Efficiently and we are in negotiations, we signed tennessee today, we have missouri, virginia, maryland, a number of other states that are in discussions with us about entering these agreements. I yield to mr defazio. On a point made earlier about the governor of california having to use scant state funds to reopen yosemite made by california members, there is no guarantee that any of this money will be paid back, none, zero. I would say and republican rules paying back and individual states would constitute an earmark which means you would have to waive the rules of the house to do it but would try to pass a bill to extract this out of the park service, and i and the stand why governors are being cautious. I thank the gentleman. I might knows that tradition would say you are wrong, they will all be prepared. Would you yield for a second . That was before you adopted this extraordinary earmarked rule which is problematic. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your service. I know how hard it is. I want to bring up the specific point that your folks are working on, dan kimball is director of Everglades National park, he is working with our local folks to reopen the park. We have 250 guides that require very little from the park. They pay a license every year to work out of the park and not only has an impact on them and their families but has an impact on the hotels and restaurants in the area and so i would ask with your very limited staff, this is not your fault but with the inability of the other side to provide any real leadership here, i commend you for your leadership and i commend dan kimball and his service but i ask you as you look at opening up, this is one of those areas where it will not cost you as much as opening up and getting it done these folks require very little of you and they do a Great Service to Monroe County and the florida piece. I want to ask you, what do you think the cost has been to the park service . You have answered this question in a few different ways but if you will indulge me and tell me what the cost has been thus far . I really dont have a figure. You mean cost in terms of how much we have peer radically expanded during the closure period . How much you expanded and failed to collect. In terms of failure to collect, we are losing 450,000 per day of income. That would be non appropriated dollars, fees from camping, insurance fees and the like, franchise fees, all of that. We are losing 450,000 per day. Lisa simon has given some estimates peer. I would love to hear you sort of recap it for me as a freshman, takes a long time for the gavel to get to me so i would like to ask you what this has cost our country and in particular your industry. Thank you for the question. In the first week of the shutdown our two operators reported 114 million in losses just for the first week. We know in the last 16 days that has dramatically increased and we project longterm impacts based on future business that has already cancelled or postponed, we know that does not include the estimated financial losses from the cities and destinations and suppliers that belong to our association as well and we also believe the longterm impact will have an affect on International Visitation to the United States, National Parks are a huge draw for International Markets and we believe that it is going to be difficult for International Visitors to regain the confidence of coming back to the United States. They dont understand it. They are having to try to understand, try to explain to International Visitors why the parts are closed. If i can just, if you could indulge me could you tell me what exactly you tell your International Visitors or what you would counsel your Association Members to tell those International Visitors the dont understand . That is a very good question. We have not been what we have done is to try to find alternative activities which include state parks we have for the country as well. Thank you for being here. To whatever degree some of you have been blamed for some hours in your fast government conspiracy to shutdown parks are want to thank you for your service to our country, your service in trying to preserve americas great treasures and with a little bit of luck we will have figured out our way through this but thank you very much. I yield back the balance of my time. The gentleman yields back and i think the gentlelady from south dakota for patients a yield five minutes. I appreciate the opportunity. And my colleagues allowing me to ask a few questions here today. I want to ask a clarification on an answer you gave to a previous question. When discussing the monuments on the mall you talk about barricading them because of protection of property, that was the purpose for barricading them. Was that correct . That is correct. I assumed was protection of individuals that may go on to that property or for liability reasons but your number one objective was to protect the property that was there. My responsibilities to protect the monuments and memorials. I am from south dakota. We have Mount Rushmore in our state. It is a mountain that has been carved, it is viewable by state highways, goes up the mountain and around the mountain and you can go into the National Park and view it from there up close and personal and enjoy the opportunity to go so, have you visited Mount Rushmore before . Yes i have. We had one family that drove to south dakota, got to south dakota and found they could not access Mount Rushmore, or view it. Review aware of that . I was aware of the park was closed. I was unaware of the pacific set the local site. Who made the decision to block the state highway to access, not necessarily getting to the viewing area of the actual park. And part of the mountain got this far. Those decisions were made at the local level, where to close, which erodes to close. A family that drove that far found themselves not