Legislative Hearing on 9 bills: H.R. 1031 (Rep.Tenney), “Fort Ontario Holocaust Refugee Shelter National Historical Park Establishment Act”; H.R. 2323 (Rep. Pfluger), “Big Bend National Park Boundary Adjustment Act”; H.R. 7495 (Rep. Fitzgerald), To authorize the establishment of memorials to the Wisconsin infantry officers and enlisted men who fought in the Battle of Antietam and the Second Battle of Bull Run, and for other purposes.; H.R. 8276 (Rep. Schmidt), “Quindaro Townsite National Historic Landmark Act”; H.R. 9104 (Rep. Norton), “Rock Creek National Park Act of 2026”; H.R. 9148 (Rep. Hill), “Scipio Jones House Assessment Act”; H.R. 9999 (Rep. Pettersen), “Mountain Pine Beetle Coordination Act”; S. 1051 (Sen. Lankford), “Historic Greenwood District—Black Wall Street National Monument Establishment Act”; S. 1377 (Sen. Hoeven), “Theodore Roosevelt National Park Wild Horses Protection Act”
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House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsThomas Tiffany
With that, I will yield back and recognize Rep. Tenney for an opening statement.
Claudia Tenney
This legislation would preserve the stories of people who escaped Nazi persecution and found refuge in my home county, Oswego County. I also want to welcome Oswego County Clerk Terry Wilbur and thank him for testifying before the subcommittee today. Mr., Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit letters of support from New York State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay, Oswego County Legislative Chair Jim Weatherup, City of Oswego Mayor Robert Corradino, the Oswego County Tourism Department, the Safe Haven Holocaust Survivor Refugee Shelter Museum, the American Jewish Committee, AJC, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation of North America, the Zionist Organization of America and the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement.
Without objection.
Claudia Tenney
Thank you so. Fort Ontario has played an historic role in the military history of the United States since the 1700s. During World War II, Fort Ontario housed the only Holocaust refugee shelter established in the United States. In August 1944 after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced that the United States would accept 982 refugees from 18 countries at Fort Ontario. The refugees who reached Fort Ontario survived the Nazi campaign of persecution and murder of the Jewish people.
Their arrival in Oswego marked the beginning of a new chapter in their lives. Our community provided safety to people whose lives had been uprooted by persecution and war. The community opened its arms and welcomed them as neighbors, residents brought food and gifts to the shelter, local teachers and students welcomed refugee children into their classrooms. The history, this history remains relevant at a time when Jewish Americans continue to encounter anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and efforts to minimize or distort the Holocaust. Physical places such as Fort Ontario provide evidence that connects our history to individual experiences.
Future generations will have fewer opportunities to hear directly from Holocaust survivors whose population is rapidly declining. Holocaust education helps young people understand that anti-Semitism has consequences for real people and families and this will help them understand the crucial role the United States has played in combating anti-Semitism. And I want to just quote real briefly from a wonderful letter in support from Paul Lear from the Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum. He was quoting actually Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower. After witnessing the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp, Lieutenant General Dwight Eisenhower ordered American troops in theater to tour a camp.
He said that the American soldier may not know what he is fighting for, but after visiting a camp, he will know what he is fighting against. Eisenhower warned that someday a movement to deny the Holocaust may arise. How, how important those words have been. The Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum and its volunteers have preserved these stories for decades. They have worked alongside New York State Parks, the City of Oswego, Oswego County, historians, descendants and community organizations.
Their work has allowed students, families and visitors to learn about the refugees on the grounds where this history actually occurred. The National Park Service completed a special resource study of Fort Ontario in 2024 which concluded that the refugee shelter resources satisfy all four criteria for potential inclusion in the National Park System: national significance, suitability, feasibility and a need for direct National Park Service management agreement. The study focused on a small area comprising about two acres containing the Safe Haven Museum in building 22 and three nearby buildings associated with the wartime shelter.
The legislation authorizes the National Park Service to enter cooperative agreements with the state and other public and private partners, and land owned by New York State or a political subdivision that could be acquired only by donation. Preserving these historic buildings and working with local governments are important parts of our effort to combat antisemitism. This effort demonstrates what federal, state, and local partners can achieve together. The Senate has already passed this legislation via unanimous consent as part of S 3490. Major Jewish organizations and groups dedicated to combating antisemitism include the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America, Combat Antisemitism Movement, and the Zionist Organization of America.
They've all endorsed this bill and we have broad community support. Oswego has cared for this history for generations. Congress can now have an opportunity to help ensure that the Jewish refugees who found safety there are remembered and that their experiences continue to teach Americans why we must stand against antisemitism and preserve our American history. I want to thank my colleagues for their support and my effort to preserve this history and combating antisemitism. And I yield.
Derek Schmidt
Thank you, Rep Tenney. I will now yield to Mr. Schmidt for five minutes.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'm grateful to you and to the ranking member for conducting this hearing on our bill today. Thank you for holding this hearing on HR 8276, the Quindaro Townsite National Historic Landmark Act. This day has been a long time coming for this bill and the years-long effort by a wide and diverse range of leaders in Kansas City, Kansas, to obtain National Historic Landmark designation for the Quindaro townsite. This bill was first introduced by my predecessor, Representative Jake LaTurner, during the last Congress, and the local efforts to obtain this designation date back at least to 2018.
The Quindaro site is located on the south bank of the Missouri River in what is now Kansas City, Kansas. The site was settled by a uniquely diverse group of African Americans, Native Americans, and abolitionists during the mid-19th century during the Bleeding Kansas period leading up to the American Civil War. The site became a key station on the Underground Railroad as escaped slaves were ferried across the river from the slave state of Missouri into the free state of Kansas. The town reached a peak population of 600 and at one point boasted two hotels, a sawmill, a brickyard, and an abolitionist newspaper, the Quindaro Chindowan. The associate editor of that newspaper, Clarina Nichols, later recounted hiding an escaped slave in her home.
This was her testimony. She said, "My cistern, every brick of it rebuilt in the chimney of my late Wyandotte home, played its part in the drama of freedom." "One beautiful evening late in October of '61, as twilight was fading from the bluff, a hurried message came to me from our neighbor, Fielding Johnson." "You must hide Caroline." "Fourteen slave hunters are camped on the park, her master among them."
"Into this cistern Caroline was lowered with comforters, pillow, and chair." "A washtub over the trap with the usual appliances of a washroom standing around completed the hiding." End of her narrative. Madam Chair, I have, we have worked closely with the Department of Interior and have reviewed their statement on this today and understand their preference for the administrative process. I just want to point out for the record, we have worked extensively through the administrative process.
This proposal for designation in May of 2025 was unanimously recommended for approval by the, by the National Historic Landmarks Committee.
The referral then went to the National Park System Advisory Board, and unfortunately, that board doesn't exist. It was not constituted, there are no bodies on the board, and its charter expired in May 24th of 25, rendering impossible our ability to proceed with this despite the support of the initial review. It's why this bill is more necessary today than it was when it was first introduced. And I would ask consent to enter into the record the page from the National Park's website showing the advisory board has been terminated.
Without objection.
Derek Schmidt
So the administrative process isn't operational. I'm very pleased that my fellow Kansas City area colleagues, Representatives Cleaver and Davids, have joined me in introducing this bipartisan bill, and I also ask consent to enter into the record a letter of support from the two of them.
Derek Schmidt
I'd be remiss today if I didn't also acknowledge the efforts of the late Kansas State Representative Marvin Robinson, whose efforts to preserve the townsite and prevent it from being turned into a landfill earned him the nickname the Mayor of Quindaro. Last year, the Kansas legislature honored Marvin's legacy by renaming a portion of the K-5 highway near the Quindaro townsite as the Representative Marvin S. Robinson Memorial Highway. I'd like to welcome our witness on this bill, Mr. Daryl Wynn, chief policy analyst and executive advisor from the office of Kansas City, Kansas Mayor Crystal Watson, and the unified government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. Thank you again, Madam Chairman, for the subcommittee's consideration of this bill, and I yield back.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you, Representative Schmidt. We will now move on to our second panel. Let me remind the witnesses that under committee rules, you must limit your oral statement to five minutes, but your entire statement will appear in the hearing record. To begin your testimony, please press the on button on the microphone. We use timing lights.
When you begin, the light will turn green. At the end of five minutes, the light will turn red, and I will ask you to please complete your statement. First, I'd like to introduce the Honorable Terry Wilbur, county clerk for Oswego, am I saying that the right way? Oswego County, New York. Mr. Wilbur, you are recognized for five minutes.
Terry Wilbur
Well, thank you, Chairwoman, ranking member, and members of the subcommittee. My name's Terry Wilbur, and I serve as the county clerk in Oswego County, New York. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the committee in support of H.R. 1031, the Fort Ontario Holocaust Refugee Shelter National Historical Park Establishment Act, introduced by Representative Claudia Tenney, who represents New York's 24th Congressional District, including my county of Oswego. I am proud to represent Oswego County and to help advocate for this bipartisan legislation to establish the Fort Ontario Holocaust Refugee Shelter National Historical Park. It preserves and protects the history of the 982 Holocaust refugees sheltered at Fort Ontario from August 1944 through February 1946.
The history of Fort Ontario is one that leads back to 1755, when the first wooden stockade fort was built. The fort has been destroyed multiple times and rebuilt throughout history because of various battles that took place in Oswego. The current design and construction of Fort Ontario was completed in 1872. In 1944, President Roosevelt announced that the United States would provide refuge to a group of people fleeing Nazi persecution in the devastation of the Holocaust. That year, a group of 982 men, women, and children fleeing unspeakable horrors arrived from 18 different countries, almost all of them Jewish.
Many arrived with nothing more than the clothing they were wearing. With their arrival, Fort Ontario became the only shelter established in the United States for Holocaust refugees. After their arrival, the community came together to welcome their new neighbors. Residents passed food and gifts through the fence during the first month of mandatory quarantine, kids enrolled in local schools, and friendships formed that lasted the rest of those families' lives. As many of you know, U.S. knowledge about the Holocaust is quickly fading.
