Issa Statement on Park Service ‘Considering’ State Help
WASHINGTON – In advance of a joint congressional committee hearing and after repeated inquiries from numerous governors, the Department of the Interior today announced that the National Park Service would finally “consider” reopening sites where state resources can take over.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., offered the following statement:
“The National Park Service’s refusal to cooperate with state and local officials to keep key sites open is unprecedented.
“While today’s announcement indicates their rigid opposition is softening, the Committee is concerned that the requirement to ‘fully fund National Park Service personnel’ is an arbitrary and costly burden forced on these Governors to, once again, maximize the political pain of the National Park Service’s own decisions.
“Next week, we will seek answers from the National Park Service on their closure decisions, the barricading of open air memorials and public sites, the shuttering of private businesses, and the haphazard and uneven way they have reopened sites they were supposedly ‘forced’ to close.”
On Wednesday, October 16th at 9:30 a.m., Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., will convene a joint hearing entitled, “As Difficult As Possible: The National Park Service’s Implementation of the Government Shutdown.”