Transcripts For CSPAN2 National 20240704

[background noises] thank you since we are back here were the reason we had to go recess was because the majority could not exceed on the probations bill including this area so it is an fortunate this is the state of our nation but hearing on on the last day but before recess. We appreciate you being here today. Id like to ask a few questions about Climate Change challenges the park service faces and how use the Inflation Reduction Act fund. Could you talk about is the Biggest Challenges right now how can we address the . I mentioned housing which is in a product category going fairly of a thriving workforce and what you hear from constituents or employees, we would be all ears and trying to empower, diversify and provide housing as we discussed over the break and try to deal which is something that is back in the other thing youre focused on his climate and the impact that being able to maintain good Visitor Experiences as the environment changes so this factors into our investments so a question of excess and the love and the use of parks, have this strange dilemma that many yet there are 426 units the National Parks, some of which are underutilized so we are focused on how to steer the American People so dealing with we are going to break away briefly for live coverage of the u. S. Senate. Lawmakers holding a brief session. Now live to the floor of the senate here on cspan2. The presiding officer the senate will come to order. The parliament will read a communication to the senate. The parliamentarian ,washington d. C. , july 28, 2023. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable tina smith from the state of minnesota, to perform the duties of the chair. Signed patty murray, president pro tempore. The presiding officer under the previous oparks in a time od climate . Ious oparks in a time od mr. Reynolds thank you for that. It varies depending on the environment about but if i could think of high priority areas, will need to make sure were all about countable to design as we invest so we were talking about her issues so when we put in a new boat, think ahead with planning and work with partners and communities about what a resilient system looks like to maintain access because is what they are telling us,s, is not linear, mike have one year with heavy snow in a year with heavy trout so something we are looking at and we have a lot of conversations about how we deal with different species might fall out of the range so those things come to mind as huge challenges. They mentioned a moment of inflation reductionth act is the largest reduction in Climate Change and bipartisan infrastructure law and significant down to the National Parks at the l wc is crucial to the future so we appreciate your stewardship and with that, i yieldd back. Be careful what you ask for. The gentleman from montana met thank you for holding the hearing. Co overcrowded issues do to lack of mismanagement back to coffin 2020. As visitors climb back up to precovid members, these issues become more and more planning. Scanner handle this influx of people in need techniques of highpriced parks to make sure knows Visitor Experience is hampered. Its about the experience and i think you probably recognize that. Glacier National Park in my own state. Entry is vital to allow viewers to enjoy parks in the process should be something other than a low roadblock to deter anyone coming or booking a trip. The comprehensive plan to affect these d problems while at the se time provide streamlined process people can understand and use. This not only has harmful effects six bottles on the wildlife. Weve heard reports, wastewater collapsed into rivers and streams. These are a result of overcrowding and we must resolve this while maintaining accessible cards for all interested. Without these agencies, Civil Engineers in a reasonable solution. I look forward to the testimony of Deputy Director today and we kind of partisan solutions to these solutions. Mr. Reynolds, m rather Civil Engineers employed by the department focusing on learning congestion across the park system . I dont know if theres a Civil Engineer working on thehe overcrowding side but there are engineers and specialists and our contractors so we are looking at those and i know you know this situation we have a lot of expertise helping with those efforts. I work closely. We were able to get the park open on the other side. What i also know, wastewater systems are being strained. Housing is an incredible challenge. They are beginning to address and building Housing Units so they can attract and retain employees but i am really concerned with wastewater projects having development background, it is very expensive so do you have Civil Engineer looking at that . Yes. Thank you for your support, it is the big boost we need to take on those plans. Dealing with old faithful and those areas and they are in the funding stream and put some minor amenities in different locations around the park that you are able to draw visitors to these areas instead of having them concentrated in typical areas. We have this phenomena of social media, we need to counter that and let people understand they can visit. Last year in june the agencies to ration the current status in developing this plan . Is in serious stages in the most Show Services help us to change the products to be respectable and things like that so we can follow with that. What is i . I will have to follow,. Did you have an estimate for total cost for the implementation. Is not aware of know where we are going. Twentytwo National Parks and an average of 10 million visitors and 1 million a year and visitors enjoy thes park including those who are short on time and a great way to see the parks especially for those who have mobilityob issues. Listen to nationaler parks and advisory groups and discussions related to the Management Plan and shut down to earth. The committee on the suffered . We are working with any and we can step up to this process. To seek the counsel overboard along with the faa and partners. Grand canyon currently has 829 million in repairs in the second most visited park in america. 