As the number of Holocaust survivors continues to dwindle, many young adults and students lack basic knowledge about the horrors of the Holocaust. In a 2020 study by the Claims Conference, 48% of millennial and Gen Z couldn't name a single concentration camp, 63% did not know 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and 11% believed Jews caused the Holocaust.
These startling statistics come at a time of drastically rising antisemitism and antisemitic hate crimes. According to the ADL, just in 2024 and 2025, over 15,500 antisemitic incidences took place. According to the American Jewish Committee, last year almost one-third of American Jews were personal targets of antisemitism. These two things are not unrelated. As knowledge about the history of antisemitism and the Holocaust continues to decline, antisemitism is rising once again.
That is why many major antisemitism organizations such as the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, and the Zionist Organization of America all have endorsed this bill. The Fort is an essential part of America's long-standing role in combating antisemitism and can help students better understand the horrors of the Holocaust and the American role in ending it. It records the resilience of people who survived the Holocaust and experienced the safety of the United States. As survivors pass from living memory, the stories preserved by the Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum become even more important. This is not a local claim, it is the factual findings of the National Park Service.
Congress directed the National Park Service to study Fort Ontario in 2018, which was signed by President Trump. NPS concluded that the refugee shelter locations within the area satisfy all four tests for a new park: national significance, suitability, feasibility, and a need for direct NPS management. The study found that this history has no comparable representation elsewhere in the National Park Service and that it would provide a genuinely unique addition. On feasibility, the study found that current ownership, local planning and zoning, access, and site conditions do not preclude designation and that the local and national support is extensive. On the need for direct management, the study concluded that permanent protection of these resources requires the National Park Service.
This bill would preserve about 2.5 acres comprising four buildings and no private property would be taken. The footprint is small, but the return is real. Oswego County is ready for this opportunity and the volunteers of the Safe Haven have carried this site to preserve the history of Jewish Americans for nearly 40 years and have continued to share the stories of those who fled the Holocaust. We are willing and able to support a permanent partnership with the National Park Service. We have given support and information during the study and continue to support this effort today.
This legislation also has broad support in the Senate with a package of legislation that passed in December of 2025. I respectfully urge that this bill be marked up and swiftly passed to the House floor. Thank you all for your time, your support of Holocaust education and combating antisemitism, and your support of my local community of Oswego.
Thomas Tiffany
Well thank you Mr. Wilber. I will now recognize Ms. Lauren Rymer, CEO and Executive Director at the Big Bend Conservancy. Ms. Rymer, you're recognized for five minutes.
Lauren Rymer
Chairwoman Maloy, Ranking Member Neguse, Chair Westerman, Ranking Member Huffman, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of Congressman Pfluger's H.R. 2323, the Big Bend National Park Boundary Adjustment Act. I'm here on behalf of the Big Bend Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that has partnered with the National Park Service for 30 years to support Big Bend National Park.
During that time, the Conservancy has provided more than $5 million to the park through direct aid, projects, and endowments. The Terlingua Creek project represents one of our longest running efforts to conserve important lands along the park's western boundary. This effort is rooted in the wishes of private landowners who want to see their properties permanently conserved as part of Big Bend National Park. The Fulcher family, whose approximately 3,175-acre property represents the largest portion of the proposed addition, has worked with Big Bend Conservancy toward that goal for the last eight years in order for the land to ultimately be transferred to the National Park Service. Other private landowners in the area have likewise expressed interest in having their properties included in the park, and the Conservancy has been working with those willing landowners to make their wishes possible.
These are voluntary transactions composed entirely of donations or bargain sale purchases with the assistance of private philanthropy. The land itself has a compelling connection to the park. Terlingua Creek contains rare riparian habitat in an otherwise arid landscape, and the lands under consideration can help conserve stream segments upstream from the park. These properties also contain important cultural and paleontological resources. The project area includes evidence of Hispanic pioneer settlement, historic agricultural use, and other cultural resources, while the area adjacent to Rattlesnake Mountain contains significant fossil resources, including dinosaur remains and eggshells.
It serves as a nesting area for gray hawks and yellow-billed cuckoos. These resources are directly related to the natural, geological, and cultural values for which Big Bend National Park was established. I recognize that members of this committee have legitimate concerns about expanding the federal estate and about the long-term costs of managing additional federal land. H.R. 2323 is an unusually narrow case that addresses both concerns. The bill does not authorize the federal government to condemn private property.
It permits the Secretary of the Interior to acquire the approximately 6,100 acres covered by the legislation only through donation or exchange, and it expressly prohibits eminent domain and condemnation. In other words, this is a voluntary boundary adjustment involving willing parties at no cost to the taxpayer. The Congressional Budget Office examined the Senate predecessor to this legislation, S. 1059. CBO estimated zero direct spending and, importantly, concluded that any cost incurred by the National Park Service to manage the additional land would be insignificant. I ask that the committee consider this proposal in the context of Texas.
Texas is a private land state; approximately 95% of the state is privately owned. Texas A&M's Natural Resources Institute describes that ownership pattern as fundamentally different from the public land landscape found across much of the American West. The Big Bend Boundary Adjustment Act should therefore not be viewed as part of a broad effort to increase federal ownership in Texas. It is a limited boundary adjustment around an existing national park, supported by willing landowners and facilitated by a nonprofit that has already invested substantial private resources in making the transaction possible. The new workforce housing benefit of this project also deserves the committee's attention.
The Conservancy has recently acquired one of the few parcels within the proposed boundary that contains two housing units. We are rehabilitating those structures with the intention of offering these buildings to the National Park Service for employee housing without adding to the existing deferred maintenance backlog. In a remote community where recruiting and retaining a park workforce is a persistent challenge, putting an existing residential structure to productive use is a practical way this boundary adjustment can support park operations without creating a significant new construction burden.
For these reasons, I respectfully urge the committee to advance the Big Bend Boundary Adjustment Act. This legislation respects private property rights, does not authorize condemnation, minimizes the federal financial burden, provides a practical opportunity for workforce housing, and protects important natural, cultural, and paleontological resources immediately adjacent to an existing national park. More importantly, it offers Congress an opportunity to support a locally driven solution in which willing parties are voluntarily working to place important lands into public ownership for the benefit of the park and the American people. Thank you.
Speaker 9
Thank you, Ms. Rymer. I will now recognize Mr. Daryl Wynn, Chief Policy Analyst and Executive Advisor at the office of Mayor Crystal E. Watson. Mr. Wynn, you're recognized for five minutes.
Daryl Wynn
And Chairperson, Ranking Member, thank you for this opportunity to support H.R. 8276. My name is Daryl Wynn, I serve in the office of the mayor. I'm also a former veteran, I was the chief military officer at Fort Eustis and Fort Story, Virginia. I'll explain why that matters in just a little bit. Rather than talk about Quindaro as a ruin and Quindaro as a land matter, I'm going to ask you to consider Quindaro not as an abandoned town, but as a part of Kansas history.
Quindaro is evidence, Quindaro is evidence of courage, evidence of conflict, and evidence of cooperation, and most importantly, evidence that the struggle for freedom was never the work of one people alone. In 1857, Quindaro emerged on the Missouri River in what is now Kansas City, Kansas, as a free state port of entry into Kansas territory. Its name came from Nancy Quindaro Brown Guthrie, a member of the Wyandot Nation. The land itself carried the history of the Wyandot people whose presence in the region predates the town by generations. Around the foundation came people from different parts of the country and different ethnic backgrounds.
Northerners and immigrants came to build businesses and communities. Abolitionists came because they believed that Kansas should be free. Black Americans came seeking freedom and opportunity, and people of different backgrounds found themselves bound together by a struggle that was larger than any one of them. The struggle was for freedom. That's the first lesson of Quindaro.
Kansas was not built by one group standing alone, Kansas was built through people coming together around the idea that freedom was worth fighting for. Quindaro became a port of entry for the free state movement and a station in the Underground Railroad. People fleeing slavery could find a pathway toward freedom in Kansas. There's the story that oldies tell that when the Missouri River froze, the slaves would slide across the river into a free Kansas. The town rose quickly and the history demanded something more.
By 1863, the Civil War had transformed the meaning of freedom across America. Kansas had already entered the Union as a free state. That freedom was not merely an idea written into a constitution, it had to be defended. And people from Wyandotte County, Quindaro area, answered the call. Black Kansas joined the Union cause.
Men from Wyandotte and Quindaro communities helped fill the ranks of the United States Colored Troops. At Fort Leavenworth, the Independent Battery of U.S. Colored Light Artillery was organized in 1864 with more than 160 of its 208 enlisted men having been recruited from Leavenworth, Fort Scott, and the Wyandotte and Quindaro communities.
Think about what that means. These are the stories of runaway slaves sledding across the frozen river to get into Kansas and then later on finding themselves with an opportunity to defend the nation that they sought to be free. The people who had once needed others to open a door to freedom were now putting on a uniform and helping defend the nation that freedom was supposed to create. They were not waiting for America to become free, they were fighting to make America free. And when the war ended, the work did not end.
It simply changed. By 1865, hundreds of African Americans were living around the Quindaro townsite. The community recognized that freedom without education would remain incomplete. A school was established for formerly enslaved people, eventually becoming Freedmen's University and later Western University. That institution became one of the greatest educational stories in Kansas.
Education was about building people, it was about building institutions, it was about self-determination. The Quindaro townsite saw that there are many variations of people who gathered together around Quindaro to fight for freedom. So we stand today asking you to support this effort to have it established as a landmark, a national landmark, because the freedom that America espoused to can only be found in Quindaro. Thank you.
Sarah Otte Coleman
Thank you, Mr. Winn. I will now recognize Ms. Sarah Otte Coleman, Director of Tourism and Marketing at the North Dakota Department of Commerce. Ms. Coleman, you're recognized for five minutes.