able to the aMount Rushmore and we got hit with the blizzard. This hit south dakota, five feet of snow. And we have to visit south dakota. And not necessarily sure what happened to them. And when everyone was digging out many buildings caved in, tens of thousands of livestock, and anybodys lifetime. The Economic Impact would be huge trees. The very next 80 park officials putting those cones back along this one, five feet of snow, i would like to know if you think that would be there that morning. I could not, i dont set local priorities like that. I got people around that area steamed because they were extremely upset that here they had lost their businesses, lost their livestock, they couldnt access their homes, they were trying to dig out and protect people and the park service was mainly concerned with going out and pleasing cones that didnt allow them to view what they see as partly their monument as well from a far. It was very disturbing to them. From that point do you believe it was appropriate to take that type of action at that point in time . I cant comment on local issues like that. I have no knowledge of which roads or any of that, i dont have that local information. I know very soon after october 1st the state made the request to the park service to run the monuments themselves and to incur the cost themselves and they were told that was not going to be allowed at that point. The state of south dakota has requested it and that agreement has been made so it is open and operating today. What is interesting is the way south dakota approached it, our governors call the businesses and asked if they would sponsor a day at Mount Rushmore. It made me so proud. Businesses lined up to fund Mount Rushmore for a day because they recognize it was such a treasure and so special they would do that. Is not taking taxpayer dollars, separate organizations are funded get for the day which was a wonderful way to get through this type of situation that has been so hard for me. I wish we could have done it from the beginning because many families were turned away at the gate. When they pulled over to take pictures or tried to created more allied of the issue because they were parked in the middle of the highway because they couldnt get in the pull off. I understand that the pull offs are gravel, derek, stones. I dont know what prop. We are trying to protect by blocking people from pulling over. Do you know what property were trying to protect . I cant speak to local pull off information. I am sorry. They have been removed because someone decided it was important that somebody not get killed on that mountain and pull their vehicle over if a rich going to and get on to a pullout. Those cones are gone now because of the safety of the individuals that are there. I dont believe that peoples safety has been a priority in this situation. I dont believe it was properly tried to be protected because frankly there was no property that was going to be damaged. I believe it was punitive. I am upset about it and thankful for the way south dakota approach things, they do it the right way and this whole situation has shown me fat our park officials need to be very clear on what their role is and their priorities are and that should be making sure americans get the opportunity to view their treasures in their National Parks and not punish individuals because of situations that are beyond their control. Thank you for your time. I thank the gentlelady. You answer did you didnt know what you did negotiate the utah deal and doesnt have similar provisions for roads and offer areas similar to what the gentlelady is describing . We did negotiate a south dakota one as well. Mt. Rushmore is back open. Everything is completely open. The original letter we got from the governor only wanted to open the entrance road in a parking area, not the entire park so, very tragic snow storm and we entered into the queens of south dakota and now rushmore is fully operational. The gentlelady from new mexico, anything further . We finished the first round. Does the gentleman have further questions . The gentleman from washington. I just want to say i am glad we had this hearing. It was probably predictable but both sides would say what they said. After all, we are in a government shutdown. You have to make difficult decisions. We are trying to ascertain here and there is going to be some followup, why it appears, why did it appear that actions were punitive . That is the optics whether we like it or not, in any way you can avoid it, that is the optics and so that has to be avoided. I recognize, jonathan jarvis, you dont have a say in every one of the 401 National Parks. I recognize that and i recognize that the decisions that were made like the exchange that i forget you had with one of the members on our side regarding mount vernon that you werent involved in that decision. I appreciate that. Never the less there is the thread that needs to be looked after. Harry truman probably said it best, the bucks stops here. Policies come from the top. Going back to the exchange you and mr. Whitman had, you didnt think this was going to be a long shot down. Why was such extreme measures taken the first day . If you thought was going to be a longer shutdown, that after all the things you cited, would take place later on. Not from the first day and that is where the optics come in, that is where the optics come in and that is why from me because i have been very public on this, i have said it seems to me there is a conscious effort whether it came from you, you say you made the decisions, that is fine. If it was higher up, nevertheless the optics are. This government is exercising something that has been done before to make a political point. That is dangerous in the long run with our country. With that, i appreciate working with the gentleman from california, the chairman of the Oversight Committee and i yield back