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Appendix C
The Wise Use Agenda
A Task Force Report Sponsored by the Wise Use Movement
By Alan M. Gottlieb

Section I: The Top twenty-Five Goals

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11.  National Parks Reform Act, to create protective agencies for our natural heritage of a size conducive to responsible management and accessible to congressional oversight. Creates within the Department of the Interior, under authority of the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks four separate agencies each with its own director responsible for management of our current over-sized and jumbled national park system. Reorganizes the National Park Service, with new management responsibility limited to only those Units officially designated "national parks" and "national monuments" in the "natural" category; creates the National Urban Park Service with management responsibility for all units of the park system in urban settings designed primarily for contemplation, enlightenment or inspiration, such as the National Capitol Parks; creates the National Recreational Park Service with management responsibility for all National Recreation Areas of the park system and other units primarily used for recreational purposes; creates the National Historical Park Service with management responsibility for all national historic parks and similar units of primarily historic interest.

The present National Park Service with its domain in excess of 80 million acres has grown into a bureaucracy so huge and powerful that it can ignore the public will, the in- tent of Congress and direct orders of the Secretary of the Interior with impunity. Such concentrated power cannot be allowed to persist within a representative form of government. This Act will separate out from the present conglomeration of diverse units four different kinds of national heritage lands that have previously been lumped together into a single vast and unresponsive agency. The new arrangements will group together those that are naturally similar for appropriate management to protect the essential character of each different kind of park.

MISSION 2010: Adequate Park Visitor Accommodations. A major thrust should be made to properly accommodate the increased visitor load on our parks through a 20-year construction program of new concessions including overnight accommodations, classic rustic lodges, campgrounds and visitor service stores in all 48 national parks, with priority given to Great Smoky Mountain, Everglades, Rocky Mountain, Big Bend, Canyonlands, Sequoia, Redwoods, North Cascades, Denali, and Theodore Roosevelt. Concession restoration should begin immediately in Yellowstone (West Thumb). The lodge at Manzanita Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park, which was demolished by the National Park Service, shall be rebuilt in replica on its original site and become the first project of Mission 2010, to become known as the Don Hummel Memorial Lodge honoring the late outstanding leader of the national park concession movement. The Concession Policy Act of 1965 should be extended to all facilities of the proposed four park services.

Appropriate overnight visitor facilities should be constructed in all national monuments, national recreation areas, and major historical areas. Policies that exclude people shall be outlawed. The possessory interest of the private concessioner firms now serving the visiting public should be maximized. Private firms with expertise in people-moving such as Walt Disney should be selected as new transportation concessioners to accommodate and enhance the national park experience for all visitors without degrading the environment.

All actions designed to exclude park visitors such as shutting down overnight accommodations and rationing entry should be stopped as inimical to the mandate of Congress for "public use and enjoyment" in the National Park Act of 1916.
 

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