Thank you, Chairman Loy, Ranking Member Neguse, and members of the subcommittee. On behalf of the North Dakota Department of Commerce Tourism and Marketing Division, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to testify in support of S. 1377, the Theodore Roosevelt National Park Wild Horse Protection Act. We also extend our thanks to Senator Hoeven for sponsoring this legislation and Senator Kaine for his support as a cosponsor. S. 1377 would require the Department of Interior to maintain a genetically diverse herd of no fewer than 150 horses in the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This legislation is a common sense compromise solution that represents months of work between Senator Hoeven's office, the National Park Service, and local state stakeholders.
Thanks to this hard work, the bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent on June 11th of 2026. If enacted, the bill would reduce the need for future actions that could reduce or eliminate the park's horse herd. By requiring Interior to maintain a genetically diverse herd, develop a management plan that protects both the horses and the park's natural resources, limit removals to narrow and clearly defined circumstances, and publish annual findings on the herd's population, structure, and health, this bill provides certainty and accountability. The Tourism and Marketing Division is committed to supporting new visitor experiences and to retaining the existing attractions that draw people to our great state. We believe this legislation will maintain the park's appeal and visitors' desire to visit North Dakota.
The park's unique beauty, historic significance, and connection to conservation are paramount, and allowing horses to roam these lands also enriches our visitors' experiences. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is known for its stunning landscapes, diverse wildlife, and rich cultural history. Ranching legends including Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores depended on horses every day on their ranches. The presence of wild horses has been part of this unique ecosystem since the early days of ranching in the Badlands. Difficult times for Badlands ranchers and Native Americans at the turn of the 19th, late 19th century reintroduced thousands of horses back into the wild.
The sight of these wild horses grazing in the park's vast landscapes add to this experience. Visitors who enjoy viewing the park horses are passionate about the park and its Western culture. The wild horses are also a part of what sets Theodore Roosevelt National Park from other Western national parks. While bison and other wildlife can be found throughout the national park system, free-roaming horses are a distinctive feature that visitors associate specifically with Theodore Roosevelt National Park. That distinction helps draw travelers to a park that, compared to many of its larger, more crowded Western counterparts, still offers a less congested, more intimate visitor experience.
This recognition extends beyond North Dakota. Afar magazine named Theodore Roosevelt National Park among its list of the 10 best places in the United States to see wildlife. While we do not have an exact metric quantifying how many visitors come to the park specifically because of the horses, the data we do have consistently shows that the traveling public's interest in the park and the horses is strong. A 2023 study of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park visitor study showed that 86% of the visitors reported their primary activity within the park was wildlife viewing, including the wild horses. Our visitor metrics continue to show that Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the most visited attraction in the state.
Geolocation data shows us top origin states in the last year were Minnesota, Montana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas, Michigan, California, Washington, South Dakota, and Ohio. National Park Service reported visitor spending connected with Theodore Roosevelt National Park was 54 million with a total economic output of 60 million in their most recent study of 2023, and 98.7 of that spending came from non-local visitors. As I noted earlier in my testimony, the legislation before you today is a compromise product following months of discussion among interested parties led by Senator Hoeven. Like any compromise, no one gets exactly what they wanted. However, this bill represents a reasonable path forward and provides certainty for the park, state, and local stakeholders.
For these reasons, the North Dakota Department of Commerce and our Tourism and Marketing Division respectfully urge the subcommittee to act favorably on S. 1377. I thank you for the opportunity to be here today and welcome your questions.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you, Ms. Coleman. I'm going to switch gears a little bit. Mr. Peguero, you've got a, you can rest easy for a few minutes. Representative Pfluger made it in, and I know you've probably noticed there are not a lot of members of Congress sitting here right now. This has been a week where the schedule's changed a few times.
We have a lot of hearings going on and people are coming in and out when they can. So, thank you for joining us, Congressman Pfluger. You are recognized for five minutes on H.R. 2323.
August Pfluger
Thank you, Chairman Lowenthal, and I would also like to thank Chairman Westerman and Chairman Tiffany for holding today's hearing and giving me the opportunity to speak about H.R. 2323, the Big Bend National Park Boundary Adjustment Act. And I would also like to thank Lauren Reimer, the executive director of the Big Bend Conservancy, for being here to testify on the legislation today. Thank you. And Big Bend National Park is one of the great treasures of Texas. The park is very important to the people that I represent, even though I don't represent this district, there is not a congressional representative at this time.
But I'm very close to it, and families from my district in San Angelo, Midland, and Odessa, and communities across my district both travel there and also ranch and operate in that area. And have grown up with, we've all grown up appreciating what a special place it is.
And this is one of the reasons that I'm helping with this legislation. Big Bend is important to Texas and especially important to the people and communities that I do represent. This bill reflects the wishes of a multi-generational Texas ranching family. For generations, the Fulcher family has owned land immediately adjacent to Big Bend National Park. Their wish was for this land to ultimately become part of the park and to be protected alongside the surrounding landscape.
The Big Bend Conservancy and its partners have spent years working with the Fulcher family and other willing landowners to make that possible. And they have already assembled roughly 3,500 acres of property contemplated by this legislation and are holding that land so it can ultimately be transferred to the National Park Service. When you look at the land itself, it's easy to understand why this is important. Terlingua Creek runs through the area. The proposed addition includes important portions of watershed, wildlife habitat, historic and cultural resources, and significant fossil resources directly connected to Big Bend.
The geography also makes sense. Portions of Terlingua Creek above and below the property are already within the National Park. And this boundary adjustment would allow these lands to be managed as part of the larger landscape that they're already connected to. And this has been done in a way that respects the Texas tradition of private property rights. Every landowner involved is participating voluntarily.
The legislation does not authorize eminent domain or any form of condemnation, and much of the land is being made available through private philanthropy rather than a major federal land purchase. And that's a very important distinction of this legislation. There's also a practical benefit for the National Park Service as well. One of the properties acquired by the Conservancy contains existing housing. The Conservancy is renovating those structures before transferring them so they can provide much-needed housing for National Park Service employees.
Rather than asking the National Park Service to construct new housing, the Conservancy is preparing an existing asset for that purpose. How many times does that happen in our country? And this is a great example of that. CBO has also reviewed the budgetary impact of this legacy proposal and concluded that additional management costs to the National Park Service would be insignificant. Ultimately, this legislation represents years of work by Texas landowners, the Big Bend Conservancy, private partners, local stakeholders, and the state of Texas.
It honors the wishes of a Texas ranching family, it protects private property rights, it brings land that is naturally connected to Big Bend into the park, and it also provides an additional practical benefit to the people responsible for taking care of this incredible place. This is a locally driven effort that has been in the making for a long time, and I am very proud to carry this legislation. I appreciate sincerely the committee that has bent over backwards, both the members and the staff, to make this happen. And there's been a lot of hoops to jump through. I recognize that, I understand that.
And on behalf of West Texas and the community that I represent and those that are just to the south of me in Texas's 23rd Congressional District, thank you, because this makes a huge impact and it's a common sense thing to do, which in government we don't always do. But today, I'm proud to report that that is happening, and I yield back.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you, Rep. Pfluger. I will now recognize Mr. Michael Piggies, President of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation and board member for the Greenwood Historic District Black Wall Street National Monument Coalition. Sorry, that's a mouthful. Mr. Piggies, you are recognized for five minutes.
Michael Piggies
Thank you, Chairwoman Malloy and members of the subcommittee, and thank you all for this opportunity to testify today. I am the chairman of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation and a member of the Historic Greenwood District Black Wall Street National Monument Coalition. We urge you to advance Senate Bill 1051, the bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senators James Lankford and Cory Booker to establish a national monument in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District. This effort began almost two decades ago with my father, Julius Piggies, and his close friend, Reuben Gant.
It continues through our coalition co-chaired by Mr. Gant, Executive Director of the John Hope Franklin Center, and Dr. Tiffany Crutcher of the Crutcher Foundation. Greenwood holds an essential place in America's story. Founded in 1905, it became a thriving black community during the Jim Crow era, when discrimination sharply restricted opportunity. Only a few generations removed from enslavement, black families built businesses and acquired property and strengthened community life. Black Wall Street demonstrated what Americans could accomplish through enterprise and determination, even when the law denied them equal treatment.
That achievement deserves a place in our national memory. On May 31st and June 1st of 1921, a white mob aided by local authorities bombed and burned Greenwood to the ground. 35 blocks were destroyed. More than a thousand homes were reduced to rubble. Thousands were displaced, and the death toll remains uncertain with estimates reaching approximately 300.
Behind those numbers were families whose life savings disappeared overnight. Consider T.J. Elliott, known as America's merchant prince, who owned the largest black-owned department store in the United States at the time. His Greenwood store was destroyed and never rebuilt. His insurance company refused to pay his claim. Along with that business went the wealth that could have supported generations of his family.
Yet, Greenwood rebuilt. Despite immense loss and continuing discrimination, residents restored businesses, rebuilt homes, and reestablished community life. Their determination is central to history this monument would preserve. That determination embodies the guiding theme of John Hope Franklin Center, from tragedy to triumph, words echoed by Senator Lankford in describing Greenwood. For decades, much of Greenwood's history was obscured.
Many Oklahomans grew up without learning about the massacre. I attended a school in the district and was not taught this history. Many of my teachers were unaware of what occurred just outside of their classrooms. That silence deprived generations of the opportunity to learn about Black Wall Street's achievement. Our understanding of America is incomplete without this history.
Our coalition shares this conviction. We bring together more than 10 Greenwood-based organizations, many involving descendants of massacre survivors. With the city of Tulsa, the Cherokee Nation, and many others, we believe Greenwood's history belongs to the entire nation. Federal recognition would strengthen and preserve our work that is already underway. For example, at Standpipe Hill, a historical marker helps visitors understand where Greenwood residents defended their neighbors and helped others escape.
National monument designation would help make such places and their stories accessible to future generations. This year marks 105 years since the massacre. Descendants have worked to ensure that the community their relatives built is remembered with dignity. Greenwood remains a place of resilience, culture, opportunity, and hope. An honest understanding of our past creates a foundation for reconciliation.
