Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2004-Continued

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004—CONTINUED

AMENDMENT NO. 1731

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the amendment offered by Senator Reid that temporarily bars the Department of the Interior from spending any more money on competitive sourcing studies.

The House has already inserted this language into its Interior spending bill, and I hope the Senate will do the same.

This amendment is critical so we can assure the people who visit our already overstressed national parks that they will not be subjected to even fewer services. "Competitive sourcing" is a new term that has been created to describe the opening up of public sector jobs to private sector competition. Now, we have all been told that competitive sourcing is not the same as outsourcing, but I think it is pretty safe to say it is not a whole lot different.

As all of us know, one of the primary goals of this current administration is to privatize large numbers of Federal workers.
This administration, under its initial outsourcing policy, mandated that each Federal agency review for privatization no less than 15 percent of its commercial activities by the end of fiscal year 2003. Unfortunately, this onerous and apparently arbitrary privatization quota did not take into account the different agencies' unique conditions.

After a lot of pressure from Federal workers, environmentalists, and labor groups, the White House finally abandoned its original blanket competitive sourcing scheme. But now the initial plan has been replaced by a new plan that actually pushes for more outsourcing, not less.

Although there is no concrete timeline, this new incentive-based plan encourages Federal agencies to outsource 50 percent or more of their commercial activities. So while we in Congress are trying to slow down this outsourcing drive, the administration is now working to speed it up.

So what does that mean for an agency such as the National Park Service? I am very concerned that the President's outsourcing policy may well cause critically needed maintenance funds in our parks to be spent, instead, on further studies for competitive sourcing.

In my home State of Washington, we are very concerned about the reports that Mount Rainier National Park, for instance, could possibly have to divert up to 40 percent of its repair budget due to this outsourcing and antiterrorism requirements.
So when they were faced with this possibility, the National Park Service director at Mount Rainier promised that at Mount
Rainier no more outsourcing studies would be conducted using 2003 and 2004 dollars. This comes as a great relief to the users of Mount Rainier National Park and the surrounding communities, but now everyone is asking, What about Olympic National Park? What about Cascade National Park? Those are national treasures that are in my home State. And what about all the other national parks across the country that remain vulnerable to this proposal?

Outsourcing is by no means a new policy for the Department of Interior, especially in the National Park Service. The Park Service, in fact, currently outsources nearly $2 billion in services, including over $800 million in concessions and over $1 billion for contractors.

Those contractors currently provide functions such as janitorial services, tree work, garbage pickup, construction, and management consulting—things like that. So when the Department of Interior is now told to outsource up to 50 percent of its commercial responsibilities, we are very concerned that some of the National Park Service's key functions are going to be threatened.

The Park Service, as we all know, was initially created to preserve the natural and cultural resources of the Park System and to provide recreational opportunities for generations of Americans. The last thing we should be doing is lessening the agency's ability to do just that.

The amendment now before the Senate, that was offered by the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Reid, will not completely stop all outsourcing efforts. It will simply slow them down. I believe that is the right thing to do.

So far, in the case of the Department of Interior, OMB's outsourcing initiative has been on the fast track. The Reid amendment will simply prevent funds from this year from being used to initiate any new studies for competitive sourcing.
It will, however, still allow the studies initiated with money from the last 2 years to be completed. I think that is the right
course to take.

Slowing down this outsourcing initiative will allow us in Congress to have the time to analyze the costs and implications of this administration's proposal—I believe something we should have done in the first place.

The National Park Service is truly a mission-driven organization. Its core responsibilities include promoting the highest level of environmental stewardship, and, in turn, providing the best possible service to each and every park visitor.

So far, as we all know, the Park Service has done a tremendous job of doing just that. Consistently, 97 percent of our national park visitors have indicated they are "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their national park experience. A lot of this public regard is attributed to the high quality and high morale of our Park Service employees.

Historically, National Park Service workers have maintained an extremely high level of camaraderie and positive spirit.
Often these wonderful employees of ours are called upon to perform multiple duties that fall outside any one particular job title. It is not uncommon, in our national parks, for a maintenance worker to give interpretive talks on the weekends, or a park geologist to perform first aid, when it is necessary, or for a visitor assistant to help in fighting forest fires.

