Secretary Salazar Announces $750 Million Recovery
Investment in National Parks
Announcer: This is a Podcast from the U.S. Department of the Interior
Dan Wenk: Good morning. I’m Dan Wenk the acting director of the National Park Service and I’m happy you could join us today as we celebrate both Earth Day and National Park Week. For nearly a hundred years our fellow citizens have entrusted the National Park Service with the care of America’s special places. Today as our nation pulls together to recover from the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, the National Park Service has been asked to help. We are eager to do our part. Thanks to the leadership of President Barack Obama, Secretary Ken Salazar and funding provided by congress through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the National Park Service is ready to start today. We will be careful stewards of the American people’s money just as we are of their national parks.
We will strive not only to meet but exceed the secretary’s and president’s expectations for accountability and transparency as recovery of funds are invested in national parks to both revive our economy and help us to implement sustainable green technologies and reduce our carbon foot print, address critical park infrastructure needs and improve experiences for park visitors.
It’s my honor to introduce Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who’ll announce the National Park Service Recovery Projects. This is a third such announcement for the secretary who is leading the investment of three billion of Recovery Act Funds across all bureaus of the Department of Interior.
Ladies and gentlemen, Secretary Salazar.
Ken Salazar: Thank you Dan and thank you for your great leadership of the National Park Service and our work together over the last several months. As we near the hundredth day of the Obama administration, I’m proud that we have taken on some major issues including investments in the landscapes of America. In February less than a month after taking office, President Obama signed into law the economic recovery act.
That recovery act is intended to put Americans back to work and also to invest in sustainable projects for the nation. Today, I have the pleasure of announcing 750 projects at our national parks across the country. We will invest $750 million in these projects to create jobs and to stimulate the local economies and to get our country moving again.
From the Statue of Liberty to Yellowstone from Independence Hall to Death Valley, American workers will revitalize our parks, rehabilitate visitor centers and tackle long delayed maintenance projects. This is not only an investment in our economy; it is an investment in our heritage. An investment in telling the story of America to future generations by conserving our awe-inspiring landscapes, our diverse stories and our rich culture. From the Civil War to the Great Depression, America’s best ideas for protecting our national parks and open spaces have often come when our nation has face its greatest challenges. During the Civil War, the greatest crisis our nation has ever faced as a nation. Abraham Lincoln set aside the land that became our iconic national park, Yosemite.
When our eastern forest were stripped bare and many wildlife populations had been all but wiped out in much of the country, President Teddy Roosevelt responded by creating the National Wildlife Refuge System and greatly expanding the National Park System. In 1930’s when the Great Depression and the dustbowl weighed heavily on our land, Franklin Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corp. to undertake thousands of projects on public lands across the country.
We now enjoy places like Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park and the road to the Summit Glacier National Park because of the work done by millions of Americans during that time. Today we face an economic crisis that is the greatest since those hard years in the 1930’s. It is therefore imperative and important that we once again refuel the American spirit. This historic investment today in our national parks is first and foremost an American effort to get our economy moving again and to create jobs but it also is an effort to conserve the legacy of our great nation for our children and for our grandchildren. I am proud of the investments we have made in these 750 plus projects around the country. They include investments in Ellis Island in New York and New Jersey, major investments in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, in Olympic National Park in Washington, in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, in Independence Hall Tower at Independence Park, in the Death Valley National Park in California and the list goes on and on.
I am confident that at the end of the day, this is a Herculean step forward in dealing with the nine billion dollars backlog that we have in our national park system. It does not get us all the way there and there's still much work that remains. But to have one billion dollars of infusion of money into the creation and protection and preservation of our national heritage, and the national parks and our national history is something that I’m very proud of. So on this Earth Day 2009, this is a very proud moment for me as Secretary of Interior.
Announcer: This has been a Podcast from the United States Department of the Interior Radio News Service.