Greenwood offers a place to confront racial violence, but also to learn from people who rebuilt despite it. Madam Chairwoman, excuse me, I respectfully urge this subcommittee to advance bipartisan bill 1051.
The people of Greenwood rebuilt their community after others tried to destroy it. Congress can now ensure that their history of achievement, tragedy, resilience, and triumph endures. Thank you, and I appreciate your advancement of Senate Bill 1051.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you, Mr. Peguise. I will now recognize Mr. Edward Stierli, Vice President of Government Affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association. Mr. Stierli, you're now recognized for five minutes.
Edward Stierli
Chairwoman Malloy, Ranking Member Neguse, members of the subcommittee, thank you so much for the opportunity to appear here today. My name is Ed Stierli, I'm the Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. We're a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization with more than 1.9 million members and supporters around the country, and we're dedicated to protecting and enhancing America's national parks for current and future generations. And before turning to the bills before the subcommittee today, I just want to recognize this committee's work to reauthorize the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund. We really support this effort, and the fund that was originally created through the Great American Outdoors Act, which is expiring in 2025.
And we urge the House to move the America the Beautiful Act forward, especially as we're in the waning months of the 250th anniversary of the United States, there's no better time to make this investment. I'm pleased to speak with you today about two bills that highlight both the opportunities and challenges facing the National Park System right now. The first is H.R. 2323, the Big Bend National Park Boundary Adjustment Act. Big Bend National Park, you know, it's already been noted, this is a treasured destination not just for Texans, but for visitors from around the world. It protects and preserves breathtaking landscapes, rich desert wildlife, and thousands of years of history.
It has soaring vistas, epic hikes, some of the darkest skies in the world, and more than a half million visitors come there annually. We support this legislation to adjust the boundary of Big Bend National Park. Expanding the park boundary will bring a new, rare water source as well as sensitive cultural resources, ranging from prehistoric fossils to historic ruins, under the protection of the National Park Service, while doing this all while also not increasing the park's management costs. While this legislation would protect sensitive resources in one part of the park, other parts of Big Bend are currently at risk from the border barrier construction. In addition to moving this bill, we encourage the committee to take all measures possible to halt border infrastructure construction in Big Bend and the surrounding region.
We're glad to see the temporary pause that's currently in effect in construction at Big Bend National Park, as well as CBP's commitment to listening to local leadership, community members, and stakeholders to develop a plan both for border security while also working to protect Big Bend National Park for generations to come. The few days that federal contractors began work in the park just a month ago in early August, before the current construction pause, resulted in miles of destruction in some of the most recognized and treasured places in the park, from Santa Elena Canyon to Mariscal Canyon.
To the east, new construction has already blasted through Coronado National Memorial, the seat of the Huachuca Mountains and one of the last remaining wildlife corridors on the border, which is critical for rare ocelots, jaguars, and other species that move freely across the landscape and need to do so in order to survive. The destruction has also impacted the start of the Arizona National Scenic Trail, just to give you a sense of how it's impacting visitors to the park. Our national parks across the country were established to protect these most treasured places, and we urge you to make sure that they're protected for generations to come. We also support the establishment of the Fort Ontario Holocaust Refugee Shelter National Historical Park Establishment Act. The Park Service completed a special resource study in 2024 and also noted that there was no site in the National Park System that tells the story of how the country answered the refugee crisis during World War II.
This bill would fill that gap, and it does so in partnership, which is amazing, with the New York State Parks, the Safe Haven Museum and Education Center, and the city of Oswego. We urge you to advance that bill. But while adding nationally significant places to the National Park System is important to tell our story, we urge Congress to provide the funding and staffing needed for these sites in order to thrive. Unfortunately, appropriations have not kept pace with what these parks need. For example, the National Park Service has lost 13% of its permanent workforce, while visitation grew 20% up from 2011 to 2024.
And then since 2025, the National Park Service has lost over a quarter of its permanent workforce due to the series of deferred resignations, retirements, as well as the severely reduced workforce due to some of the actions of the current administration. Inadequate budgets, significant staffing losses have dramatically undercut the agency's ability to meet its mission. But we're hopeful that with this committee's work, that addressing these needs are within reach, and we look forward to working with you to do this, and I'm glad to answer your questions.
Speaker 18
Thank you, Mr. Sterley. I will now recognize Mr. Matthew McCombs, State Forester and Director at the Colorado State Forest Service. Mr. McCombs, you're recognized for five minutes.
Matthew McCombs
Chair Malloy, Ranking Member Neguse, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Matt McCombs, and I serve as Colorado State Forester and Director of the Colorado State Forest Service. I appreciate the opportunity to be here before the committee again, and I want to begin by thanking Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen and Ranking Member Joe Neguse for their leadership in introducing H.R. 9999, the Mountain Pine Beetle Coordination Act. This legislation reflects how mountain pine beetle outbreaks actually unfold across ownership boundaries and recognizes that we must work together to detect beetle activity, respond where we can make a difference, and manage together the wildfire hazards associated with significant tree mortality. Mountain pine beetles are a natural part of pine forests in Colorado and across the western United States.
They play an important ecological role in the culling of forests of unhealthy and dying trees. These native insects are always present in pine forests, usually at low levels that the forest can tolerate, and outbreaks can occur every so often under the right conditions when there are ample trees for beetles to consume and drought and warm temperatures weaken the defenses in those trees from attack. When populations explode and beetles decimate large swaths of forest, then an outbreak can become an epidemic. The most recent mountain pine beetle epidemic occurred in Colorado from the late 90s through 2013, affecting over 3.4 million acres of forest. The beetles killed up to 90% of trees in some lodgepole pine forests in Summit, Grand, Eagle, and Routt counties during that time.
If you've driven through those parts of Colorado, you've seen what that looks like: first the hillsides turn red, then they fade to gray. Over time, many of the dead trees fall and pile up like jackstraws across the forest floor. Then in 2020, the East Troublesome and Cameron Peak fires burned across hundreds of thousands of acres. Extreme drought, severe fire weather, and heavy fuel loads comprised of beetle-killed trees combined to produce explosive fire behavior that challenged conventional containment.
Over the past few years, the Colorado State Forest Service, in partnership with USDA Forest Service and our local partners, have monitored an uptick in mountain pine beetle activity in the lower elevation ponderosa pine forests on the front range of Colorado. These forests largely escaped the epidemic that ended in 2013, yet are chalk-full of trees susceptible to attack from mountain pine beetles. This summer, we have watched pockets of brown beetle-killed trees expand in forests full of ponderosa pine weakened by some of the hottest and driest conditions on record in Colorado. As Colorado State Forester, this outbreak is especially concerning, noting its spreading in Colorado's most populated areas where there is already very high wildfire risk. These areas have experienced a rapid expansion of the wildland-urban interface and have an abundance of homes, communities, recreation areas, reservoirs, highways, and other critical infrastructure in and around where we expect significant tree mortality to occur.
Thus, this outbreak has the potential to negatively impact public safety, water quality, outdoor recreation, and in many ways, hundreds of thousands of Colorado's fundamental quality of life. The good news, however, is the outbreak is early and we have the opportunity to mitigate the risks to our forests, communities, and water supplies. We've learned from our recent experience and we have a clear understanding of what we can do now to lessen the impacts of this unwelcome event. To do this, we must address the problem at the scale of the problem, across entire landscapes and working together. Mountain pine beetles don't know if they're attacking trees on federal, state, or private ground, so our solutions must involve coordination across all lands.
The Mountain Pine Beetle Coordination Act recognizes this reality and encourages our partners at the USDA Forest Service and the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service to continue working alongside the state to monitor outbreaks, plan projects, and treat forests where beetle-killed trees pose a significant risk, and to increase our ability to utilize or dispose of beetle-killed trees in ways that lower the overall cost. In Colorado, we embrace this shared stewardship approach for forest health and wildfire, exemplified by the Ponderosa Mountain Pine Beetle Task Force launched by Governor Polis to take on this issue. This bill builds off that effort and aligns with what we know works for improving forest health and reducing risk, using collaborative, proactive, cross-boundary solutions. I also want to emphasize that other states are experiencing the same challenges we're facing here in Colorado. Many of our neighbors could share similar stories with similar outbreaks, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak in support of my fellow state foresters united through the National Association of State Foresters.
We share a common goal to conserve and protect America's forests and reduce wildfire risk. I'm grateful to Congresswoman Pettersen and Ranking Member Neguse and this committee for prioritizing solutions that reflect the realities on the ground and strengthen our collective ability to improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk. This bill represents a cooperative approach to addressing the top forest health issue for the state, one that recognizes that working together is our default as we face down the myriad of challenges facing forest managers today. Thank you for the opportunity, I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 13
Thank you, Mr. McCombs. And we'll now recognize Ms. Beverly Vaillancourt, owner and educational consultant at Power Up Learning. Ms. Vaillancourt, you're recognized for five minutes.
Beverly Vaillancourt
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and thank you for allowing me to speak today regarding HR 7495. This legislation has broad support among the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War, local historical societies, and bipartisan support among members of the Wisconsin State Legislature. At the end of the battle at Bronner's Farm near Gainesville, Virginia, on August 28, 1862, Lieutenant Colonel Fairchild of the Second Wisconsin asked with tears in his eyes, "Where, good God, where is the Second?" Major Allen, wounded, still with the regiment, replied, "Colonel, they're all here, all that is left."
Lieutenant Colonel Fairchild would soon learn that the Second Wisconsin had lost 276 killed, wounded, and missing out of the 430 soldiers who had charged into battle.
In recalling the battle in the cornfield at Antietam, Rufus Dawes shared, "Men I cannot say fell, they were knocked out of the ranks by the dozens." Mary Poynter of the 6th Wisconsin recalled, "In the cornfield, the corn standing so nice in the morning was cut to the ground when the fight was over." On October 7th, 1862, General George B. McClellan, in a letter to the Governor of Wisconsin, said in part, "I add my great admiration of the three Wisconsin regiments in General Gibbon's brigade." I have seen them under fire acting in a manner that reflects the greatest possible credit and honor themselves and to their state. They are equal to the best troops in any army in the world.
