A Utah Republican wants the National Park Service to surrender documents pertaining to an investigation into what GOP members say is an all-too-cozy relationship between agency employees, House Democrats and environmental advocates.
At a hearing of the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee on Wednesday, Rep. Rob Bishop blasted acting NPS Director Daniel Wenk, saying the agency's delays to GOP document requests go beyond the time needed for normal administrative processing and suggested he was being stonewalled.
"This has been month after month after month," said Bishop, the panel's ranking member. "We haven't had this problem with other Department of Interior agencies."
Bishop requested to see all communications between top officials at the National Parks Conservation Association and several National Park Service officials in February after Republicans alleged the association had exploited family ties to push their agenda.
In February, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) accused NPCA official Craig Obey of lobbying his father, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.), to score more funding for parks as part of the House's version of the stimulus bill (E&E Daily, Feb. 11).
Craig Obey declined to comment for this story but in the past has said that he has denied lobbying his father's office on this or any other issue. Rep. Obey was unavailable for comment.
The House version of the stimulus allocated $2 billion to NPS, more than double the Senate's proposal. The final bill version allocated $750 million, $150 million less than proposed by the Senate and $1.25 billion less than proposed by the House.
At Wednesday's hearing, Wenk said some additional documents were still under internal review and others were in the White House Office of Management and Budget for pre-release review, but he did not set a timeline for a final review. He called Bishop's office after the hearing and promised NPS would expedite its efforts to locate and release the documents, according to a Republican staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity.
An NPS spokesman confirmed the call had been made but said he did not know the status of the review.
Previously, NPS has been hesitant to turn over documents relating to the Obey controversy. In April, the agency responded to Bishop's request to disclose all communications with NPCA with an eight-page letter containing several e-mails, none of which indicated collusion on policy or funding.
The e-mails are "all the information [Bishop] would be entitled to receive under the Freedom of Information Act," Wenk wrote in the letter.
Grand Canyon National Park
Bishop is also seeking the release of all communications between several environmental groups and top officials at Grand Canyon National Park -- a perennial hotspot for resource debates and the site of a high-stakes battle over a planned uranium mine just past the park's boundary (E&E Daily, June 6, 2006).
Republicans have long worried that top park officials have been working with environmental groups to push a "radical" conservation agenda for the area, the staffer said. Federal officials are prohibited from using their position or time to influence policy outside of official channels.
Those suspicions were inflamed in 2007 when NPS hired Martha Hahn as its science center director. Hahn at the time was the associate director of the Grand Canyon Trust, one of several environmental groups suing Interior to block the uranium mine.
Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Steve Martin denied any wrongdoing and said working with environmental groups was essential to good stewardship of the land, as are ongoing efforts to work with industry groups, tribes and local and state governments.
"We work with many groups to protect Grand Canyon National Park's natural resources and further the position of the Park Service," Martin told E&E. "We work and collaborate with lots and lots of people -- some of them are environmental groups and some of them aren't. I think we do it openly and appropriately and through areas where we think it will benefit the Park Service."
Martin said he had sent all the requested communications to NPS's national office.
Industry sources connected to the uranium companies with the claims in the area declined to comment.
Bishop has sparred with the Interior Department on numerous issues -- including guns in national parks and energy development on public lands -- during his four terms in office, and the conflicsts have intensified since the Obama administration took power. When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visited Utah in April, Bishop wrote him a letter demanding he apologize to Utah residents for canceling natural gas leases and oil shale development.
"Such actions appear more likely from a Washington bureaucrat than a Westerner with a reputation of moderation," he said.
Click here to read Bishop's request regarding communications between the National Park Service and National Park Conservation Association.
Click here to read Interior's reply.
Click here to read Bishop's request regarding communications between Grand Canyon National Park officials and environmental groups.
Click here to read Bishop's letter to Secretary Salazar.
This story was authored by Patrick Reis and is published courtesy of E&E Publishing, LLC. To access the E&E News web site, click here.