

Although I recognize that this measure simply authorizes a study and doesn't transfer any land or jurisdiction, it is imperative that we take into account the realities that our parks are facing and the devastating consequences of a land management policy that can only be described as benign neglect. As we are discovering, the consequences are anything but benign.

Mr. Speaker, with that caveat, I urge adoption of the measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I would urge adoption of the measure with the caveats I have already discussed, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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