In 1913, Wisconsin passed legislation that set up a commission with the intent to study placement of stone memorials at Gainesville and Antietam. And rightfully so. Of the 1,514 men from Wisconsin who entered the Battle of Gainesville, 515 were casualties. While some 800 Wisconsin men engaged in the Battle of Antietam on the morning of September 17th, 1862, a battle known as the bloodiest one-day battle in American military history, some 500 Wisconsin men were numbered among the killed, wounded, or missing. The men of these Wisconsin regiments, the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th, came from across Wisconsin.
Farmers, store clerks, businessmen, multiple men from the same family and their neighbors often formed a company with the patriotic spirit and determination to preserve our great republic. In battle, they saw their family members and neighbors struck down, yet they pushed on. Their dedication and resolve to the cause of preserving the Union transcended their fear, anguish, and grief, and sent them back into battle. That promise made in 1913 to aging Civil War veterans never was realized, as just months ahead World War I would begin, and the noble intent of that promise was lost to time. Today we meet here with fervent hope, as we look back in awe at the courage and resolve of the men who left their Wisconsin farms and businesses to do all within their power to preserve the Union, to finally make good on a promise made to them some 113 years ago.
Our vision is for memorials that do not obscure the viewscape of the battlefields at Gainesville and Antietam. Made from Wisconsin granite, each five-to-six-foot-high memorial would be graced by a clay-burn dish cast in bronze of two battlefield paintings we have been given permission to use. Both paintings tell the story of the fortitude, grave determination, and resilience of the Wisconsin men who fought at the battles of Gainesville and Antietam. The intent is to enhance the beauty and visitor's understanding of the battlefield and to finally, finally, make good on Wisconsin's 1913 promise to Wisconsin Civil War soldiers. I've often been asked why I embarked on this journey.
So what if Wisconsin's small black kiosk sits between the West Woods and the cornfield at Antietam battlefield, surrounded by beautiful state memorials from New Jersey, Delaware, Indiana, Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and other states? There is no so what. In 1903, when President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated the New Jersey memorial at Antietam, a beautiful towering memorial that shadows Wisconsin's small black kiosk, he said, "You men of the Grand Army, by your victory, not only rendered all Americans your debtors forevermore, but you rendered all humanity your debtors." When General Gibbon died in 1896, Wisconsin's living Civil War veterans pooled their resources so that he could have a proper tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery. His words were as true for the New Jersey men who fought in the cornfield as they are for Wisconsinites.
And indeed he does. It sits below Arlington House and is graced by the insignia of the Iron Brigade.
Derek Schmidt
Thank you, Madam Chair. I won't take five minutes and actually don't have questions. I just want to express my gratitude to Mayor Watson for her office's leadership on this, to Mr. Winn for making the trip out, and to say that this is a matter of particular importance not just to Kansas and to Kansas City, but to the country. This was part of the Bleeding Kansas saga. This was our state's admission to the Union, which was one of the factors leading up to the American Civil War.
And I'm very grateful for the opportunity to have this hearing today. I want to thank you and for the chairman of the full committee for allowing us to proceed with this. I yield back.
Speaker 15
Thank you, Representative Schmidt. I'll now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Huffman, for five minutes.
Jared Huffman
Thank you, Madam Chair. I know we've got some terrific witnesses doing great work. I mean no disrespect to any of them or their testimony, but I am going to use my limited block of time here today to share some news that this committee should have heard from the administration but did not. While Republicans are getting ready to send us home to our districts today, it is very important that we talk about this while we can. Democrats on this committee just learned that a couple of days ago, the Park Service hired a company to start working on the historic public golf course at East Potomac Park without any announcement, without a word to any of us, without a single public hearing.
Now, this is not just any old golf course. This is a beloved public space with huge historic significance. Congress set it aside in 1897 to be, and I quote, "forever held and used as a park for the recreation and pleasure of the people." Almost half a century later, and this is where it gets very powerful and historic, three Black golfers, J.A.S. Williams, George Williams, and Cecil R. Shamwell, played all 18 holes at this golf course. But they had to have a police escort to do it, and a white crowd jeered behind their backs the whole way.
The next day, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes opened every federal golf course in Washington to all Americans. This was a huge thunderclap of civil rights, and it happened over a decade before Brown versus Board of Education. This was 1941. What is happening right now, for those willing to see it, to open their eyes, is that Donald Trump is systematically moving to take this historic, publicly accessible resource and turn it into another gilded private golf club for the mega-rich. That's what's going on here, folks.
This is a methodical, deliberate effort to take a public park away from the people. Taxpayers are going to foot the bill to rebuild this golf course to Donald Trump's specifications, and you would have to be willfully naive not to see where this is heading. He might even sell it to himself or just gift it to himself as a trophy, as another tribute to himself on his way out the door of the White House, the same way he is planning to pocket a 400-million-dollar jet from the Qataris with no consequence of any of it because this extreme Supreme Court has gifted him with absolute immunity and this Congress, this comatose MAGA Congress, will never question him. All they do is look away. Congress leaves town today.
And I don't think it's any coincidence that this is the exact moment the administration has chosen to line up contracts, setting the stage to roll equipment into the park and start tearing up public land for a Trump golf course. We have seen this playbook too many times to sit up here and pretend that we don't know where this is going and how this story ends. There's a pattern with this administration. Donald Trump decides what he wants to do, the work gets done quietly, quickly, and the public finds out after the damage is done. He tries to outrun the courts, and you all have let him get away with it too many times.
We saw it with the arch at Memorial Circle. Remember Secretary Burgum sat in the witness chair right here just a few months ago and told us, told us to our face here in this committee, that there was not a proposal for a giant arch by Arlington Cemetery, and then a few days later crews began drilling on the site. And now he's tweeting about how great it's going to be, this, this massive project that he swore to us was not a project. You see, lying is part of the pattern that we've seen all too many times. We saw it when the East Wing came down in a matter of days to build Trump's ballroom for billionaires.
Every time this happens, the public finds out after the fact, and every time our Republican colleagues either look away or cheerlead for it. Some of my colleagues across the aisle cheerleaded for the ballroom and then seamlessly, without blushing, switched over to calling it a national security bunker when Trump changed his story. How can you continue to enable these charades? I ask my colleagues across the aisle. I don't want to stand here two months from now or two years from now saying I told you so.
I want this Congress to wake up and do your job now. So let me be clear about where we stand. Democrats on this committee are tracking all of this. We're going to keep dragging it all into the daylight until the public gets the answers we deserve. We're not going to let Donald Trump walk off with our public lands.
That park belongs to the American people, and I'm not willing to sit here and watch him simply steal it. I yield back.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you, Ranking Member. I will now recognize Ms. Randall for five minutes, if you're ready. If you need me to switch up the order, I can do that. Yeah. Okay, I'll go to Ms. Stansbury for five minutes.
Are you, he's already gone.
Melanie Stansbury
All right. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you all so much for being here today. Thank you for traveling and thank you for coming to testify in front of our committee today. I'm going to focus my comments this afternoon on Big Bend, and I want to say thank you in particular to our two witnesses who are here to testify about the Big Bend bill. But I want to also take a moment to provide the strongest possible support for the Historic Greenwood District, and I want to say thank you, sir, for being here today.
Thank you for coming and telling this story. Thank you for making sure that America does not forget and that we honor the history of the entrepreneurs and business people and families who were terrorized in Tulsa, and we thank you for your leadership. So thank you for being here. You know, we can't talk about expansion and protection of Big Bend without addressing the elephant in the room, which is, of course, that at the same time we have a bipartisan bill in front of this committee proposing to expand Big Bend and to take this very generous piece of land into the larger park of this very important national park in Texas, the President of the United States is trying to build a border wall, as has been stated, right through some of the most ecologically and culturally sensitive parts of the park.
I want to talk for a few moments about the significance of the construction of the border wall and its destruction of these important places because I think for a lot of Americans we agree that we need secure borders and we need to protect our communities but the way in which this administration is going about border construction in particular is not actually about security. It is basically a bulldozer without a plan. From Big Bend to the ranches of Southern New Mexico to the sacred lands in Arizona the Tohono O'odham in Arizona the pattern has been the same. No consultation no tribal engagement no respect for the law no regard for the people who actually live there and certainly no respect for the wildlife and ecosystems that those lands are important to. In fact there has been a total disregard disregard for sacred sites ancient landscapes and these delicate ecosystems.
In Big Bend federal contractors bulldozed miles of sensitive habitat near Santa Elena Canyon one of the least cross stretches of our entire southern border scarring a landscape with nearly 12,000 years of human history. In New Mexico contractors illegally drilled wells and pumped nearly 3 million gallons of groundwater out of our our aquifers without a permit stealing water from ranchers and farmers in the worst water year our state has ever experienced. And in fact it was so bad that the state of New Mexico had to file an emergency injunction against the federal government to stop these wells from going through. And in Arizona we have watched in horror as the federal government has sent armed and masked federal agents to escort contractors onto the sacred lands of the Tohono O'odham Nation's own tribal lands to build a wall through one of the most sacred sites their ancestors have used for generations. And none of this is going to make our country any safer.
None of this is going to make our communities any safer. This is strictly federal overreach. It's an overreach in tribal sovereignty private property human dignity and yes the protection of our natural resources. So I want to say thank you to those of you who are here today to advocate for our public lands for the expansion of the Big Bend National Park and I'm proud to co-sponsor that bill in a bipartisan base basis but we cannot sit here silent today and pretend like everything is good while Donald Trump is building this through our backyards and destroying our ecosystems and communities. So with that I yield back.
Speaker 22
Thank you Representative Stansbury I'm going to switch gears just for a second again because Chairman Hill showed up and as I mentioned before we've had some schedules get scrambled this week and the members are getting here the best they can so Representative Hill I will recognize you for five minutes.