This kind of overlap of job duties is possible because of the way in which Park Service employees are currently cross-trained and because of the workers' extraordinary commitment to their jobs. In my opinion, having these kinds of outcomes with 9-to-5 contract workers would be very unlikely.

All of the implications of the President's policy of outsourcing in the National Park Service are not yet known or understood by those who use the parks or by Members of Congress who are passing this legislation. I think Congress has yet to carefully consider the consequences of this policy, especially when it comes to the services we expect for our families when they visit our national parks.

I am on the floor of the Senate today to thank Senator Reid for putting this amendment forward, and I urge the Members of the Senate to follow the House and slow down the President's outsourcing policy to protect the core mission of the National Park Service by voting for the Reid amendment, and then thoroughly taking the time to analyze and understand how this will impact our incredible heritage at our national parks before we move forward.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, if I heard the Senator from Nevada correctly, am I to understand there is going to be a second-degree amendment to his amendment that I just spoke about that will essentially allow the outsourcing to continue while we move forward in the appropriations process this year? If that is the case, I ask the Senator from Nevada, if you are a park employee in one of our beautiful parks—and you referenced the Cascades; we have Olympia National Park, Mt. Rainier. I invite all of our colleagues to come and see—if you were an employee and you knew Congress was going to continue to move forward with this proposal or some type of variation, would you not be worried that you would not continue to do the same good job that our employees do right now because really your future is up in the air and you would be looking for something else?

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I respond to my friend from Washington that this second-degree amendment, which I haven't seen but I have been told what is in it, would basically allow the outsourcing studies to go on. And they have no money to do that so they are robbing other programs to do it. So the answer to the Senator's question is, yes, they would continue doing the outsourcing studies, as they call them, in an effort to privatize the workforce in the national parks.

There is a handout that has been distributed. When you can't defeat a measure on its face, what you resort to is name-calling. Here is what they have written:

Now is not the time to promote inefficiency. The Reid amendment would support the Federal employees union agenda to grow the size of the Federal workforce and avoid competition of any kind.

That is so mean spirited and so wrong. When you can't defeat an issue on its face, what you do is resort to name-calling.
What they have done here is say, this is all a big ploy of the unions. I offered into the RECORD earlier today groups that support this amendment that is sponsored by the Senator from Washington and the Senator from Nevada. There wasn't a single union I put forward as favoring this. I am sure they do, but I haven't talked to them. But we have resorted to name-calling, saying this is bad because the unions like it. I am sure the unions do like it if, in fact, there are unions there. I don't
really know. But this has nothing to do with unions.

It has everything to do with protecting a dedicated workforce and to not put these employees out to minimum wage. That is in effect what it is. I know what we will do as we do in all of these privatizing methods: We will come in with a low-ball figure. We can do it so much cheaper. And then as soon as the contract is entered, it balloons. I gave an example this morning. One of the parks was picking up garbage. It cost $150,000. They put it out for private bid. And now within 3 years time it is a half a million dollars for the same work Government employees were doing.

I appreciate very much the support of my friend from Washington. Again, I recognize her ability to support working men and women and not corporate America. I do know the Senator from Washington has done a great job of protecting the corporations in her State. But here is an issue that deals directly with working men and women. And, of course, the Senator from Washington has sided with the working men and women of our country.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME

Mrs. MURRAY. I would like to enter into a coloquy with Chairman BURNS and Senator DORGAN. The Indian Health Service and the University of Washington have been conducting research into Fetal Alcohol Syndrome with funds provided in the Interior Appropriations bill. I want to thank the Chairman and Senator DORGAN for the Subcommittee's continued support for these research efforts. I hope to work with the Senators in conference related to this on-going research.

Mr. BURNS. I appreciate my colleague's interest in the fetal alcohol syndrome research being conducted by the Indian Health Service and the University of Washington. I look forward to working with my colleague on the continued funding for these research efforts.

Mr. DORGAN. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is one of the most pressing health issues facing Native Americans and I am committed to helping advance our research efforts in this field.

Mrs. MURRAY. I thank Chairman BURNS and Senator DORGAN.