Dale Bumpers: “as a part of the Earth Day celebration, I am, once again, introducing legislation to reform the concessions policies of…”

“as a part of the Earth Day celebration, I am, once again, introducing legislation to reform the concessions policies of the National Park Service. This bill is very similar to a bill I sponsored in the 103d Congress--listen to this--which passed the Senate 90 to 9 and passed the House 386 to 30, but it is not yet law. It repeals the 1965 Concessions Policy Act which has been over a 30-year-old outrage. My legislation would establish an open competitive process for awarding concessions contracts in units of the National Park System. It will be a competitive process for the first time. These contracts are very lucrative the way they are let under the 1965 act, and the American people are getting shafted and have been for a very long time. Instead of putting the money that we get today back into the Treasury for general purposes, under my bill, the money we get from the contracts will go to a special account for the use of the National Park Service, and Lord only knows every study shows they need it. This will be the 18th year that I have worked to reform the concession policies of this country.”