J. Hill
Well first let me thank the committee thank Chairman Westerman Ranking Member Huffman members of the committee thank you for the ones that are here today for me to provide the opportunity of a statement for the record on my bill that you've noticed HR 9148 the Scipio Jones House Assessment Act. As all of you know Arkansas has a strong civil rights history most notably the Little Rock Nine at Central High School in Little Rock. Among the men and women who played a key role in Arkansas's civil rights history Scipio Africanus Jones stands out as an especially important figure. Jones was a prominent Arkansas attorney known for defending the Elaine 12.
The Elaine 12 were 12 black men who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death following the Elaine race massacre in 1919. Following their initial sentence, the NAACP retained Scipio Jones to represent the Elaine 12, where he subsequently appealed their case to the United States Supreme Court in the case Moore versus Dempsey. In their 1923 decision, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court's ruling, finding that the men's trials had been dominated by the mob and that it deprived them of their constitutional right of due process. The decision established an important precedent, affirming that federal courts' ability to review state criminal proceedings when their constitutional rights are involved. Years later, the Little Rock Central High School, located in my district, was drawn just down the street from Jones' home, became a national focal point in the integration of Little Rock schools following the 1954 Supreme Court case in Brown versus Board of Education.
Thurgood Marshall argued the Brown case using Moore versus Dempsey. In 2017, I was proud to play a role in a law that facilitated a portrait of Scipio Jones being displayed in the post office that bears his name in Little Rock. That bill passed unanimously in the House, and the portrait is an extraordinary one and a great contribution to Little Rock's cultural history. Before you today is my most recent bill, H.R. 9148. The bill directs the Department of Interior to conduct a special resource study to evaluate potential inclusion of the Scipio A. Jones house as a part of the National Park System.
Built in 1928, the elaborate craftsman-style home features brick, stucco, and granite and is well recognized in the Central High School neighborhood. Jones' home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1999, but unfortunately, it's been damaged by fire from 2020. Unfortunately, Jones' historic Little Rock home has fallen into significant disrepair. This bill's required study would not require the Department of Interior to acquire the building or the adjacent land. Instead, it simply studies the feasibility of Jones' home being included in the National Park System while maintaining local control.
I appreciate the members of the Little Rock community, including our city council, the Jones family descendants, and many in the neighborhood who've worked to preserve and share his legacy and those who've supported the efforts to protect this important piece of Arkansas history. Preserving Scipio A. Jones' house is critical to protecting an important part of Arkansas history and honoring the remarkable legacy of one of the 20th century's finest jurists from Arkansas that played such a pivotal role in advancing the constitutional rights and justice in our country. I appreciate the committee's time today, and I urge the support of the committee for advancing this bill, and I yield back. Oh, Madam Chair, let me ask to insert in the record letters from Preserve Arkansas in support of this act.
Without objection.
Without objection, thank you, and I yield back.
Emily Randall
Thank you, Representative Hill. We're going to switch gears back to questions and recognize Representative Randall for five minutes for questions.
I so appreciate the work of my colleague Representative Pfluger on H.R. 2323, the bill, as we heard, to adjust the boundary of Big Bend National Park in Texas. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, for your grace under evolving schedule. It authorizes the Secretary of Interior to acquire approximately 6,100 acres to incorporate and manage the lands according to existing National Park Service regulations.
This is a great bill. Expanding Big Bend National Park is a win for conservation in Texas and for the National Park Service. However, DHS, the Department of Homeland Security is simultaneously conducting immigration enforcement activities in national parks and it is destroying the environment, terrorizing and separating families and threatening open access on public lands for everyone. As we consider this bill to expand Big Bend National Park boundaries, the Department of Homeland Security is in that park, bulldozing border barrier and installing detection technology inside the park. Constructing a border wall in Big Bend with all of the associated roads, secondary barriers, power lines, towers and lighting will disrupt natural biodiversity, river dynamics and one of the darkest night sky areas in the world.
This proposal is not even grounded in reality. Big Bend's got a steep and rough terrain, people aren't trying to cross the border there. And over Labor Day weekend in my home state of Washington, US Forest Service law enforcement officers reportedly took photos of and collected identification of Washington families who were camping in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Then, ICE agents returned to their campsite after dark, yelling and shaking their tents, their children screaming and crying and arrested five members of their family in the middle of the night. Trump campaigned on going after the most violent criminals, not families gathering to enjoy long weekend camping trips.
Washington's outdoor recreation system is already facing a triple crisis: natural disasters like wildfires, deteriorating infrastructure and a shrinking workforce, all exacerbated by budget cuts by the Trump administration. The use of US Forest Service law enforcement officers in a joint operation with the Department of Homeland Security with no proper coordination with Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest to harass and detain families on public lands further undermines public access and public safety. I'm pleased to announce that I'll be leading a letter to DHS and USFS letting them know that Homeland Security enforcement activities do not belong in national parks or in national forest lands. They certainly didn't belong in an active wildfire as we saw last year. I encourage my colleagues in this committee and beyond to support this effort as I start circulating the letter.
Natural resources stewardship is the priority of US Forest Service Rangers, not immigration enforcement. We don't need bulldozers in Big Bend and we don't need DHS separating families who are camping in national forests. With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Speaker 23
Thank you Ms. Randall. I'll now recognize Ms. Titus for five minutes for questions.
Dina Titus
Thank you Madam Chair and thank you for letting me wave on. I'm the co-chair of the Humanities Caucus and so I'd like to kind of switch the conversation to public monuments because that comes under some of your purview. Under this administration, we've seen an unprecedented assault on our cultural and historical landscapes. We've seen it with the interference at the Kennedy Center, we've seen attacks on museums and libraries, we've seen federal directives that promote just a certain type of architecture instead of the traditional that we've followed for so many years that matches where the buildings occur. Santa Fe is not Boston, but nonetheless we're looking at a standard kind of architecture.
So this has prompted kind of a broader question about what Washington should look like. As the nation's capital, it's not Mar-a-Lago. We have a now White House ballroom where the East Wing once stood. We got a reflecting pool that's been, we all know that story.
Now we got a proposed 250-foot so-called triumphal arch that's going to obstruct Arlington National Cemetery. And perhaps the most telling thing was when President Trump was asked who that arch was for and his answer was, me. Well, Washington is not supposed to be a monument to whoever is in the White House. It belongs to the American people. It has a deliberate architectural and civic character and it's part of the national landscape, not a personal canvas.
And beyond the symbolism of these projects, there's also the fundamental question about the process. You know, Congress established the Commemorative Works Act to ensure the decisions of this magnitude would receive congressional authorization and public scrutiny. So I'd like to ask Mr. Sterly if he could walk us through the Commemorative Works Act and tell us what it requires for a proposal like the triumphal arch and what role Congress is supposed to play before a major structure like that becomes a permanent part of the Washington landscape.
Edward Stierli
Thank you, Congressman, for the question. So the Commemorative Works Act has been around since 1986 and it actually came to fruition because there were so many monuments that are being proposed for the core of the National Mall. And what it put into process essentially was a designated process to make sure that what would be on the National Mall, which in my opinion is the most significant commemorative landscape in the world, should be of the utmost of national significance and should make sure that it has the input and the voice of the American people as well as its elected representatives. And that no unilateral president or individual decision-maker could unilaterally decide what could be on the National Mall. So first and foremost, the Commemorative Works Act starts with congressional authorization.
Only Congress has the ability to give the authorization for any commemorative work, not just in the National Mall, but in the District of Columbia and its environs, right? And then the next step is that then that once approved by Congress, a proposed monument or memorial would then go to the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission where it essentially would determine what its next steps would be. Then design would go to the Commission of Fine Arts. Location alternatives with a tremendous amount of public input from historians, experts, would go through the National Capital Planning Commission. And then after all those steps were made, not also to mention that most memorials and monuments, if not all of them, have to have them entirely be fundraised for through private donations.
I don't think people realize that federal money does not go for the creation of national monuments.
Dina Titus
Yet we've seen money coming from the National Endowment of the Humanities of $15 million towards this project. I mean, that is a very detailed, complicated accountability system. How did we get this far?
Edward Stierli
Well, that's what's happening, like this process is going backwards right now. You had a proposal go to the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission first. The administration is leaning on a over 100-year-old authorization to create two pillars in the Memorial Bridge, claiming that that paves the way for the triumphal arch. You know, I would firmly disagree with that. Historic preservationists would agree with that.
And I would hope Congress would too, given that that predated existing law as well.
Speaker 29
In addition to that, hasn't the National Park Service's own assessment said it's going to have a negative impact on 40 different historic properties here in Washington?
Edward Stierli
Yeah, I mean, as proposed, it would be the second tallest structure other than the Washington Mall. So not only would it impact the National Mall, but the impact on Arlington National Cemetery, which is why you've seen such outcry from veterans, would be tremendously significant.
Dina Titus
So Congress is just giving up its authority in this area like in so many others recently.
Edward Stierli
And we keep asking the National Park Service for that, you know, showing essentially where, where law says that they have the ability to even move forward on what they're doing right now, and we have thus far not received it.
Dina Titus
No answer. Well, maybe I can help you with that. So I'll ask them again too. Thank you, and I yield back.
Speaker 25
Thank you. Chair now recognizes Ms. Pingree for five minutes of questions.
Chellie Pingree
Thank you, Chairwoman Molloy. It's nice to see you on your other committee. We get to share a committee in appropriations together. But thank you to the chair, the ranking member, and to all of the witnesses. I can see you've got amazing topics to tell, and I'm sorry I haven't been able to be part of your whole hearing.
But I do want to talk about a couple of things. First, I know it's already been discussed quite a bit, but I do believe that the president is abusing the National Park Service's funds to carry out the vanity projects in this area, and I know there's already been plenty of discussion about the arch, the golf course, the Garden of Heroes. None of these, as was just discussed, have been approved by Congress, but yet millions of dollars have been diverted from the rest of the park system. Under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, collected user fees are supposed to be used for maintenance and visitor projects across the park system. And seeing the president divert tens of millions of dollars towards these projects in Washington, whether they're gold leaf on statues, statues, or ornamental fountains or the reflecting pool, is very frustrating for the American public and particularly those taxpayers who are hoping that their own national parks would be improved.
