Bill Bennett: “I rise today to offer a piece of legislation which will be known, I hope, when it becomes law as the National Park…”

“I rise today to offer a piece of legislation which will be known, I hope, when it becomes law as the National Park Service Concessions Policy Reform Act of 1995. This particular act is cosponsored by two of my friends on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the former chairman of that committee, Chairman Bennett Johnston and Mr. Bumpers, Dale Bumpers, from Arkansas, who was the chairman of the subcommittee that handled this legislation in the previous Congress. Mr. Bumpers has been pursuing reform in the Park Service concession policy for, I think, his entire career in the Senate. I was delighted to join with him last year and bring about the passage of this bill in the committee and the Senate. It was reported out by the committee by a vote of 16 to 4, a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats both supporting it. And it was passed on this floor a year and a half ago by a vote of 90 to 9, demonstrating tremendous bipartisan support for this. Unfortunately, our friends in the House did not act with the same dispatch that we did...”