Test. Captioning performed by vitac with Glacier National park totaling 131 million and yellowstone National Park which we share with wyoming, i think the senators of wyoming say its more than a share, they have most of it in wyoming, that backlog is growing close to 600 million. I wouldnt be surprised if that number perhaps goes up even higher. If left unchecked there will be impacts in our Outdoor Economy, there will be impacts to our gateway communities like gardner, like cook city and like others. Thankfully congress is working together and taking action again with this bipartisan restore our parks act, and im grateful Ranking Member on the subcommittee angus king and i and the rest of the committee are working in a truly bipartisan fashion to put legislation forward that would bring a solution to this problem. I hope we can pass this out of committee soon and ultimately send this to President Trumps desk. But its going to take more than just one to fix this issue. Mr. Cameron, Yellowstone Park just finished the rehabilitation of the canyon overlooks and trails which helps facilitate more access to this incredibly beautiful area. There are many more projects in montana that increase Public Access and the one yellowstone to improve the safety of employee housing. The question is how does the National Park service prioritize these projects . Is it random . Do you have a system in place that prioritizes safety and access projects like the ones in montana over others . Senator daines, i thank you for that question. I know secretary bernhardt was delighted to bring the Vice President out to yellowstone last week. And youre right, the scale of the problem is enormous, not just in montana, wyoming, but nationwide as senators on the committee have observed. The Parks Service has a long established priority system with multiple complex variables to set priorities, theyve been following this process for quite a long time. Public health and safety, Employee Health and safety and visitor access are all the priorities. I would be happy to, you know, submit for the record a detailed description of the Park Services rather complex and well thought out ranking process. That would be helpful. Thank you. And how do we facilitate more partnerships with federal agencies, for example, like the d. O. T. Or private groups like the montana conservation corps to address the maintenance backlog in the parks . So volunteer organizations, nonprofit organizations, state and local government partners are really important contributors to the challenge. I suspect that there are some taxrelated bonding issues that might get in the way of publicprivate partnerships in terms of private sector financing, there are potentially challenges with who manages the construction contract, as was mentioned earlier, whether the federal Acquisition Regulation applies. So those are things that could be could be explored to make publicprivate partnerships more effective and more common. As i mentioned a couple minutes ago before you were able to join the hearing, the bureau of reclamation has an interesting model where local water districts manage most of the infrastructure on reclamation projects and perhaps thats a model we might want to explore. The commissioner of reclamation would not want me to miss the opportunity to point out she has an issue in the bureau of reclamation as well. Speaking of backlog, i want to talk about the Forest Service. It also has a growing backlog. Montana has the second largest share with 459 million in deferred maintenance. This can have a major impact on montanas Outdoor Economy estimated to be around 7 billion annually. A Recreation Community is already facing trail closures in forest plans across the state for bureaucratic and litigation reasons and is adding insult to injury when the Forest Service also closes trails and access because they arent able to maintain them. Ms. Lago, ive heard concerns from private as well as public groups that are willing and able to provide trail maintenance and other services that the red tape and bureaucratic process can be burdensome and they disincentivize these partnerships. What is the administration doing to streamline the process to ensure that these groups and these coalitions can volunteer to help address this backlog . Thank you, senator daines. And youre right, volunteers and conservation organizations are very important to help us keep up with needed maintenance. Last year we had over 1900 ftes, thats full time equivalence volunteering in the Trail Program alone. We just couldnt do it without them. In the past year weve worked at stream lining and improving our agreements process so for us to Work Together with somebody that wants to do project work, we need some kind of instrument, agreement, and weve had inadequate and inconsistent training across the agency for people who knew what type of instrument to use, thats some of the red tape folks are telling you about. But we have added capacity in our agreements staff, streamlined training and made it available online. So were working hard to meet people where they are who want to help us do those maintenance projects. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Senator heinrich. First i want to thank the chair and the Ranking Member for holding this hearing and in particular for including the bureau of Land Management, the u. S. Fish and wildlife service, the u. S. Forest service, as well as our National Parks. I think a lot of people are aware of the parks backlog, but the vast majority of Outdoor RecreationEconomic Activity in many of the western states actually happens on nonpark Service Public lands. I want to touch on what senator daines raised for just a moment because one of the biggest problems in terms of limiting volunteers and activities that can really help leverage what the agencies can do is the lack of staff that are actually assigned to help volunteer groups and private organizations do that work. You know, today Outdoor Recreation is the single largest driver of activity on our public lands, but our assignment of staff is stuck decades in the past and weve seen this in many places in new mexico where there is real willingness to get on the ground and do something, but theres no one assigned at the staff level to facilitate that. Mr. Cameron and ms. Lago, what are the Forest Service and the department of interior doing to change that . Senator, i appreciate that question. If we can identify specific instances we would be delighted to look at those individually. Across the board the secretary has made it clear that hes interested in promoting partnerships with nonprofits and state and local governments and were eager to perhaps more effectively communicate that message and that the need to actively engage with volunteer groups. Volunteers provide roughly 10,000 fte worth of activity at interior. I realize that. So what im suggesting is that we look at the number of people who are assigned to traditional activities, whether that be grazing permits, forest management, oil and gas permits and compare that with how many were actually assigned to facilitate permits and also publicprivate partnerships to help facilitate some of this. Ms. Lago . Sure. I just want to completely agree that as people who want to partner with us have gone up and up and up the staff available for those programs has gone down. Part of the reason for that is over the last ten years, you know, we get our budget in program funding, fire is a program, recreation is a program, grazing is a program and as we have had to devote more of our budget to firefighting, the budgets in those other programs have decreased. I think with the fire funding fix we are going to be yeah, thats exactly where you should be going because we have actually, you know this committee worked very hard to fix the fire bar situation and as an agency you need to take advantage of that agreed. To be able to fund those positions. Ms. Lago, can the Forest Service afford to maintain the road system you have today . No, i think the answer is no, not 370,000 miles of road. We dont open all of the road system to passenger travel, only about 18 is open. Right. About 30 is what we call put to bed, its blocked off and not accessible, but we keep it because we can potentially need to open it for firefighting or some kind of emergency access, but, no, we dont which is why travel management is so important as you try to address these infrastructure needs. Ms. Wahl, i want to ask you, has your organization ever done analysis to figure out how much additional annual economic output or Economic Activity would be leveraged if our public lands were fully capitalized, if the campgrounds were all open, if the trails that are on the maps today were open, if the basic infrastructure, the bathrooms in yellowstone and the things that we hear about, if all of that was fully capitalized, do we have any idea what that would mean for additional Economic Activity . Thank you. We certainly dont have an idea of what the total of that would be, but we have great anecdotes and stories of just a campground that the Tennessee Valley authority partnered with p3, it was closed, no revenue, no Economic Activity in the local community. This p3 partnership opened the campground, its at full capacity every day its open in the year. So not only is, you know, the economy and this Rural Community benefitting but certainly the Forest Service and the Tennessee Valley authority because they are actually getting money from this contract. So we have examples of that all across the board, it would be great to see, you know, the full breadth of that. And i suspect that story could be replicated time and time again in state after state after state. Im out of time, but i want to point out the fact that the north american model of Wildlife Conservation is the envy of the world because for the better part of a century hunters and anglers have put their am unwhere their mouth s they stepped up and taxed themselves to say if we dont do this we are not going to have a sustainable resource. I think we might owe it to ourselves to start having that conversation around Outdoor Recreation as well. I will join you in that conversation, senator. Senator lee. Thank you, madam chair. There are a lot of things the federal government does, a lot of them are unpopular, of the most unpopular parts of the federal government you probably have the irs, even more unpopular Congress WhoseApproval Rating seems to hover these days between 9 and 11 making it less popular than fidel castro in america. It depends on whether they poll immediate family. Exactly. It could be worse. Yeah, it might even be worse in some of those polls. But one of the few things the federal government does that is popular exists in the National Park service. People love their National Parks, they want to be able to use them, they dont want to see them threatened. So many are concerned, particularly in states