Mr. Tierley, could you give us a specific example of a project that could be addressed with those funds but can't now? And what do you think the impacts are for visitors or park resources when projects like this are deferred?
Edward Stierli
Thank you for the question. I think what's happening right now is totally unprecedented when it comes to fee dollars. 20% of the fee dollars is supposed to be spent at national parks around the country, 80% of the fee dollars are used for projects in the park. And that could range from everything from trail projects to improving visitor centers. They're supposed to enhance the visitor experience in national parks around the country.
They pay for educational programming. They pay for, they pay for field trips in some cases for kids to come to parks, right? To think that, you know, a large part of that funding is being diverted for new construction projects is, is very alarming. And I think what has also been very frustrating is the lack of transparency as to where those dollars are coming from and how they're being accounted for.
Chellie Pingree
Thank you. That's, that's one of my biggest concerns as a member of the Appropriations Committee and certainly the ranking member on Interior and Environment Subcommittee on Appropriations. We are deeply worried about the lack of transparency. And one of the things that has been concerning me quite a bit most recently is a Washington Post story that reported that the Trump administration has blocked more than 130 planned agreements with partners to engage in critical projects. The administration has added red tape requiring a department level of some kind of woke review of the NPS partners, created major delays for all of these agreements.
My observation is that they've sat on them for so long that the money is expiring in two weeks and will go back to the Treasury. Parks will lose tens of millions of dollars that Congress has already appropriated, and I think the impacts on the parks that are already challenged will be compounded when this critical work gets deferred, it gets more expensive to fix in the future. Can you talk a little bit about how important those partnerships are to the Park Service's ability to get work done on the ground, and do you have any examples of some of these partnership agreements that will now expire and the funding won't be there?
Edward Stierli
Sure. And thank you for raising this with this question as well. I mean, these cooperative agreements, especially right now more than ever, are really critical to parks.
And that's because, you know, as I pointed out in my testimony, the Park Service has lost over a quarter of its full-time staff since 2025. So, you know, these cooperative agreements, these are with nonprofit institutions, these are with corps programs, a lot of youth corps that do a tremendous amount of work, maybe on deferred maintenance, again, trail projects, other restoration projects. These are with research institutions that help do the work that, you know, in partnership with the federal government National Park Service. So, you know, again, these are usually a great use of dollars for expanding partnerships in our parks, but they also accomplish a fair amount of work that's needed for many of these parks.
Chellie Pingree
Thank you for that. And I just want to emphasize to my colleagues and others, I know so many of us on both sides of the aisle just care deeply about the National Parks. There's never enough money to deal with the deferred maintenance and all the budgets that have to be met with. And as you've said, we've lost a tremendous number of the staff there. So these partnership agreements have been critical for so many National Parks.
You mentioned Conservation Corps. I mean, there're just a lot of organizations that help and bring value added to the amount of money that they have to spend. Now, the fact that we don't know yet how much this amounts to, but likely tens of millions of dollars has been sat on by the Department of Interior and the National Park Service. And this money will not go to the parks. This is one-year money.
It expires on October 1st. So as of the end of this fiscal year, this money is gone. For so all of us who spent a lot of time making sure money was appropriated to the parks, for the will of Congress to make sure this money was meant to be spent, now it's going to disappear. And I think that is devastating and something all of us should be deeply concerned about. Thank you again very much, Madam Chair.
I appreciate being allowed to attend your hearing.
Thomas Tiffany
All right. I will now yield to myself for questions. Some of you have sat for a very long time in a very cold room. Hopefully we can warm you up a little bit. Mr. Piggee, I'm going to start with you.
As I mentioned in my opening statement, I appreciate that you're here advocating for a legislative national monument. As a Utahn, we know a thing or two about national parks and national monuments in my state. Your efforts in Tulsa show there's a better model than a unilateral designation of a national monument. And I agree with what you said, that we have to preserve our history so that we can benefit from the lessons of our history. I've listened with a lot of interest to the discussion of Congress's role in that.
Local stakeholders, in your case, have spent years building support for recognizing the historic Greenwood District. And this proposal is now going through the legislative process where elected representatives can consider the designation, hear from affected communities, and establish appropriate guardrails in the law. From your experience with building support for this proposal, why is it meaningful to have local involvement? And why is that so important before the national monument is established? And this is going to be a little bit of a compound question, but it's all the same.
What value does the congressional process provide in ensuring that those local voices are heard?
Michael Piggies
Local involvement is important because of the district in which this monument would be maintained. It brings potential resources to that area to continue to allow it to develop, to continue to allow it to rebuild, and continue to allow that history to be preserved. And so when you have local involvement, that means that you have a collective effort to participate in all those potential benefits from this being a national monument.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you. Sorry, we are running and gunning today with members coming in and out, so thanks for being patient with us. Ms. Coleman, again, coming from Utah, I'm familiar with the challenges of managing horse populations on federal lands. That's something we have a lot of experience with. Across the West, land managers have to balance healthy herds with the amount of forage, water, and habitat that's actually available on the landscape.
Those conditions can change, particularly during drought, which we're experiencing this year in Utah, which is why I believe these decisions need to be grounded in science and the current conditions on the ground. At Theodore Roosevelt National Park, NPS has historically adjusted the feral horse population using tools such as removals and fertility control. Previous analyses have recommended different population levels based on the current habitat, forage, and genetic considerations at any given time. S. 1377, however, would establish a federal law minimum population of 150 feral horses while also requiring NPS to ensure that the herd does not adversely impact the park's natural resources. That immediately makes my spidey senses start to tingle.
So first question: why is 150 the appropriate number to establish as a statutory minimum rather than allowing the Park Service to determine an appropriate population based on available forage, habitat conditions, genetic diversity, or other scientific information?
Sarah Otte Coleman
Thank you for the question. While I am not an expert on range management, I am also a rancher, so I understand the—we farm and ranch in North Dakota, and so I understand the conditions and how they are affected by weather patterns and grazing. This number was come up based on—not in—earlier in my testimony I said months, but it's really years of discussion between landowner groups, ranchers. The current resource manager at Theodore Roosevelt National Park has been managing that herd since 2013 and is very familiar with the landscape there. So we feel that the plan that the National Park is required to—that TR National Park needs to put together to manage that will address that and that the number is somewhat appropriate and, as I'd mentioned earlier, definitely a compromise.
Some think it's much too high, some think it's much too low.
Thomas Tiffany
I can appreciate that. But on a dry year, if the conditions on the ground indicate that the park can't support 150 horses without adverse impacts to its natural resources, how would you expect the Park Service to satisfy both of the requirements in the bill?
Sarah Otte Coleman
I would expect that in the plan that they need to produce within 120 days that they would have contingencies for that, whether that would be bringing in additional hay or support to sustain the herd's healthy living, that that would be addressed in the plan that they're required to produce.
Thomas Tiffany
Okay. Mrs. Vaillancourt, I'm running short on time, but Chairman Tiffany, who's the cosponsor of H.R. 7495, wanted me to thank you for making the trip from Wisconsin and for all the work you've done to document the lives of Wisconsinites who fought valiantly and made the ultimate sacrifice in the Civil War. As you know, he couldn't be here today, but this is really important to him. And with that, I am out of time, so I will yield back and recognize Mr. Beyer for five minutes for questions.
Donald Beyer
Madam Chair, thank you very much, and thanks for allowing me to wave on. I understand this committee has considered a number of additions to our nation's protected resources and national monuments. I have the incredible good luck to represent Northern Virginia. My 8th Congressional District is home to Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington House, the Military Women's Memorial, Mount Vernon, Gunston Hall, and much, much more. And collectively, those sites reserve and preserve irreplaceable historic resources.
And they teach people about our nation's history. But they face a serious risk from the President's proposed triumphal arch. Building a 250-foot-tall vanity project. I'm sure many of you have been to the Lincoln Memorial. It was my first job out of college as a park ranger there.
The Lincoln Memorial is 100 feet tall. The arch on the other side of the bridge will be two and a half times the size of the Lincoln Memorial. It'll be half the height of the Washington Monument. And it's also being built on land that was already dedicated to Lady Bird Johnson. And I have yet to talk to a single Virginian, Democrat, Republican, independent, that doesn't see this as a serious attack on public lands and on historic preservation.
And it's an illegal attack at that, based on existing law. The arch is not designed to commemorate national heroes or honor service members. The biggest objection has come from service members and families. My mother, my father, my sister, my grandparents are all buried at Arlington. So the veterans are the ones pushing back hardest on this.
But instead, we also found that the National Park Service, they did an assessment. This was the President's National Park Service, and found that the proposed arch would adversely affect dozens of nearby historic sites and monuments, including, of course, Arlington National Cemetery. It would entail years of nearly around-the-clock construction. They're saying two years, 20 hours a day. The destruction of protected viewsheds, including the solemn corridor from the Arlington National Cemetery to the National Mall.
The disruption of access to and from other existing sites and potentially further irreversible impacts on national lands. Nothing less than a massive, unnecessary disruption threat to dozens of historic resources. I strongly feel Congress cannot turn its back on what we've already identified as an essential part of our national land. So just one question, Mr. Steerly. Aside from the issues that the National Park Service and the historic preservation groups have already identified, would the construction of the arch siphon valuable resources and expertise away from the other national lands nationwide?
Does diverting resources to new large-scale vanity projects make it easier for the National Park Service to address existing challenges? We've talked in this committee many, many times about the deferred maintenance challenges with the National Park Service, like maintaining public lands and closing the deferred maintenance backlog.
Edward Stierli
Thank you, Congressman, for the question. I think you've raised a really important point that I think is not out there in the narrative, is that we don't even know how much the triumphal arch will cost. There has been no cost estimate, and nor do we know where the funds are coming from to pay for its construction, even though that the Secretary has announced that construction will begin in two weeks. That is highly unusual. And what is also additionally unusual is that when you create a new monument or memorial, it goes through the appropriate process in DC.
