Ed Case: “Our national parks are among our most universally supported and treasured institutions, and they cannot survive in an…”

“Our national parks are among our most universally supported and treasured institutions, and they cannot survive in an atmosphere of incredible popularity. We simply must find accommodations to protect the basic principles and qualities of those parks for which we treasure them so much. One of the areas where we have significant problems is in overuse of our parks by commercial air tour operations, which severely degrade some of our parks and have the risk of degrading all of our parks for a number of different reasons, whether they be environmental, whether they be protection of our natural resources, or whether they be visitor enjoyment. Fundamentally, commercial air tours overflying a national park with noise and other disruption on the ground does degrade the park experience for the many who enjoy them in that way. There is no right to overfly our parks. Now, I concede and agree that there is some reasonable area and use for commercial air tours. I certainly want those that cannot experience our parks to experience them in this way, and I certainly believe that they have a place in our parks, but not where they are today and not where they are going. We recognized this challenge 23 years ago in this Congress by passing a law which essentially required air tour management plans, which accommodated all interests, and those plans are now coming to fruition.…”