Stop the Privatization of the National Park system

The Office of Management and Budget and the Interior Department (DOI) are preparing to hand over National Park Service jobs to private contractors. Under a government-wide initiative, up to 70 percent of all National Park Service jobs could be sold to the lowest bidder. As a result, our national parks would lose scientists, archaeologists, maintenance workers, educators, and many others who protect park resources and provide us a safe and enjoyable experience.

In fact, National Park Service Director Fran P. Mainella recently warned DOI of some of the possible consequences including:

Impact on Visitors' Experiences: National parks receive nearly 300 million visitors every year. As more and more Park Service positions are outsourced, visitors will find fewer employees able to answer questions about the parks and our history, shorter hours at parks, fewer campgrounds open, and fewer guided tours and other activities. Visitors to our national parks will be the losers.

Diversity: Director Mainella said, "89 percent of the . . . jobs proposed for study in the Washington, D.C., area may affect diversity of our workforce. Studies in San Francisco and Santa Fe also show large concentrations of diverse full time employees [to be affected] as well."

Morale: This unfunded mandate will impact these dedicated employees with a passion for their job that often go above and beyond the call of duty. Contractors will work 9 to 5 because their eye is on the bottom line and how to save money. We don't pay our park rangers more money for helping a stranded motorist in a remote park at 10 p.m. or our maintenance workers more for helping explain the historical significance of a building they are working on to a passing tourist. Wholesale privatization disregards the commitment of people for whom working for the Park Service is a calling.

Park Service Budget: It will cost millions to study the jobs that may or may not be privatized. And no money has been appropriated for this mandate from this Administration to pay for these studies. Instead, repairs and other basic, vital maintenance will be delayed, roads, visitor centers, and other facilities will go without needed repairs, let alone upgrades, and Park Service staff, according to Mainella, will need to be "taken off other priority projects" to work on the privatization studies. Money currently earmarked for needed maintenance and preservationareas the President has said was a prioritywill need to be directed to outside contractors for studies to replace the Park Service employees who are responsible for protecting our parks.

Economic Impact: Many gateway communities rely on the economic benefit of the national parksthe National Park System generates more than $10 billion in local economies and nearly 300,000 jobs. Privatization will only sell those jobs to the lowest bidder jeopardizing both the parks themselves, and the experiences of millions of visitorspotentially having serious consequences for local communities who depend on those visitors.

At times like these, when people are trying to reconnect with the history that our national parks preserve, we should not be casting aside the historians, archaeologists, museum curators, maintenance workers, architects, and other stewards of our natural and cultural heritage and placing their responsibilities in the hands of the lowest bidder.

Although the need for the goverment to downsize is appreciated and widely supported, Our Natural Parks are not the place to do it.

Us as citizen's of the United States will loose, contracted employees will not have the needed committment to protect and preserve as current park service stewards who live by the mission of the park service as a way of life. Therefore, we respectfully request that the House state clearly and unanimously its opposition to the Privatization of the National Park system.