Appreciate the support of congress to resolve this extraordinary challenge. Thank you. Director jarvis, thanks very much. Because of the number of senators here, ill ask one question to get us started and recognize our colleagues. Director jarvis, for decades, the park service has recommended expanding the Oregon Caves National monument. And one of the primary reasons has been because the existing site is not large enough to protect the site, given the volume of visitors. So in the case of oregon caves, not expanding the site could actually increase the cost of maintaining a very unique resource. My point is that the park acquisition and maintenance costs are not always in conflict, and certainly the oregon caves raises that issue. Adding to the monument might actually hold down the cost of maintaining the site. So my question to you, dr. Jarvis, is isnt this part of the thinking that ought to go into this debate . In other words, were going to explore plenty of ideas. And you saw that with a big chunk of the senate. But wouldnt you say philosophically that we ought to try to find ways to intertwine this theory that Park Maintenance and acquisition together can be part of an effective and costeffective approach to stewardship . I would agree completely with that, chairman. Oregon caves is an example where the boundary edition that we have proposed would protect the watershed to the cave itself, as you know. And as i know, having been responsible for that great park, is that it is an active wet cave. Theres a stream that runs through the middle of it and the water from the stream comes to the surrounding lands, and we have always been concerned about the Water Quality that was resulting from the activities on those land. And so by protecting that, adding it to the park, we would actually reduce our concerns for maintaining that Water Quality that runs through the cave and then through the chateaus. Yes, buying lands can save money. Particularly in holdings in our National Park which is predominantly what were restricted to with the land, Water Conservation fund can reduce our administrative costs in terms of providing access and maintaining critical resources. Very good. Nor mccough. Thank you for being here and your leadership to parks. I think it is important to recognize we have seen some innovative things coming out of our parks. I understand what theyre doing , theyre getting the neighbors to clean up and helps us again in not only addressing the issues within our parks but again, bringing the local people in and giving them ownership, giving them pride in their parks, thats a good thing. Another thing weve got good in alaska right now is, as you know, we have some very huge parks that are very inaccessible, and if you have the luxury of owning a float plane or can pay to fly in to a place like lake clark, you have beautiful opportunities within these parks. But they are very remote and very hard to get to. Catmy, re doing out in theyre stationed right at the falls now, right as we speak, and ill do a promo to you, i hink you can go to catmypark. Com and watch dozens of bears munching on salmon and better than reality tv, im telling you. This is the real thing. Its good because it brings the parks to people when we know that far too many of our parks, as wonderful as they are, are very remote. So how we can do that i think is good. You heard the dialogue going back and forth between colleagues here and senator colbrunn, and my concern that the park service seems to be prioritizing acquisition of land over the maintenance and the maintenance backlog issues. Can you address really that issue, why were seeing the level of Land Acquisition that we are . And i think senator colbrunns statistics are really kite straightforward and i think very compelling why were putting the priority on Land Acquisition ahead of the maintenance and backlog. And at the same time you address that, the terminology that you use, i think, was Financial Sustainability test. Because one of the things that i need to understand is what evaluation the park service goes through as you look to specific Land Acquisition to make sure that we are not unnecessarily adding to this maintenance backlog, that there is a theres a process that you go through in the evaluation of what these acquisitions might mean, and i fully understand what the chairman has noted, that there are Land Acquisitions, specific inholdings that truly do make it efficient but i cant imagine the bulk that you do with these Land Acquisitions is these smaller inholdings. So if you can speak to the priority as opposed to maintenance backlog and then what analysis goes into a review prior to these Land Acquisitions. Ok. Let me clarify, the land, Water Conservation fund is available to the four federal Land Management agencies, and the National Park service, among hose four, is the only one restricted from buying land outside our park boundaries. We can do minor park adjustments on the edges but without your direct authority we cannot buy lands without your authority. Within lwcf. With lwcf. Within your budget you use funds to proceed with Land Acquisition. Only with lwcf. We basically get our funding in specific buckets and we use the land, Water Conservation fund for Land Acquisition and maintenance accounts for maintenance. Were not allowed to move money between those two. Thats basically up to you to have to grant us that kind of authority but we do not have that. In