829 million, do you agree it should be a priority to resolve these issues asap . We are working very hard, it is great news on these plans and it is the water supply so we have obligated the project and 180 million. One thing i really wanted to it was the water supply on the issue. Im not superer familiar but we will listen and are trying to be as transparent as we can. It has felt like Interesting Solutions and has not been hurt and it would be interesting to see. A lot of these people only go in the airspace and they keep their trash to when they come back. What feedback are you receiving how are you collecting it in regards to attendance . As you know, we started pilot programs and they need to move in and they have gotten positive comments about the overall experience they have, therapist and frustrations with the park has responded. A quick example, theyve been watchingac feedback, how tickets were allocated and changed hours so they can come in if youre on a road trip and she would come in before 7 00 oclock or before 3 00 one pair trying to work with people and is not about prevention, is making these experiences work and more certainty. How you collecting information . We are taking comments that are dropped off at the visitors facility. Do you have anyone taking this data and organizing and establishing . What are the methods are being used two stag tor attendance, times or days around the nation . Unfamiliar with that letter other Parts Services during other to other types of stagnant . Theres a whole series of strategies arches National Park in utah has something similar about timed entry whereas before they were shutting the gate down once the parking lots and roads were completely packed so theres been well received actually by the Moab Community because people they know theyre going and atwi a certain time so the spending money in the restaurants, hanging out doing other activities impaneled. We also are trying, i mentioned earlier the social media and web space. We have a program called plan like a park ranger where we encourage people to do a list of things they can do outside of the community or outside the park in the community as well as other parts of perhaps other parks in the zone, which you reach out in montana. Mr. Chair, i see my time has expired. The chair of the whole committee is recognized for five minutes. Thank you chairm gosar and thank you toou Deputy Director reynolds for being herehe today. National parks are very important to all of us in. I happen to live in hot springs National Park which is a source of pride in arkansas it was the first land ever set aside and preserved by the federal government. And i will command the park Service Employees there for their for the work to keep the park healthy and actually do some active Forest Management on the park just to keep the threat of catastrophic fire down and to do controlled burns enter really be good stewards of the part as well as the Buffalo National river which is in my district which was the nations first wild first scenic riveter and all members in congress canan talk about parks in their state or their Favorite Places to visit. I know in the Parks Service wildland fire Strategic Plan for 2024, you state the goal of using active management techniques to protect National Park Service Structures and reduce the risk of communities and assets here could you provide ande update to the committee on progress made regarding the deployment of active force management techniques since the issuance of the wildland fire Strategic Plan . Yeah, i think i can offer a couple things. We been able to up the akers retreat and that can be as you know different kinds of activities including, clear brush active force management, controlled burns those kind of things there weve gone from a little over 200,000 acres this year up from about 1. 7 i think the last year. Excuse me, 170,000. Got up to about 268 i think. How about your workforce . , which has increased under the plan . Ill follow up and get yourre note on that peer weve been doing better. Their support for wildland firefighter pay, those kind of issues. I havent heard of any major problems with staffing this year yet. Lets talk a little about maintenance budget and maintenance backlog. For years, heard of the park service come before the committee and see if well e more money we could fix all these problems with the outdated buildings and trails in the parks here if we had more money we could hire more employees but over the last few Years Congress has made historic investments in theks park system, yet it seems these problems if they are improving they are not improving very quickly. And to add insult to injury, the park Service Requested an increase of 8 in discretionary funding for fiscalsc year 24. Can you explain why last year the park service reported a dramatic increase in the deferred maintenance backlog and what concrete plans intensive service have to reduce the backlog, other than just continue to ask congress for morere money . We very, very much appreciate the investments that have been made between all of the various Funding Sources and theyre putting them to very good used as quickly as we can pick. There is at least 1. 