William Helms: “God blessed this Nation with an abundance of natural resources and places of unmatched natural beauty. I am so glad that…”

“God blessed this Nation with an abundance of natural resources and places of unmatched natural beauty. I am so glad that as a Nation we have set aside portions of our land for the enjoyment of the American people and have preserved our heritage by the restoration and maintenance of dozens of historic sites around America. However over the course of my nearly thirty years in the Senate, I have seen the Federal Government fumble year after year its stewardship over the lands it holds as a fiduciary for the American People. The Federal Government has continued to add acre after acre year after year, when it has been demonstrated that it cannot maintain what it already has. This has placed an enormous burden on the National Park Service and other Federal agencies who manage and hold in trust land for the American people. The Park Service is charged with managing 385 sites which comprise 83 million acres of land drawing 300 million visitors per year. The Service is also responsible for, among other things, the care of more than 80 million museum artifacts that trace American history. According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, the National Park Service estimated that its national maintenance backlog was $4.9 billion when it submitted its fiscal year 2002 budget request to the Congress. Let me say this again, $4.9 Billion.…”