terms of acquisition because we dont get very much money in the land, Water Conservation fund, we have a robust process that predominantly is towards the key Critical Issues like threats to the resource, opportunities for visitor enhancement, hardship cases, we had one in montana recently where an individual was on their deathbed and they really wanted the park to acquire their property as well. So we go through a very rigorous process to determine what our priorities are. Right now, we are in the 150th of the civil war and weve had a priority on protecting some key components of our civil war battlefields, so theres been a strong portion of that as well. The park service also allocates the state side of the land, Water Conservation fund that goes to the states to protect habitat and provide visitor enjoyment as well. Also on the maintenance side, we have an incredibly Robust Program in determining our priorities and asset conditions. So you basically take every asset, every building, every road, every trail, every restroom. You go in and determine its existing condition and its asset priority. How important is this to the Visitor Experience, or is this president ial home is that based on the number of visitors . Is that how you set a priority . Absolutely. Thats part of it. It also might be Independence Hall is a very important building, so that would be its core to the purpose of the park as opposed to an old barn in Rocky MountainNational Park. My time has expired but you havent addressed this Financial Stability sustainability test that you referenced. How does that work . That means that once we elevate a building, lets say, from a Poor Condition to a good condition, then we require that the park put the annual maintenance into that building to keep it at that condition, and they have to demonstrate theyre going to make that priority make that investment to retain it because we do not want to fix a building up, raise its condition to a new level and then watch it decline. So what that means is they have to make very, very hard choices but some other buildings theyll have to defer the maintenance on. We do not want to lose the investment weve made in improving the condition of the facilities we have the money for. And yet as we noted from dr. Coburns chart, were clearly seeing that erode. Yes. Senator. Thanks for having this hearing. I got here a also bit late so im not sure im correct on the next statement. Im not sure i heard the word sequester. While were having this big discussion and think its an important discussion, i look at this as an Immediate Impact that my constituents are feeling and the economy is feeling because of the sequester. So while im glad to have this discussion, i look at it and say we have 13 National Parks, three of them crown jewels. We have visitors producing 261 million and thousands of jobs across our state. If the sequester continues, its Something Like 153 million impact across the country, and weve already had a Million Dollars of impact weve had to absorb from Mount Rainier since 2010 that are affecting visitor impacts. When i look at some of these gateway towns that are a part of this operation, everything from port angeles to eatonville to the north cascades, i keep thinking what is the Economic Impact this is going to be because we dont get a budget deal, i look at Something Like 227,000 jobs in Washington State that are related to the Outdoor Recreation industry. So for some of my colleagues, this conversation about the future and road maintenance and whatever is one economic question, and certainly one i have certainly a disagreement point on ill come to in a second. But my immediate question is, what is the Economic Impact of all of the sequestration having on the economy of a state where National Parks and Outdoor Recreation is a key part of our economy. I dont want to lose sight of that and i hope you would enlighten us on what sequestration is doing now and what will it do in the future to lessen really an Economic Impact that is being felt and will continue to be felt and what do you think we can do to help get our colleagues to understand this issue . The second point is, my colleague, senator alexander and i, have been sponsors of the creation of a new park. Its called the bee reactor park. Its celebrating the achievements of scientific excellence that our country achieved in preserving that is something between d. O. E. And the department and creating this. Do i think we should stop creating National Parks because somebody thinks the maintenance backlog . No, i want to commemorate what happened at hanford and various parts what weve done across the country. Im not going to my colleague from new mexico is here. I certainly am not going to have the attitude were not going to do any new park until the maintenance backlog is caught up. So, you know, i guess im just e that believes that our generations challenge is to be good stewards. And these arent our decisions forever and ever, these are our decisions to be good stewards for the next generation. So i would hope you would comment on one, the continuation of the b reactor park and the Economic Impact were seeing from sequestration on National Parks and what we can do to help our colleagues illuminate is really will impact jobs and small town economies across our country. