NATIONAL PARKS: Cape Hatteras bill yanked from Senate markup; 20 other bills advance
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Thursday, May 16, 2013
A Senate committee this morning postponed efforts to advance a controversial bill that would overturn a National Park Service plan to limit motorized vehicle use at a North Carolina seashore.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he received a letter last night from NPS Director Jon Jarvis saying the agency "strongly opposes" S. 486 by Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), but that the committee would seek a bipartisan solution to allow a vote on the bill at its June markup.
"Almost overnight, the Cape Hatteras bill has become a bit more controversial," Wyden said at the committee's markup this morning. "It was clear that not many people knew about this bill in detail. But it really has become a symbol of whether or not we can be different here and cut through some of the traditional confrontations."
The committee this morning did advance 20 bills by voice vote, including measures to authorize a land swap facilitating oil and gas development in Utah and reauthorize the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act.
Panel members plan to gather later this afternoon off the Senate floor to hold roll call votes on six other measures that would designate wilderness in New Mexico, promote geothermal development on public lands, and designate national historic parks in Rhode Island and to commemorate the Manhattan Project.
The committee also postponed a vote on S. 783, a bill to extend the life of a federal helium reserve, saying it would wait for a Congressional Budget Office estimate of the act's cost.
Much of this morning's debate revolved around Burr's bill to expand motorized access at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Panel members remained deeply split over how the Park Service should balance the needs of wildlife and people.
Burr's bill would overturn the final management plan for Cape Hatteras from February 2012. The rule, which aimed to protect federally threatened shore birds and sea turtles, designates 42 percent of the seashore as year-round off-road vehicle routes and 19 percent as seasonal routes. The rest of the land is off-limits to motorized vehicles.
Since the rule went into effect, wildlife populations have rebounded, visitation to the seashore has increased and the local economy is improving, environmentalists argued. But local officials, off-highway vehicle users and local businesses argue the plan restricts tourism and fishing opportunities at the 67-mile beach.
"The Park [Service] has overreached," said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who added that many West Virginians recreate at Cape Hatteras. "This is not just a North Carolina bill. This is an awful lot of the East Coast."
But Wyden and National Parks Subcommittee Chairman Mark Udall (D-Colo.) both expressed concerns with the legislation.
Udall said overturning a science-based plan that was the result of a broadly supported consent decree would set a bad precedent. The plan, he said, protects the piping plovers and sea turtles that make the seashore unique.
Manchin replied, "There are sometimes agreements in good spirits. There are other times when someone holds a gun to your head" and urges you to sign a consent decree.
The bill is strongly opposed by the National Parks Conservation Association, which argued that a significant portion of the beach remains open to motorized vehicles, even though only 4 percent of visitors choose to drive on it.
The House Natural Resources Committee yesterday marked up H.R. 819, a companion bill by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.). A version of Jones' bill passed the House last Congress as part of a larger public lands package but stalled in the Senate.
The seashore is home to several species listed under the Endangered Species Act, including the piping plover, the seabeach amaranth and three species of sea turtles, NPS said.
