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kiliki
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PostWed Oct 19, 2005 4:31 pm 
Okay, all you folks that participated in the last thread about the proposed changes in NPS management-here is your change to tell the folks in DC what you think. There is a 90 day comment period, starting today. Here is the link to the home page-when you click on documents it will tell you how to comment. I haven't delved into this at all so I can't tell you if its the same document we discussed before of if it's been modified. NPS management If the link for some reason doesn't work, the url is: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/waso

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Oldtimer
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PostWed Oct 19, 2005 9:53 pm 
You may find this a little more scary: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=598

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salish
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PostThu Oct 20, 2005 5:39 pm 
That is scary. They'll probably end up with another James Watt.

My short-term memory is not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my short-term memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
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Blue Dome
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PostThu Oct 20, 2005 7:14 pm 
Quote:
Washington, DC — The National Park Service has started using a political loyalty test for picking all its top civil service positions, according to an agency directive released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under the new order, all mid-level managers and above must also be approved by a Bush administration political appointee... The order applies to all hires for park superintendents, assistant superintendents and program managers, such as chief ranger or the head of interpretive or cultural programs...
Scary stuff. Good post, Oldtimer. up.gif

“I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.” — Harry S. Truman
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Malachai Constant
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PostThu Oct 20, 2005 7:50 pm 
What else would you expect? shakehead.gif

"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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Blue Dome
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PostThu Oct 20, 2005 8:38 pm 
I guess it’s to be expected, but it’s disheartening to see it written as policy.

“I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.” — Harry S. Truman
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kiliki
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PostTue Oct 25, 2005 2:59 pm 
This New York Times editorial speaks to the changes that the public is being asked to comment on (per my original post). October 21, 2005 New York Times Editorial The National Parks Under Siege Year after year, Americans express greater satisfaction with the National Park Service than with almost any other aspect of the federal government. From the point of view of most visitors, there is no incentive to revise the basic management policy that guides park superintendents, a policy that was last revised in 2001 and is usually re-examined only every 10 or 15 years. Longtime park service employees feel much the same way. Yet in the past two months we have seen two proposed revisions. The first, written by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary in the Interior Department, was a genuinely scandalous rewriting that would have destroyed the national park system. On Tuesday, the Interior Department released a new draft. The question isn't whether this revision is better than Mr. Hoffman's drastic rewrite. Almost anything would be better than his version, a glaring example of the zeal to dilute conservation with commercialism among political appointees in the Interior Department. But the new draft would still undermine the national parks. This entire exercise is unnecessary, driven by politics and ideology. The only reason for revisiting and revising the 2001 management policy was Mr. Hoffman's belief, expressed during a press conference earlier this week, that the 2001 policy is "anti-enjoyment." This will surely come as news to the 96 percent of park visitors who year after year express approval of their experiences. The kind of enjoyment Mr. Hoffman has in mind - as clearly evidenced by his draft and by remarks from Interior Secretary Gale Norton - is opening up the parks to off-road vehicles, including snowmobiles. The ongoing effort to revise the 2001 policy betrays a powerful sense, shared by many top interior officials, that the national parks are resources not to be protected but to be exploited. This new policy document doesn't go as far as the earlier version. But it would eliminate the requirement that only motorized equipment with the least impact should be used in national parks. It would lower air-quality standards and strip away language about preserving the parks' natural soundscape - language that currently makes it hard, for instance, to justify allowing snowmobiles into Yellowstone. It would also refer park superintendents to other management documents that have been revised to weaken fundamental standards and protections for the parks. Mr. Hoffman and National Park Service officials have tried to argue that this new policy revision offers greater clarity. What it really offers is greater flexibility to interpret the rules the way they want to. The thrust of these changes is to diminish the historical, and legally upheld, premise that preservation is the central mission of the park system. Here, for instance, is what this proposed policy revision would remove from the very heart of the park system's mission statement: "Congress, recognizing that the enjoyment by future generations of the national parks can be ensured only if the superb quality of park resources and values is left unimpaired, has provided that when there is a conflict between conserving resources and values and providing for enjoyment of them, conservation is to be predominant." These unambiguous words contain the legal and legislative history that has protected the parks over the years from exactly the kind of change Mr. Hoffman has in mind, allowing all the rest of us to enjoy the national parks in ways that are more respectful of the future and of the parks themselves. One of the most troubling aspects of this revised policy is how it was produced. Instead of being shaped by park service professionals thinking in a timely way about how to do their jobs better, this is a defensive document that was rushed forward to head off the more sweeping damage that Mr. Hoffman's first draft threatened to do. It is a tribute to the National Park Service veterans who worked on it that they were able to mitigate so much of the harm, even though they, too, were working directly under Mr. Hoffman's eye. They risked their jobs to protect the parks from political appointees in the Interior Department. This is a measure of how distorted the department's policies have become. There is more potential damage on the way. At least two deeply worrying new directives have been handed down. One allows the National Park Service to solicit contributions from individuals and corporations instead of merely accepting them when they're offered. This is another way to further the privatization of the national parks and edge toward their commercialization. Privatizing the government's core responsibilities - like the national parks - is unacceptable, and so is the prospect of any greater commercial presence in the parks. More alarming still is a directive released last week that would require park personnel who hope to advance above the middle-manager level to go through what is essentially a political screening. What we are witnessing, in essence, is an effort to politicize the National Park Service - to steer it away from its long-term mission of preserving much-loved national treasures and make it echo the same political mind-set that turned Mr. Hoffman, a former Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and a former head of the Cody, Wyo., chamber of commerce, into an architect of national park policy. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

