Washington, D.C., June 2, 1997 -- U.S. Senator Frank H. Murkowski (R-AK), a potent national influence on natural resource, recreation, parks and energy matters and the Senate’s leading champion of a national recreation lakes system, has been named as the recipient of the ninth Sheldon Coleman Great Outdoors Award... The presentation is a highlight of Great Outdoors Week ‘97. Both Great Outdoors Week and the award are sponsored by the American Recreation Coalition.
“The American Recreation Coalition is honored to bestow the 1997 Sheldon Coleman Great Outdoors Award on Senator Frank Murkowski,” said ARC President, Derrick Crandall. “The Senator’s energetic leadership on legislation to create a national recreation lakes system study and his new, ambitious Recreation Initiative offer creative solutions for ensuring that all Americans can enjoy and be proud of our system of national parks, forests, rivers and lakes today and long into the future.”
It must be quite an honor for America’s top seeded anti-environmental Senator to receive such a prestigious award from America’s most powerful and influential commercial recreation lobby. A lobby that just happens to be writing most of the Senator’s ambitious Recreation Initiative. Never mind that Murkowski is, in reality, the biggest threat now facing the future of “traditional recreation” on America’s public lands, or that ARC is well underway in its extraordinarily ambitious plans to co-opt these public lands for commercial gain. Let Mr. Murkowski bask in his honor as he succeeds last years recipient of this prestigious award, another great supporter of outdoor recreation, Representative Jim Oberstar (D-MN).
Representative Oberstar received this award in recognition of his outstanding efforts in to promote motorized recreation at Voyageurs National Park in his home state of Minnesota. In 1995 Oberstar introduced two pieces of legislation of particular value to ARC and its members, these were HR 1310 and HR 3298.
In the words of the National Parks and Conservation Association, HR 1310 “...would preclude the designation of any wilderness in the park and tilt the balance of recreation clearly in favor of motorized activities authorizing motorized access to nearly all lakes in the park. Joint House and Senate Field hearings were held in Minnesota last August and October at which the public strongly protested HR 1310.”
Also in the words of NPCA, HR3298 “...does not directly open the park to more motorized use, but instead gives management planning authority for the park to an 11-member intergovernmental council dominated by local interests, many of whom are advocates for more motorized access... The constitutionality of this authority is questionable.”
And quoting NPCA, one last time: “The National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA) opposes HR3298 and S1805 because they give local interests a level of control over a national park unheard of at other national parks and totally inconsistent with the concept of parks owned by all the American People. Such an arrangement would lower park management standards to the lowest common denominator of parochial interests... Our national parks and monuments are our most cherished natural and scientific areas.... If Voyageurs National Park is to remain a national Park it should be managed to national park standards and not subjugated to local recreational interests.”
Senator Murkowski joins a growing list of legislators and politicians
whom the American Recreation Coalition has recognized for their outstanding
cooperation in promoting the motorization, commercialization and privatization
of America’s public lands. These same criteria have applied from the selection
of President George Bush as the first Sheldon Coleman Great Outdoors recipient,
to Senator Frank Murkowski as the most recent recipient. Congratulations
Senator Murkowski for a job well done.
Scott Silver, Executive Director,
248 NW Wilmington Avenue, Bend OR 97701
Phone (541) 385-5261 E-mail: ssilver@wildwilderness.org