like mine where we have a lot of National Parks that are national treasures, people are concerned when they hear about the maintenance backlog and the fact that 62 of the public lands backlog can be found within the National Park service, thats of concern to them. We will start with you, mr. Cameron. Would you agree that under certain conditions the Public Interest might be better served by finding ways to fund the backlog and to make sure that we maintain adequately our National Parks . Would you agree with that as a general statement . I certainly would, senator lee. I think we need to look at any and all options and seriously consider them. Would you agree with me that there are some lands that have been identified as suitable for disposal by the federal government . Yes, senator, General Services administration runs an annual process to try to identify those. Do you have any sense as to what kind of revenue could be generated if that land were disposed of . Not off the top of my head. I think the estimates are probably in the single billions of dollars, but i dont know the latest estimate from gsa. Okay. That is a large sum of money certainly. Do you know how often the blm evaluates its lands for their suitability for disposal . So blm has a regular planning process on district by district basis on a cycle. Memory serves me correctly, i believe its a fiveyear cycle. Okay. Do you have any idea approximately how many acres of land have been deemed suitable for disposal . No, i do not, but im happy to provide that for the record. Okay. Would you agree that under certain circumstances it might make sense to sell some of that land in order to be able to keep up with the maintenance backlog in order to overcome it . No the General Services administration has a process in place for divesting of federal land and federal assets and at the tail end of the process it can be solve, yes. Ms. Lago, how about you, do you know how many acres of land approximately the Forest Service has identified as suitable for disposal . I dont believe we have authority for disposing of land. We have authority to convey facilities and the land associated with it, but we dont typically dispose of land. We use it for advantageous land exchanges where were trying to block up ownership or obtain some critical Wildlife Habitat or connectivity or Something Like that. Okay. So youre saying there is no regular evaluation of Forest Service land to consider whether all of it needs to be under federal ownership . Thats right. Mr. Cameron, lets get back to you. Across all the federal Land Management agencies, compliance with federal regulation contributes to the massive maintenance backlog. The very same backlog that we are here to discuss today. When your agency estimates the cost of a project, do you separate the costs of Regulatory Compliance from the rest of the costs of construction . Senator, i dont believe we do that. We take for granted that we have to comply with the federal Acquisition Regulation, we take for granted that we have to comply with davis bacon act where it applies, for instance, and various other constraints. I would point out that the National Star preservation act can sometimes produce some challenges. If we need to try to reproduce concrete the way it was made in the 1720s that can be a lot more expensive than the way its made now. Yeah, ive heard, you cant just get that at the home depot. Would there be a way of calculating that breakdown, either on the it seems to me that it would be helpful if you could calculate that cost either on an individual project level or in addition to that also having it on the maintenance backlog level as well. So that we can figure out what percentage of the maintenance backlog generally is attributable to Regulatory Compliance and what percentage of the cost on any particular project is attributable to the same. Senator, i know weve done some thinking along those lines. What id like to do is respond for the record and try to give you a more accurate and complete answer about how we might approach that. Okay. I see my time has expired. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, senator lee. Senator king. Madam chair, i also want to thank you and the Ranking Member for this hearing on this really important project. Im sitting here thinking about politics and partisanship. This is probably the most conservative bill before the congress in every sense of the word. Conservative because were literally conserving, were pro protecting something that has handed to us by our forefathers and mothers and predecessors, but its also conservative because its all about paying down debt. It hasnt been mentioned so far today, but deferred maintenance is debt, just like its debt on the Balance Sheet and i think once its looked at that way it eases, it seems to me, some concerns that have been expressed about this bill. We are not adding to debt, we are actually diminishing our National Debt because these problems will have to be taken care of some day and when they are it will be more expensive. So theres interest on the debt. So i think thats why this is so important and im so glad to see that theres bipartisan support for these various bills. Number two, one of the reasons this is urgent for me is i did a little calculation, i looked at the top ten national visited parks, the most visited National Parks, the top ten and their acreage. Its a very interesting calculation of visitors per acre and that is a proxy for p