George Miller: “I want to join in commending Secretary Babbitt and Senator Thomas and Senator Dale Bumpers, who will be retiring from…”

“I want to join in commending Secretary Babbitt and Senator Thomas and Senator Dale Bumpers, who will be retiring from this Congress, and our Chairman, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), for all of their efforts on behalf of this legislation. I also want you to know that the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento), who is managing the bill here today, has in fact been involved in trying to bring balance to the concessions policy of our National Park System now for many, many years, and has really been an architect of the underlying framework of concession reform. Of particular interest to me are the changes we made in the original bill's provision on leasehold surrender interests. I had objected to these provisions in committee because they were untested and could very well maintain some of the anticompetitive aspects that exist today with the National Parks' concession program. By the narrowest of margins, the resource committee failed to adopt an amendment I offered to replace the leasehold surrender interest provisions with a system of amortization of the concessionaire investment similar to that used throughout the concessions industry and in the private real estate market. Subsequent to the committee action on S. 1693, my staff and I had discussions with a number of principals of this legislation. The result of these discussions has been an agreement to change the LSI provisions.”