HOMELAND SECURITY IN CHARGE OF 50 NATIONAL PARKS?

House Republicans are backing legislation in Congress to give the Department of Homeland Security control of more than 50 national parks and forests within 100 miles of the U.S. borders.

The legislation involves a sweep of land along the frontier with Canada and Mexico, but exempts state land, private property and federal holdings used for mining, livestock grazing and timber harvesting. The new authority would carve through 54 national parks, including Joshua Tree, Acadia, Glacier and Saguaro in Tucson and Big Bend, Carlsbad Caverns, Cuyahoga Valley, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Guadalupe Mountains, Isle Royale, Joshua Tree, North Cascades, Olympic, Theodore Roosevelt, Voyageurs, and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.The combined total acreage of these fifteen parks is 21,657,399, nearly 25 percent of the overall footprint U.S. National Park System. They are located within the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana and NE.. 

H.R.1505 
Latest Title: National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act 
Sponsor: Rep Bishop, Rob [UT-1] (introduced 4/13/2011)      Cosponsors (59) 
Latest Major Action: 4/17/2012 Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 312. 
House Reports: 112-448 Part 1 

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All Information (except text)	Text of Legislation	CRS Summary	Major Congressional Actions  All Congressional Actions  All Congressional Actions with Amendments  With links to Congressional Record pages, votes,reports
Titles	Cosponsors (59)	Committees
Related Bills	Amendments
CBO Cost Estimates	Subjects	Constitutional Authority Statement

The law would give Border Patrol and Customs agents and other federal officials the right to suspend any federal law on land managed by the departments of Interior and Agriculture. It would give Homeland Security the right to conduct any activity or construct any facility required to secure the border.

At present the environmental laws such as the Wilderness Act, which prohibits motorized access to protected land, within a 100 miles of the border impede the ability of border agents to operate freely. 

Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR). CNPSR says that H.R. 1505, titled “National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act,” would materially weaken a century’s worth of proven federal lands protection, potentially opening up millions of pristine acres of national parks to off-road vehicle use, road construction, air strips and helipads, fencing, base installations, and other disruptions.

CNPSR chair Maureen Finnerty said: “This legislative proposal is perhaps the most direct assault on national parks ever to be advanced at any level in any Congress in U.S. history.   It threatens to literally stop all enforcement of several landmark environmental and conservation laws that NPS uses to manage and protect the National Park System and to serve millions of park visitors.   The outrage here is that national parks and other U.S. crown jewels could end up being trashed in the name of achieving national security gains that are fictitious.”