NATIONAL PARKS: Majority blames Congress for closures during shutdown -- poll
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Monday, November 18, 2013
Most American voters blame Congress for the closure of national parks last month, while less than a third of those surveyed believe the Obama administration shuttered parks to make the federal government shutdown as painful as possible, according to a new poll commissioned by a left-leaning think tank.
In addition, a majority of voters feel Congress went too far when it sequestered $153 million from parks earlier this year, and three out of four -- including 64 percent of Republicans -- said Congress should make no additional cuts to parks in order to reduce the budget deficit.
The poll was commissioned by the Center for American Progress by the Democratic-affiliated Hart Research Associates. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points overall, with larger margins for subgroups.
It was conducted using land lines and cellphones from Oct. 31 to Nov. 4, among 1,005 adults nationwide who voted in the 2012 presidential election.
"The government shutdown put a spotlight on how Congress has been treating our national parks, forests and public lands since the tea party takeover in 2010, and Americans clearly do not like what they see," said Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow at CAP and a former Interior Department official during the Obama administration. "Americans believe we should be investing in our national treasures and protecting more places to get outdoors, not slashing budgets and forcing park closures."
The National Park Service's decision to close its 401 parks, monuments and historic sites during the 16-day shutdown became immediate political fodder, with Republicans on Capitol Hill calling the closures unnecessarily harsh. Several states struck deals with Interior to reopen parks using state or private funds.
The Park Service later estimated that the shutdown led to more than half a billion dollars in lost visitor spending nationwide.
The CAP poll found that three in four voters agreed the shutdown had a "serious impact" on the economies of communities located near parks.
When told that funding for national parks was cut by $153 million in 2013, resulting in reduced hours and services in national parks across the country, 55 percent of respondents said such sequester cuts were too drastic.
Two out of three voters, including 54 percent of Republicans, said they agreed that "instead of closing parks and cutting their budgets, Washington should be creating new parks and expanding opportunities for Americans to get outdoors."
That finding comes amid an intensifying debate on Capitol Hill over whether the National Park System should be expanded in the face of an $11 billion deferred maintenance backlog and in the absence of increased federal funding.
Some Republicans have aligned themselves with the recommendations of a report last month by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) urging a moratorium on new parks until the agency reins in spending (Greenwire, Oct. 29). Coburn has blocked at least three national park bills from advancing on the Senate floor, according to conservation lobbyists.
But the CAP poll suggests support for new parks continues to carry bipartisan support.
"These results should be a wake-up call for politicians in Washington -- Democrats, Republicans, Congress and the president," said a statement by Craig Obey, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. "Congress and the president have an opportunity to begin to restore public faith in their ability to lead and protect our national treasures: cancel the sequester, restore critically needed funds for national parks, and expand opportunities for Americans to get outdoors and enjoy America's heritage."
The poll also found that Republicans are trusted less to protect national parks and public lands than Democrats or Obama.
More than half said Republicans are doing too little to protect parks, while 19 percent said they were doing enough. Forty-two percent said Democrats are doing too little, with 28 percent saying they are doing enough. Obama scored the best, with 37 percent saying he's not doing enough, compared with 31 percent saying he's doing enough.
"The unmistakable conclusion is that voters don't trust any of our elected federal decision-makers to protect national parks and other public lands," Obey said.
By a slight margin, voters said Republicans in Congress deserve more blame for the shutdown than Democrats. While 60 percent said the shutdown occurred because Republicans were not willing enough to compromise with Obama, 53 percent said Obama was not willing enough to compromise with Republicans.
Half of all respondents, including nearly one-fourth of Republicans, said the shutdown revealed that tea party-aligned Republicans have too much power in Congress.
Seven out of 10 voters said Congress should find a way to avert a new round of automatic spending cuts for national parks set to kick in at the beginning of 2014.
A bicameral budget conference is trying to negotiate a top-line discretionary funding level for the remainder of fiscal 2014, with Democrats proposing to undo the sequester and some Republicans holding firm for more cuts.
Even if Congress can agree to raise top-line funding levels, it will be up to leaders in both chambers to decide how much of that money goes to the subcommittees that fund the national parks and how much of that allocation goes to the parks themselves.
