Political Quotes

“Many in Congress have known for years that the National Park Service must take a more business-like approach to the way the service contracts for private concessions to serve visitors to our national parks. Many in Congress have tried to forge improvements in that area, and, finally, we have before us a bill painstakingly molded in our Energy and Natural Resources Committee to make those improvements. I serve on that committee, and I am a cosponsor. I wish to recognize Senators Bumpers and Bennett, as well as the chairman and ranking minority member of the committee, for their intense and sincere efforts to craft policies in this bill that are fair, on the one hand, to the landlord--that is, American taxpayers--and, on the other hand, to the concessionaires. I believe a balance has been accomplished in that respect, and I will support this bill. I wanted also to note, while serving in the House of Representatives in 1991 and 1992 I headed a Task Force on Government Waste. Our task force found that the National Park Service's lease agreements and related fees were terribly inadequate in many cases, and we called for reasonable franchise fees to be collected. This bill will require a more competitive arena for those seeking to operate businesses within the National Parks, creating a system much closer to what occurs in the private sector. The increased fees will result from that competition instead of arbitrary levels set in Washington.”