Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, our national parks are among our most universally supported and treasured institutions, and they cannot survive in an atmosphere of incredible popularity. We simply must find accommodations to protect the basic principles and qualities of those parks for which we treasure them so much.
One of the areas where we have significant problems is in overuse of our parks by commercial air tour operations, which severely degrade some of our parks and have the risk of degrading all of our parks for a number of different reasons, whether they be environmental, whether they be protection of our natural resources, or whether they be visitor enjoyment. Fundamentally, commercial air tours overflying a national park with noise and other disruption on the ground does degrade the park experience for the many who enjoy them in that way.
There is no right to overfly our parks. Now, I concede and agree that there is some reasonable area and use for commercial air tours. I certainly want those that cannot experience our parks to experience them in this way, and I certainly believe that they have a place in our parks, but not where they are today and not where they are going.
We recognized this challenge 23 years ago in this Congress by passing a law which essentially required air tour management plans, which accommodated all interests, and those plans are now coming to fruition. This amendment is on the floor because the sponsor and others do not like the results, which accommodate air tour operations in the vast majority of our parks.
This process has been a good one, a difficult one, one in which the operators have participated. They will continue to have a place under these plans, a reasoned place. The fact that some of them don't like the outcome does not mean that the process is not a valid process.
This process should be continued to its conclusion. It should be accommodated. It should be implemented in a way that is reasonable to all.
This amendment destroys that process and would degrade our parks to the detriment of the vast majority of the people who enjoy our parks.
Mr. Chair, I urge opposition to the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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