They're also incumbent on creating a maintenance endowment moving forward for the to take care of the construction and defray some of the costs that the taxpayers and the National Park Service would otherwise be burdened with. You know, that has not even been discussed at all related to this proposal as well, which has been, you know, very frustrating. But even thus far, I mean, you know, the number of National Park Service staff, the resources of Department of Interior that have been going to going through the rather unusual compliance process associated with this, the resources that are planned on being put into this, as you pointed out, over a tremendous period of time that have such a tremendous impact, you know, there is no doubt that this would have an impact on both the current National Park Service agency as well as burdening it with a tremendous amount of new maintenance in the future, given the scale and size of the monument as proposed.
Donald Beyer
Yeah, thank you very much. Just to add to, I spent last Thursday morning in the air traffic control tower at DCA, our national airport. And most of the air traffic controllers there took the time to tell me they're terrified what happens when the planes are flying a few feet over the triumphal arch on the busiest runway in the United States. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, and I yield back.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you. Because we still have witnesses who haven't answered any questions and I ran out of time I'm going to do a second round of questions. Ms. Stansbury, as the only other member in the room do you have anything else you would like to ask?
Melanie Stansbury
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I was unable to actually hear from the witnesses so I would love I'm so sorry I don't know how to pronounce your name, the gentleman from Tulsa.
Melanie Stansbury
Piggies. There you go. Okay. Great. Mr. Piggies.
I was wondering I know in your opening statement you provided information about the significance of Black Wall Street, its history, and what it means in the community, but could you elaborate more about the importance of Black Wall Street as a national site for both Black and American history and what it means for it to be elevated on the national stage in this way and helping for the United States to remember its own history.
Michael Piggies
Well, I think thank you for your question and I think you summed it up quite nicely at the end of your question where you said celebrating the United States understanding this history from Tulsa. This is an area where shortly after enslavement they were able to build an independent economic environment that sustained an entire community that allowed for dollars to change hands several times within that community. And then not only after those two days, May 31st, June 1st of 1921, they didn't sit there and just look at the devastation which they could have done. The city, that part of the city was bombed and burned to the ground. There was nothing but rubble.
People had died, folks were taken away. It was a horrendous situation. But yet they stayed and they rebuilt. And the community is vibrant. And the people that come from that community are contributing members of society and I think that is something that is important for the American people to know.
That no matter what your circumstances are, you have the opportunity to be successful, to rebuild, to be resilient and to make a mark in this country and in the world as folks from North Tulsa have done time and time again. So I think that that story is important for people to know. And you know a story is important when it is buried. The story of Greenwood was buried. In Oklahoma when you're in the ninth grade you have to take Oklahoma history.
I took a course where everyone has the same book. It was not in that book until, you know, probably in the last maybe 10 years or so. Prior to that people were completely unaware of what had occurred in that neighborhood. Teachers teaching just a block off Greenwood, a block off the street, didn't know about it. And so if you take that, put that in the history book, but you celebrate the people who have come from there and rose from those ashes is important to the American history.
It's important to, you know, other folks to know that sure, this occurred in America and it was wrong. There's no question about that. It was horrendous. But the people in that community rebuilt, came back and they kind of showed what the American spirit is all about.
Melanie Stansbury
Right. Reminds me of the poem, But Still I Rise, and that is that's what the story really is. It's the that spirit of resilience, of determination, of entrepreneurship and and just continuing. So we appreciate your advocacy. I have about a minute and a half left.
I wonder can you tell us for people once it is established as a national visiting site, what will it be like? What will be different? Like what will people see when they come to visit?
Michael Piggies
Well, you have an opportunity to take sites within thank you for that question by the way. And you have an opportunity to within that district take places of significance and create an environment around there those significant sites where people can come and learn. And I think that's important.
The district will be different in that there will be resources potentially that will be provided there to help grow the district even more. And it's not necessarily from the federal government, it could be independent funds that people can use to celebrate the area. And once that designation comes in, people are more knowledgeable about it, people visit it, people want to come, it becomes something that becomes a, you know, a historical designation and not just one spot here or one spot there, but the entire 35-block area.
Speaker 33
Well, I look forward to visiting and hopefully we get this bill across the finish line in a rapid fashion alongside the other bills here today. Thank you very much, sir.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Yield back.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you. I will now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning. Mr. Wilbur, I am deeply concerned with the rise of antisemitism I can see in our country. As a Utahn, I come from a state that our history is shaped by fleeing religious persecution. I'm also an avid student of World War II history and it has me concerned.
Earlier this year, we were reminded of the danger of antisemitism when an attacker deliberately targeted Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan. So my question for you is, as we confront antisemitism and threats against Jewish communities here at home, how can Fort Ontario help Americans better understand the experiences of Holocaust refugees who found safety in the United States?
Terry Wilbur
Well, I think it's the sheer visibility that it's going to bring to it. Having a national park recognized Fort Ontario and the Safe Haven Museum, it's definitely going to bring the national attention. There's tons of people, even in our own county, that don't even know that this place exists. And it played such a pivotal role in the 982 folks that came here to find refuge. And not just their lives, either.
It changed the lives of people in Oswego as well, who were actually face-to-face with people who have been persecuted. And as you've already said, our country was founded on religious freedoms, so it just highlights the importance of what our country was based on. In little Oswego County, was able to play a pivotal part in that, Fort Ontario did, and we protected these folks and gave them the basis for a better life.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you. I really appreciate that. Ms. Rymer, Big Bend National Park already encompasses more than 800,000 acres, and the Park Service estimates that the park currently faces nearly $200 million in deferred maintenance and repair needs. Your testimony mentioned philanthropic contributions that Big Bend Conservancy has already made and plans to make in the future related to this proposed expansion. But could you please explain or expand, sorry, upon how Big Bend Conservancy plans to defray costs associated with the expansion to ensure new acres don't add to the deferred maintenance backlog?
Lauren Rymer
Sure, absolutely. Thank you for that question. And just want to echo our huge thanks for how far this bill has come thanks to the committee's work thus far. Big Bend Conservancy has already significantly invested in the purchase of the private property from willing landowners that is immediately adjacent to Big Bend National Park. As you mentioned, it is a massive park.
We're bigger than the state of Rhode Island. So in the park's mind, the addition of 6,100 acres is quite minuscule. But Big Bend Conservancy has been the, we have been taking care of this piece of property for many years now as we've been acquiring this land. And it is our goal to continue that for as long as necessary. However, in working with the CBO, there was zero dollar insignificant cost assigned to that.
And we are quite certain that there will be no significant management cost for the park with the addition of this land.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you.
Mr. Wynn, Quindaro, which I mispronounced at the beginning, I apologize, townsite played an important role in the fight against slavery as a final stop on the Underground Railroad. I appreciate that this bill recognizes that history while keeping the site under state and local management. And again, I agree that we have to preserve our history so that we can learn from our history. Why did you decide that a National Historic Landmark recognition is the right approach for recognizing Quindaro and its role in the Underground Railroad?
Daryl Wynn
We believe it would call attention to the importance it played not only in for Black history, but Kansas history. There is a dearth of knowledge out there about Black history in particular, but what's not known is how well it contributed to Kansas history. One of the things that I wasn't able to get to is the people who formed Western University stayed around and they were able to gather a lot of Black professionals from across the country at a time when segregation was still legal and they came to teach at a school called Sumner High School. And Sumner High School was a significant school, one of the highest performing schools in the state of Kansas. As a matter of fact, it's now Sumner Academy.
I handled the desegregation case for that and the only way we could get white students to go to that high school was that it was the highest performing school in the city, now it's the highest performing high school in the state. What national designation will allow us to do is look back on history and demonstrate how people who once were marginalized and who had a long sort of history of being held down can coalesce, work with those who are the majority and come together with a history that's significant for both the state and for the city. And so what we wanted to do is just show in Kansas that even though we have our differences, when we work together, we can achieve great things. And by the way, Quindaro ruins is the sort of object lesson in that particular item.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you. I've got one last question if you'll all indulge me for a couple more minutes. Mr. McCombs, you've been sitting here for a long time. Similarly to Colorado, in Utah we have deteriorating forest conditions that are increasingly putting our communities at risk from wildfire, which worsens drought and costs taxpayers billions of dollars. Can you explain the positive impacts that would result in our ecosystem by addressing the mountain pine beetles?
Matthew McCombs
Thank you for the question. You know, there's a handful of things that we can do. One is responding to ensure that we can conserve and preserve those trees that we have to, but the other response is really about strengthening our ability to impact all those fuels that come from all those dead trees. You know, your my colleague in Utah, Jamie Barnes, who's just recently been elevated by Governor Cox to a new position, you know, we constantly reflect on our responsibilities to act, to take steps to reduce the risk and improve conditions by focusing on those places where, you know, for me it's really around transportation, water and power, right? So getting people in and out of communities safely by addressing conditions as it relates to ingress and egress, ensuring that we could keep the power on by focusing on utility corridors.
And then last but not least, in this extremely dry and low water year, is blunting the impacts of how the mountain pine beetle can undermine the sponge that is our forest that meets out the water in really, really dry years. So all of those things focusing on safety and focusing on the provision of goods that we get from ecological services like our forests in Colorado is where we need to lean in. And the bill that I came here to discuss really doubles down on cooperative governance and making sure that as we're all pulling on the same rope, we have a better chance, we have a fighting chance to blunt some of the impacts of all these changes related to a warming climate and growing populations all across the West.
Thomas Tiffany
Thank you. And thank you all for sitting here a little longer than our allotted time so that everybody could get a chance to answer a question. I testified in front of this committee once before I was a member of Congress. And so I have a feeling that I know that you all spend a lot of time preparing your testimony and prepping for questions and traveling here and I just wanted to make sure everybody got their money and time worth out of it. I'd like to thank all the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members who are now gone for their questions.
Members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for our witnesses today and we'll ask that they respond to those in writing. Under committee rule three, members of the subcommittee must submit questions to the subcommittee clerk by 5:00 PM on Monday, September 21st, 2026. The hearing record will be held open for 10 business days for these responses. There's no further business. Without objection, the subcommittee on Federal Lands stands adjourned.