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When National Park Service Director Mary Bomar appears before the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee this week, she will likely be asked how the operations budget can be so high while other agency functions face major cuts.
While NPS operations account for the majority of the agency's annual costs, the administration's $2.4 billion budget request would increase the service's operations budget by more than $160 million, to $2.1 billion, making it the largest budget for park operations ever.
During several recent hearings, lawmakers have raised concerns about cuts to the agency's budget, questioning whether the Centennial Challenge would harm the agency's other responsibilities.
The agency's construction account would be cut by $46 million to $172 million while the land acquisition account would fall from $69 million to just under $21 million.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne told the subcommittee early last month that the NPS cuts -- like others in the department's $10.7 billion budget request -- were "strategic reductions" that reduce overlap with other federal efforts while boosting funding for key department priorities.
In addition to the Centennial Challenge, the Bush administration is asking for additional funding for its Water for America, Birds Forever, Oceans and Coastal and Safe Borderlands initiatives.
The operations budget request is meant to bolster the agency's Centennial Challenge, an effort to increase philanthropy for national parks as the system approaches its 100th anniversary.
Last August, NPS released a list of 201 projects designed to jumpstart the centennial plan. Projects include a new USS Arizona memorial in Hawaii, rehabilitation of visitor-use trails in California's Yosemite National Park, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania, and a new park signage and directional system at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Bomar told House lawmakers last week that the initiative still relies on Congress for additional funds. The plan calls for $1 billion -- $100 million over each of the next 10 years -- in donations from the public, friends groups and corporations, to be matched "dollar for dollar" in mandatory funds by Congress.
Subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) said last month that he believes there is support in Congress for the matching funds as long as offsets can be identified. The matching funds bill, however, is separate from the appropriations process and will come out of the House and Senate authorizing committees.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, March 6, at 10 a.m. in B-308 Rayburn.
Witness: NPS Director Mary Bomar.
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