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator cantwell. Lets start with sequestration, the 5 cut we took in march this fiscal year resulted in 130 million cut to the operations and responsibilities of the National Park service halfway through the fiscal year, and just as the Summer Season was beginning in most of our National Parks, so the net re of th on the ground, we had a hiring freeze, we withheld the hiring of 900 permanent positions and 1,000 seasonals. So there was a direct effect. Every park in the system had to take a 5 cut. I was not given the authority to take that off the top or take it out of lwcf or any other account. Every account took a 5 hit. As you know, every park in the system is aligned in the budget. There were direct effects, there were lateseason openings, there were reduced operation hours, fewer rangers, fewer rangers to fight fire, fewer rangers for search and rescue. I was in the tetons this week and talked directly to the rangers and visitation is up, rescues are up, numbers of seasonals and rangers are down. In maintenance specifically. So i gave you the number of 444 million currently available in ourdgetor maintena didnt mention that was actually reduced to 416 million by sequestration. So all of our operating accounts that would be applied to deferred maintenance actually were hit at the 5 level as well. So it was about a 27 million direct hit from sequestration. You know, my theory on new units are that, you know, history doesnt stop just because you have an economic challenge. The National Parks service has been challenged by and charged by this body for almost 100 years to take care of not only the extraordinary crown jewel such as the grand canyon and grand teton and yosemite, but historical sites that are representative of the full american experience. And that story is incomplete. And the breactor is the perfect example of that and tells an important story about this country and the leadership and the development of the atopic bomb and its role in ending world war ii. It is the same thing with rriet tubman or the story of portman rowe in virginia. What is different about the new sites is the National Park service goes into them knowing we have extraordinary economic challenges and we look for partners. With the breactor we have the department of energy and community and others to work with us. And we go in and attempt to minimize the direct responsibilities of the National Park service that would add to our maintenance backlog but recognize we also want to be a part of the stories that tell the american experience. Mr. Chairman, my time has i wanted to point out e i visited the grand teton, i was so surprised walking down the street how Little English i heard being spoken, that this is we think of these as our crown jewels but this is an International Tourist area that supposedly generates 436 million benefit to the local economy. So this is these are huge economic resources, so i hope that we will track as a committee these gateway communities, the local Economic Impact as well of what sequestration is doing because i think we have to be very, very smart about getting im not saying we cant live within our means, but just you pointed out, again, sequestrations impact is across the board and not giving you the flexibility to do something that might have less impact on those local communities. So i thank the chairman. I thank director jarvis. Thank you, senator cantwell d number of exceptionally important points. I think we all recall when another washington resident, sally jewel, was here at the committee and she pointed out recreation now is a 646 billion annually boost to the american economy. This is Outdoor Recreation, close to 650 billion a year. This is everything from guides to equipment to clothing, the list goes on and on. So your points are well taken. And one of the reasons that i asked about the oregon caves, and i think you also touch on another very important point, its not correct to say that maintenance and acquisition are always mutually exclusive, that in a number of instances, they go hand in hand and that acquisition may in fact actually lower some of the maintenance costs. As usual, you make a number of important i dont want to delay any colleagues but i think director jarvis will remember this, a Land Acquisition on the carbon river allowed us to expand Mount Rainier. Why did we do it . Because it kept getting washed out. The Entrance Point kept getting washed out and we came to congress to ask for 235,000 every four years. By doing that Land Acquisition we were able to move the entry point to a higher level and solve a problem. I certainly agree with your point. I would note by way of doing a little bit of advertising as well, that senator cantwells bill on the breactor is now part of the hotline underway. Senator cantwells bill and chairman doc hastings and senator alexander and senator hinrich. So i urge all colleagues on both sides of the aisle to clear this very fine piece of legislation. All right, senator alexander, youre next. Thanks for the plug for the fine piece of legislation. Id like to move the discussion from the west to the eastern United States where we have and id like to get the directors comments on the two areas weve been talking about, one is the appropriateness of even thinking about the land, Water Conservation fund in terms of your backlog, whether thats appropriate or not. But first, id like to talk about roads and parks. Now, ive always thought, and this goes back a long time, we dont have any business using appropriated dollars