Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - April 03, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am proud to join Senator Salazar in introducing the National Park Centennial Fund Act. This bill celebrates the 100th anniversary of the National Park System by infusing our parks with $1 billion over 10 years, which will be matched by an additional $1 billion in private donations. This challenge fund adds to efforts to increase the operations budget of the National Park Service by $1 billion over the next decade.

We Americans love our National Parks. In fact, in a December 2007 Harris Interactive Poll, the National Park Service ranked as the most popular Federal Government service.

In 1872, Congress designated Yellowstone as the world's first national park, and in 1916 the National Park Service formally was created to manage what had become a 6 million acre system of national protected areas.

Today the National Park System protects more than 84 million acres. National Parks conserve our culture and our places of natural beauty and value. They also provide recreation opportunities for more than 270 million visitors each year.

My State of Maine is home to the first National Park east of the Mississippi River, Acadia National Park, a true gem on Maine's rocky coast. Visitors enjoy granite mountain tops, sparkling lakes, forested valleys, meadows, marshes, and a spectacular coastline. They can hike up Cadillac Mountain, the tallest mountain on the east coast, which offers amazing views of Porcupine Islands and Frenchman Bay.

The National Park Centennial Fund Act will maintain and improve all of our parks for the next century of enjoyment. The bill establishes a mandatory annual fund of $100 million, which will be matched by private donations for projects in parks around the country.

Eligible projects will be prioritized through input from both the public and a broad cross-section of National Park Service employees. Centennial challenge projects may fall into one of these categories: education, diversity, supporting park professionals, environmental leadership, natural resource protection, cultural resources protection or visitor enjoyment and health.

For example, at Acadia National Park, officials are undertaking an environmental leadership project to make Acadia virtually car-free by providing a variety of public transportation options within the park. This partnership with the local community will include providing a central parking and bus boarding area for park visitors to use the Island Explore bus system. Since 1999, these low-emissions propane vehicles have carried more than 1.5 million riders. In doing so, they removed 424,000 vehicles from the park and reduced pollution by 24 tons.

We propose two offsets in the National Park Centennial Fund Act. The first is a postal stamp for National Parks, estimated to raise about $10 million annually.

The second offset is from unanticipated revenues from offshore oil and gas leases. Thus far for fiscal year 2008, bids and royalties from offshore oil and gas leases are $4.2 billion higher than CBO anticipated. The National Park Centennial Fund Act bill would take these revenues that were not anticipated each year and dedicate them into the centennial fund until the total in the fund reaches $1 billion. If we are depleting one natural resource, I believe we should return part of the revenues to the protection of other natural resources like our National Parks.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Salazar for his leadership on this bill and Senators Baucus, Coleman and Tester for their support. I urge all my colleagues to consider joining us on this important legislation.

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