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Stefan
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PostTue Oct 25, 2005 3:49 pm 
Regarding Fees: 8.2.6 Recreation Fees and Reservations The National Park Service may charge a recreation admission or use fee at parks when authorized by law. Although these fees may provide for the support of the overall management and operation of parks, as set forth in the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act and other relevant statutes, they are not intended to totally offset the operational costs associated with a park. Such services include protection; resource management; information and orientation; maintenance of park facilities; and interpretation to foster an understanding and appreciation of each park’s resources, management procedures, regulations, and programs. Fees may be instituted for secondary or special services that the Park Service cannot (or elects not to) offer because of economic constraints or the need for special skills or equipment, or because they are purely supplemental programs. The Service may also contract or enter into an agreement for the collection of recreational fees if there is a demonstrated benefit to the collecting park unit. In all cases, fee programs will support park purposes and comply with appropriate Service policies and standards and federal law. (See Commercial Use Authorizations 10.3. Also see Director’s Order #22: Fee Collection) 8.2.6.1 Recreation Fees Visitors who use federal facilities and services for recreation may be required to pay a greater share of the cost of providing those opportunities than the population as a whole. Under the guidelines and criteria established by law and regulation, the Service will collect recreation fees of the appropriate type for its parks, facilities, and programs. No fees will be collected in circumstances in which the costs of collection would exceed revenue, or where prohibited by law or regulation. Fees charged for recreational activities will be collected only in accordance with the applicable authority, and recreation fee revenues will be managed according to law and policy. Fee rates will be reasonable and equitable and consistent with criteria and procedures contained in law and NPS guidance documents. Those who lawfully enter or use a park for activities not related to recreation will not be charged a basic or enhanced fee, an entrance fee, recreation use fee, or special recreation permit fee. Examples of nonrecreation exemptions include persons entering parks for · First Amendment activities, which are exempt from all fees · special park uses such as agricultural, grazing, and commercial filming activities (all of which are subject to special park use fees) · NPS-authorized research activities · federal, state, tribal, and local government business · outings conducted for educational purposes by schools and other bona fide educational institutions.

Art is an adventure.
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kiliki
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PostTue Nov 08, 2005 11:15 am 
It's nice to see both sides of the aisle coming together to oppose the management plan changes. Senators Discourage National Park Changes By JOHN HEILPRIN Associated Press Writer November 1, 2005, 5:17 PM EST WASHINGTON -- Republican senators joined Democrats in telling the National Park Service on Tuesday to back off proposed new guidelines that could allow Segway scooters and more cell phones, noise and air pollution in the national parks. Instead, members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources' national parks subcommittee urged Park Service officials to undertake more modest changes to their overall plan for managing a 388-park system. "It's very controversial and it (the Park Service) put the wrong emphasis on it," Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., the panel's chairman, said after a two-hour hearing. "I don't think we're satisfied yet." Other Republicans and Democrats were more pointed in their assessment of the Park Service's draft guidance to supervisors. Nearly 300 million people visited the U.S. parks last year, which cover 132,000 square miles. "There's no reason to do this when you're going to diminish what's in the parks," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. He said the document raises the odds of more cell phone towers, air pollution and noise in the national parks, and he urged the Park Service to lengthen its 90-day public comment period on it to 180 days. "Frankly, we don't understand what the true motivation was," said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. The Park Service's "Management Policies," its official manual guiding the agency's day-to-day work, was last revised in 2001 and, before that, in 1988. Steve Martin, the Park Service's deputy director, said the agency began updating policies three years ago to provide "further clarity" and professionalism after inquiries from park supervisors and the House Resources Committee. "It's to continue to improve how we manage the service for the 21st Century. It's very complex and there are many different reasons," Martin told the panel. "We're also saying that this is a draft, and if we have inadvertently dropped a sentence that is that important, we can have a discussion and put it back in." Martin said the draft would "allow us to consider new technologies like Segways," two-wheeled battery-powered transporters than can zip along at up to 12 mph with almost no effort. After the hearing, he said that also could extend to other "battery-powered machinery" and "clean-fuel vehicles." William Horn, a former assistant interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, said it was the right of every administration to update its policies. The latest proposal, more than 200 pages, is an improvement in the eyes of environmentalists and some Park Service's employees from a draft floated earlier this year by Assistant Deputy Interior Secretary Paul Hoffman. That version would have allowed expanded use of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles on federal land. It was scrapped after it was leaked to the press. "This seemed as though it was a secret thing that took place in a smoke-filled room somewhere," said Don Castleberry, a former Midwest director for the Park Service and a member of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, an advocacy group. One provision, for example, would have made it harder to block activities in the parks by banning what "irreversibly" harms them, instead of only harming them. The current version removes the word "irreversibly" and it uses the terms "conservation" and "preservation" as if they have the same meaning, Martin said. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, said he also worried the current draft could weaken protection of cultural resources . Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said a provision in the proposed guidelines that would allow parks to recognize businesses and private donors with logos and plaques sets a dangerous precedent. "I've always thought of the parks as a commercial-free zone," he said. "Strikes me this is a slippery slope and a very major change." Martin countered that the new guidelines merely acknowledge this practice is already going on, with parks receiving $17 million from such outside sources. "I think we're searching for (financial) partnerships because we need it," he said.

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