to him. I thank my friend, member of my committee and fellow chairman. It is the best of all combinations here today. I will be as brief as i can. The mayor and a host of other people who operate concessions, small towns and so on have asked specific questions you havent entered of that werent answered here today. I hope you will address as quickly as possible their answers and their concerns but let me go through a couple quick questions i need to get for the record. First of all, to the best of your knowledge, when did you begin the process of procuring the barricades that were used on day one. More than a day of course, more than a week of course. Was it more than a month . National capital region, National Mall memorials reporter and inventory for what we call bike rack. We use them all the time. It is your testimony there were no rentals or purchases of cones, barricades or other items in preparation . Not to my knowledge but i will check on that and get back to you. Mayor gray and the District Of Columbia have been seriously impacted by the closing, without any public statement, your signs never said this is closed except for First Amendment, your police never said this is closed except for First Amendment. As a matter of fact from a Public Safety standpoint even the Vietnam Memorial got opened on one side either by individuals or your employees and the other side was never opens so people had to walk around it on the grass and so on. Or police drove on sidewalks with pedestrians walking on them because you barricaded the roads. Your Mountain Police forces do what horses do and you are not cleaning it up. So you are creating your employees are choosing to have courses on the mall, creating a sanitation issue. Your part was very aware that garbage cans were continuing to fill because people were there and they did not emptied them. The mayor asked and has been trying to get specific of 40 to empty those. Why is it that you never considered, and please dont tell me you are not familiar with the mall sand monuments in washington. Why is it you never considered a deal with the District Of Columbia similar to the ones you are doing with the states . Why is the District Of Columbia never given a direct opportunity before or during the shutdown to do something similar to Mount Rushmore in the other areas . Actually the District Of Columbia has. I spent over an hour on the phone with vincent gray, the mayor of the district. When . Yesterday. Yesterday. I want to make sure were talking two weeks into the shutdown. Please. Mayor greg, the way we stood this up is governors are contacting us just like if mayor gray had wanted to do this we would have entered into an agreement with him as well. We did it at fords the the yesterday. Let me make sure i get your testimony straight here. Your obligation according to what you told congresswoman knoll, your obligation is to protect property and life. Cars driving on sidewalks with pedestrians, we will leave that aside. You were supposed to maintain property. You allowed to maintain as many individual employees as are necessary to accomplish that. That is the definition of central personnel. That is correct. You could have maintained three, five, 10, 20 people for the purpose of if you will offloading responsibility and better maintaining the safety and security of these monuments and parks around the country at expense of other than the federal government. You could have had 10 people there who were in fact lowering your costs and increasing the maintenance and protection in addition to ecommerce these individuals are interested in. You could have done that and it was your decision to recently furlough people and then say i cant negotiate, furlough people who didnt negotiate in advance. Furlough people who didnt plan and then talk to the mayor and tell him about an opportunity 14 days into the shutdown. That is a long question but arent those discretions that you made . The decisions i made in terms of the closure are guided by our attorneys. Our attorneys interpret the law. I hereby ask that you deliver to us the legal opinions you had prior to october 1st as to each and every one of the decisions made before and i would like the legal opinions that allowed you to make the changes between october 1st and the end of the shutdown. Do ibm a subpoena or will you be able to turn those over in a timely fashion . I will have to talk to the attorneys on that. They have control over what is released. You as Committee Chairman can request it and i will take it to the attorneys but i tell you that i sought their advice in each of these cases. Did you get it in writing . In some cases years and in some cases no. What did you receive corley . Because the writing will get in discovery. What were the oral opinion affecting anna eberlys organization . Did you receive an opinion from her before, during or after october 1st . We discussed that in detail with our attorneys. Effects are we do spend money there and we do spend money there. We provide trash and sewer and road maintenance. Our attorneys looked at this information and determine within the window of what we expected the shutdown to be there would be no violation of the entire deficiency act so we could allow it to open. You got an opinion after you shut her down without an opinion. All due respect trying to paraphrase what you told me. You keep saying it is my responsibility to plan in extraordinary detail for a closure. What i do when we are not closed is i open parks and operate parks. That is what my staff is doing. Not planning foreclosure. I person cruciate that but we lived through sequestration and i watched and found evidence of a punitive direction for a small shutdown and finding ways to make it hurt the public. Anna eberly had a pressing answer to my question. Jonathan jarvis mentioned several things the park service does which are actually incorrect. We dont have t