2 billion obligated right now a couple years in to the gao work. And the plan is very much on a public facing website. We can give youou that link or constituents that link, and live plants up through at least fy 20 fourth that im aware of park priorities and investments that were going p to use this money. The deferred maintenance number is very difficult to explain and understand sometimes there were some very large changes in what, how that number was measured as part of the big increase but we are hoping to eliminate about 3. 6 billion and deferred maintenance hopefully in the next two years. These projects take anywhere to three to five years to complete. We wont change a number until the project is fully completed. I realize that patient is then but we are really working fast and id think we could make a really good case if you would welcome us to come up and brief the committee at some point what these plans look like if we havent already done so with your staff. I would like to get more information on that as well. In the socalled inflationary reduction act h there wasn dollars given topa the park service specifically for hiring additional employees. How many employees have you hired to date . I know that some parts have started the hiring process. We created a a hiring team. I can confirm that number, i can go too h. R. And get you that number i dont have it handy withme me but it is started andt is underway the parks are putting proposals in through the regional offices and we are approving those as quickly as we can. Do you know how much of the 500 million you have left . I dont but we can let you know that. And also i do appreciate the Part Services efforts to work with us on w our bipartisan bill on the giant circle is in sequoia National Park that hopefully we can get that bill on the president s desk sooner than later and mr. Chairman, i go back. I recognize myself real quick for five minutes. Mr. Reynolds, youve only been in your position as head of head for little over year and after you fed every job in the service from ranger regional director to acting director at one point. I read that you were a thirdgeneration and National Park service employee. Tell me, what you think personally the service can do from yourr Vantage Point to be more efficient and reduce wasteful spending . I am glad that you are asking a question about the park service growing and changing and being at that agency. Itself we talk about and strive. I think if you spent time with some of our folks under this different views of government these days but the people ive known for 38 years theres always a couple but most of them of the 20,000, 19,998 of them are some of the most dedicated people possible. What other things we can do is very much help the employee, be invested in and to be appreciated. This is to have any business that youre running peerut but i think for a long time weve asked our folks to do some sacrifices because they love the work so much. Having a very healthy, diverse, invested Skilled Staff and supported and empowered by good leaders, by an appreciation from congress is something we keep striving to do. I also think that within get to any kind of waste and fraud issues if you have welltrained, good people running assistant or we are are we really investing in that. I also think that listening to the American People and involving them and continuing to be approached about how these parks fit their lives is Something Else we can do to help me l less wasteful because we fitting the bill about what the people want. Would Something Like the bison issue in the grand canyon come you should probably do there were no historical bison in the area, he follows. Created programs when you work with the state of arellano to arizona to allow the holding of that heard where they get paid money to an agency like the arizona game and fish so they can actually take a character i do some of the programs you would belo looking for . With local partnerships what makes sense and what we can legally support Something Like that. I recall those dilemmas are recall the superintendent getting engaged with the state and seem to get a lot better after they all came together. Gotcha. I think theres room for improvement inl,me the thick ths just the start of a dialogue i thank you very much for your interest or im going to see if the pfister with my taking the chair see if i can catch a flight period i yield back to the gentleman from georgia. Ss. The chair will recognize mr. Lamalfa for five minutes per thank you, mr. Chairman. Resuming work a little while ago, talking about utilizing volunteers and keeping the trails open. We get a fair amount of questions up in my area about the status of the trails, when they fall intoo neglect and you get behind. The next thing you know you get a memo that says we cant recapture betrayal, it would be too expensive, which is their de facto closure of betrayal and people feel like they are done very deliberately because there seems to be more and more exclusion from Forest Service land for hiking, hunting, offer vehicles andnd such. Can you disabuse that assumption that folks contact me about . Yeah. I mean, i was able, the good news about the break as i was able to look something up with a staff pic theres about 75 of the trails open, so probably a court of the trails that are still struggling probably from are you talking whiskeytown . Yeah, sorry. Butt there is, there should be o other purpose actions if you will to keep something closed and there should be an accountability about why something is closed or is it a resource problem . Is it the fire damage . Court is that the lack of funding or safety . Will be happy to w follow up wih you all with that part to find out what might be happening. But theres no orders or there