Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the National Park Service Relating to ``Glen Canyon National Recreation Area: Motor Vehicles''

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, this resolution would nullify a National Park Service rule that manages motor vehicle use within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. It is a commonsense rule that this resolution targets, and it outlines where cars and off-road vehicles are allowed to travel within the boundaries of the national recreation area. It shouldn't be controversial. It shouldn't be political.

The Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is a very popular destination. It offers ample opportunities for backcountry exploration across 1.25 million acres of public land. To put that in perspective, this area is larger than the entire State of Rhode Island.

Now, the National Park Service is tasked with managing park units in a manner that balances public access and enjoyment while ensuring responsible stewardship of the natural environment. That is their job.

Achieving that balance can be a tall order under the best of circumstances. It has become even more difficult as the Trump administration works to dismantle the National Park Service. More than 12.5 percent of the entire workforce has left the agency since Donald Trump took office. It has only been a little more than 100 days, and we are already down 2,000 rangers and park employees.

House Republicans have stood by and watched, and now they are proposing a resolution that undermines national park management even further. As a reminder, this resolution would repeal a rule that manages all motorized vehicle access within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, a unit of the Park Service that is home to very fragile ecosystems like the Orange Cliffs adjacent to Canyonlands National Park and countless cultural and archeological resources.

Initial planning started way back in 2007 and was not finalized until the first Trump administration published an overly permissive record of decision in 2018. A court determined that the 2018 version of the rule did not do enough to consider the environmental consequences of allowing off-road vehicles on certain roads, so the Park Service went back to work and they published a new rule that achieved a better balance.

The updated rule, which is being targeted today, balances visitor use and access with the long-term stewardship and management of park resources.

Despite some of the rhetoric that we may hear from the other side of the aisle, the Park Service did not shut off access to off-road vehicles. Nothing could be further from the truth. The rule allows off- road vehicles on 388 miles of road within the park, only closing access to approximately 6 percent of the existing roadways to protect sensitive resources.

Even those roads are still open to cars, jeeps, and other street- legal vehicles. They are just closed to vehicles that have the ability to travel off-road and cause severe damage in proposed wilderness and other sensitive landscapes.

That is 94 percent of the roads in this Park Service unit open to motor vehicles, including off-road vehicles, and then just 6 percent where only street-legal vehicles are allowed. That is a very reasonable tradeoff that protects the park for future generations.

It is also worth noting that Congress has never used the Congressional Review Act in the way it is being used right now to repeal a Park Service decision of this nature. This is meddling and micromanaging at its worst, and it could have some unintended consequences as we will discuss in the course of this debate.

When Congress uses the CRA to repeal a rule, then the agency is prohibited by law from issuing a substantially similar rule on the same topic. The decision to repeal this rule could lead to some unintended consequences that would backfire on the very off-road vehicle community that my friends across the aisle are saying that they are trying to protect.

Park managers would be unable to change or alter access even if a proliferation of off-road vehicle use is damaging park resources. That is the downside from the environmental perspective, but even worse, from the perspective of these off-road vehicles, it could mean an end to all off-roading in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

Mr. Speaker, Park Service has to have a rule in place if they want to authorize any access. That is what this rule does. If Congress repeals it and the CRA says no replacement rule can be issued, that is how it works. It is like Cortez when he got to Mexico, he burned the boats so nobody would go back. That is how the CRA works.

You burn the bridge; you can't go back on that particular subject area. A court in the future may well decide that the absence of a rule means no off-roading. Period.

It is the kind of uncertainty that would be discussed and fleshed out if you took the time to have a hearing and have a little bit of deliberation instead of jamming a CRA like this, a blunt instrument, right on the House floor.

If the intent is truly about preserving access, there are better ways to do it. There are certainly much better ways for Congress to uplift and support our national parks; for example, standing up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk's gutting of the National Park Service.

I wish we spent more time talking about that rather than a very reckless use of the Congressional Review Act.

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Mr. HUFFMAN.

I stand by what I said a few minutes ago. Without the rule in place or a replacement rule, off-roading could very well be illegal in all of Glen Canyon.

I did expect that my colleagues across the aisle would state that they assume the Park Service would simply revert back to a previous rule. Now, I don't know for sure because Republicans didn't hold a hearing on the legislation to bring in a witness from the Park Service to answer any questions, but there are two problems with this assumption they seem to be proceeding under.

One, the current rule was issued under a settlement agreement to enforce compliance with environmental protection laws. Repealing that rule doesn't repeal those legal obligations, so whatever outdated rule the administration might try to revive will still have to comply with those laws, and a court is going to strike it down when it doesn't.

Two, as we keep having to remind our colleagues, using the CRA to repeal a rule doesn't just remove that rule, it also prohibits the agency from ever issuing a substantially similar rule on this same topic. That means any rule regarding off-road access in this park unit.

This repeal is practically inviting a court to strike down whatever fallback rule the administration tries reverting to, and when that litigation ensues and they comb through the Congressional Record to divine the intent of Congress, they will see pretty plainly that I warned you folks that that was the case right here on the record.

Now, since this information seems new to some of my colleagues, they may be thinking: Wait, that can't be right. Wouldn't this sort of thing have happened before?

The answer is no, because Congress has never used the CRA to micromanage a park or a park-access rule this narrow in the way that is being proposed with this resolution. The entire scheme is untested, reckless, and ill-advised.

If my colleagues accidentally ban off-roading in Glen Canyon, I hope they are ready to explain that to their constituents, assuming they ever hold townhall meetings again.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this legislation. Last week was National Park Week, an annual tradition meant to honor our deep connection to national parks. President Trump carried on the tradition by issuing a proclamation to officially designate the week--this is one of the few noncontroversial actions in the first 100 days of this administration--because all Americans love and value and support national parks.

Unfortunately, the proclamation also highlighted how the administration is trying to use national parks to tell a myopic and narrow view of our history. This revisionist turn is exemplified by President Trump's decision to rename Mount Denali in Alaska despite overwhelming criticism and concern from Alaska Native leaders and other voices in the State. It is clear the President is more interested in branding and flashy stunts than actually supporting our national parks and public lands.

House Republicans have stood by and watched as all of this happened. They did nothing as President Trump and Elon Musk decimated the land management workforce, shuttered critical buildings, and froze funding for critical grant programs designed to safeguard and restore our parks and our public lands.

Just since January, the Park Service has lost 1,700 rangers and Park Service staff, leaving parks understaffed and resources vulnerable just before the busiest time of the year. There have to be better ways to celebrate and cherish our national parks than to dismantle them.

We could be doing something to restore all the jobs that have been cut by this administration. We could debate proposals to create new parks or expand existing ones to honor our shared history and protect our most cherished landscapes. We could advance comprehensive and thoughtful appropriations bills that invest in the future of our parks and our public lands.

Instead of doing any of these productive and responsible actions, House Republicans decided to use some more precious floor time to overturn a narrow and specific rule at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. That is a disappointment, another missed opportunity, and a testament to the priorities of this Republican majority. Mr. Speaker, I again urge a ``no'' vote and yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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