shouldnt be actions to keep something close just to keep it closed. I would hope not. Again, we have a volunteer force that is raring to go on that i do personally about whiskeytown so we can reset 100 open milestone, that would be really great. We continue here on the issue with concessionaires. Parks often being very real areas is a limit of that of concessionaires that is allowed to have the contract or that take them. Pretty much looking at monopolies among these cases are in the parklands. People, they are fighting and they are recording what youre finding out is in order to visit these public lands its about as costly as approaching even this electrolyte sector that might be a bitgg of exaggeration but its getting very costly for folks because of whates the concessionaires seem to be able to get away with. Which really kind of comes down to kindus of an elitist way doig business. Can you tell me, what is, it pushes people to go to the Forest Service and blm land, set aside for that purpose especially after what is the Quality Control we are looking at for concessionaires on how they are performing, what the offer, then as ajit is the pricing commensurate with normal people not like with baseball game, 12dollar peers and stuff like that . Right there we have Concessions Management specialist or if the parks large enough theres usually a Concessions Division because of the accountability. There are inspections that in order for the contract to be either renewed or continued, these things have two happen. We can make the supports available if theres a particular problem area you hearing about to talk to you about what the Concessions Team isth doing. And yes, pricing, prices have gone way up and theres a constant conversation, concessionaires with pricing approvals but the park service does have an opportunity to ask them about pricing and to regulate that. Okay. Because it hits hard. We heard from a long time it hits a low income these days middle income people are starting to feel like low income folks and these things hit really hard to the price of everything, the fuel, the meals along the way, everything is so much i so we need find how we can keep the concessionaires being competitive with what peoples perception is. We look also at massive influx with International Visitors to our parks. They hit yosemite very hard and such, and their welcome and such but havean we considered, have u considered a raised entry pass price for International Visitors to help carryl that additional burden, something a little more in line with that load in order toit american citizens still haa better shot . I dont believe we have any consideration of that at this point. Okay. Maybe the something you should take back and we can talk about that, too, if you would theres a push for pay increases of 5 for park Service Employees. Do you think that is actually enough or such it will make more employees want to be there . I think some pay Gap Resolution as i mentioned helpfulwould be very where we can. Maybe we should look towards housing be more affordable. I am being told no peer i yield back. Mr. Reynolds, one last question for you when you Start Talking about the experience of the park, its also very critical that you feel e safe in that environment. And montana just experienced yet another death of the camper, grizzly bear attack. The population of grizzlies and montana right now far exceeds 2000. Between the yellowstone,00 the population in the greater northern Continental Divide population for what additional steps are you taking to protect visitors as a grizzly bear populations grow and endangered species protections a have rendered manyd of them complety fearless of humans and very habituated, causing danger to campers . Yeah, i was very sorry to hear about the tragedy. And we continue with our bare management folks come up s who try to help people understand howow to be very safe in his environment of the k with our partners up with erica montana as you will know its a whole combination of light overstepped the Forest Service, park service. And so werere working hard to basically keep an Education Program going with the visiting public but also to manage these bears if you do become habituated or there in town adding communities and that kind of thing. Unit, removal of whatever actions need to be taken. So what kind of actions are you taking with the visitors . What kind of additional education are you sharingng with them . As far as i know we have still got, for instance, in the evening in the campground you might have ad roving range or a volunteer a lot of times they comes around and talk to people about the hygiene of the camper apps or how theyre going to store the food at night theres quite a bit of horror, the more we could personally text people rather than hint of a pamphlet at the entrance gate entrance entrance gate the better part. To thank you, mr. Chairman. I get back. The chair recognizes ms. Stansbury for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman appeared im going to make a brief report that i do want to thank you, Deputy Director for being here today. I hope to think about but for the chairman had to leave for his flight to address a comment he made directed at me about a comment that i made. One thing i do appreciate it if the bipartisanship of my colleagues who are here, my friendship with all of you, our professionalism. And we really are a model for the American People, the behavior that we engage in here on this diet has impacts and applications for people out there especially young people who watch asked ashley dyess. So i just wanted to raise that and i appreciate you all, appreciate the comments about bipartisanship but i do not appreciate the comments that were made by the former chairman that were threatening to so with that, mr. Chairman, i do yield back and thank you again. All right. The chair will not recognize myself for maybe five minutes. Mr. Reynolds, these questions are really not coming from me. Al their coming from our chief of staff who is a big hiker. He enjoys the outdoors and he makes it a point whenever we are not here, he is usually somewhere in the woods hiking. And actually we have talked about this, actually my gci campaign so we talked about this a little bit during the campaign signed a little bit about what hes talking about, just enough to probably mess up the question that is how he would want to ask it. Butco could you please speak, ad you may have addressed this earlier, can yout please speak about the use of publicprivate partnerships to address the maintenance backlog facing the National Park system . Sure. As you know, mr. Chair, a lot of maintenance for backlog will be contractors and thus probably not what you are asking but i just want to point out that it is private sector that basically implements our construction, unocal building and the underground projects supervised by an expert in publicprivatec partnerships we have a philanthropic and nationalf park foundation, also hundreds of other friends organizations helping most parts nowadays, especially bigger parks. We welcome and are trying to be as innovative as begin working with those boards in those numbers to match money so the centennial match process is really helpful with that where we can put up 50 of the money that they would raise. Apparently that is really great for fundraising, for donors but we worked a lot with our Philanthropic Organizations. They could do a lot of things sometimes quicker and faster for us, for the American People and then as part of a donation perhaps they can purchase a piece of land for us and donated over. We do utilize the publicprivate partnerships attended. We also have the ability through general agreements to work with somebody to share housing as an agent earlier. How do you use the Philanthropic Partners with great americaner outdoors act projects . In the planning stages of s a lot of insulatedm gone all the way but we ask that a lot of times to help us out onto a project. So perhaps i often joke about it and gunmetal grade, we use the basic investment money to fix thatma sewer Treatment Plant tht will talk about the Philanthropic Organization as something that might be a really nice addition for the visit experienced and they can find grace for it and sometimes build it with us or donate something to ito that adds to the experience that we wouldnt be able to build public funding. I know my wife and i we have a home in gatlinburg for years until recently, and shes been a friend of the smokies forever. Great organization. Always have different projects in their, things going on. What can beonon done to streamle the approval process for individuals who would like to use a repair a picnic table or trail shelter, for example, in one of the local National Parks . We want to try to empower each park unit to do with the project to that kind of skill, and so what i would recommend is the organizations that want to do somethingli like that to ask for an appointment with the superintendent and talk to them directly about what youre trying to do and that they can work with us to try, we want to welcome as i said to mr. Lamalfa, as much of as we get as much as we can manage. Right. I think thats pretty much what he was getting at when we were talking about earlier, my chief, i think he was out hiking and it was a sheltered picnic table and there was a local Boy Scout Group that actually hadd wanted to repair it but they couldnt get permission to do it. It was rather confusing when people were willing to donate supplies and labor. Im happy to look into that particular subject if its still burning but i would guess that some of the s right connections have been made because the parks would probably welcome that kind of help a lot of times they can turn to, you asked me how we use the Philanthropic Organizations. We can insert them into that process right away with perhaps the eagle scout or something that they f can help host it or help facilitate that. Right. Okay. All right, thats all the questions i had to have h anybody else lined up, do we . Okay. I want to thank mr. Reynolds for hiss valuable testimony and the members for the question. The m members of the committe may have some additional questions for the witness and we will ask you to respond to those in writing to under Committee Rule three, members of the committee must submit questions to the subcommittee clerk by 5 p. M. Tuesday august 1st. The hearing record will be held open for ten Business Days for these responses there is no further business, without objection the subcommittee standsur adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] since 1979 in partnership with the cable industry cspan has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress, from the house the house and Senate Floors to congressional hearings, party briefings and committee meetings. Cspan gives you a front row seat to how issues are debated and decided with no commentary, no interruption, and completely unfiltered. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. American history tv saturdays on cspan2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. At 3 p. M. Eastern that Calvin Coolidge centennial conference hosted by the Calvin Coolidge president ial foundation and library of Congress Marks this intent of the 30th president s ascension to the white house. At 9 30 p. M. 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