Private Jobs Plan for Parks Suspended

Bush pushed plan to turn some national park jobs to private sector.

by Michael Doyle
Fresno Bee - July 18, 2003

The House on Thursday froze plans by the Bush administration to let private companies take over jobs at Yosemite and other national parks.

In at least a temporary victory for environmentalists and civil servants, lawmakers blocked Park Service privatizing as part of a larger public lands spending bill.

The bill funds many California projects, but it's the prospect of turning park jobs over to the private sector that has caused the most controversy.

"It's been talked about a lot," Yosemite National Park spokeswoman Deb Schweizer said Thursday. "A lot of the [park's] employees feel they're very dedicated, and are doing their job very well."

The House was set to approve the $19.6 billion bill funding the Interior Department and Forest Service for fiscal 2004 Thursday night.

It is one of 13 bills that keep the federal government running and send money flowing to hometown projects.

The bill, for instance, urges the Forest Service to "work closely" with packers and outfitters on the Sierra and Inyo national forests to ensure their permits are renewed as fast as possible.

The House is scheduled to approve an energy and water bill today that includes money for raising the Terminus Dam on the Kaweah River as well as $2 million for studying the feasibility of new water storage on the upper San Joaquin River. These regional projects attract bipartisan support from such Democrats as Rep. Cal Dooley of Hanford and Republicans such as Reps. Devin Nunes of Visalia and George Radanovich of Mariposa.

These must-pass appropriations measures also become magnets for crucial policy disputes. That's what happened with the Interior Department bill Thursday, which stops new privatizing studies from taking place in fiscal 2004. An amendment to strip the language, and thus let the privatizing continue, was discussed but not offered.

About 850,000 federal jobs already have been identified as being "commercial" in nature and therefore potentially ripe for going private. First, federal officials must conduct studies that cost several thousand dollars for each job evaluated.

"This massive initiative appears to be on such a fast track that the Congress and the public are neither able to participate nor understand the costs and implications of the decisions being made," the powerful House Appropriations Committee stated in its bill report.

The Bush administration contends many government jobs -- such as fee collecting, lawn mowing and building maintenance -- could be more efficiently handled by for-profit companies. Officials have already identified 1,708 National Park Service jobs nationwide, including several hundred on the West Coast, as potentially right for the private sector.

"You have to look at each individual job, but I definitely support the concept," Radanovich said Thursday.

At Yosemite, officials initially considered the possibility of converting maintenance and fee-collecting positions. These jobs were later removed from privatizing consideration, at least for now, but Schweizer noted Yosemite would still likely be affected by privatizing studies made elsewhere.

For instance, a study showing that Mount Rainier National Park maintenance could be efficiently handled by private companies could have equal applicability to Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. Mount Rainier had been among the parks slated for study, with 67 full-time maintenance jobs on the line.

The Forest Service, too, has been considering letting private companies take over certain jobs. The agency currently employs about 5,000 workers in California. Nationwide, the Forest Service had planned to study about 2,000 jobs next year in areas such as computer operations and data collection.

These "competitive outsourcing" plans have drawn considerable resistance from groups ranging from the National Parks and Conservation Association to the National Association of Government Employees. In response, lawmakers included the 2004 moratorium on privatizing studies within the Forest Service and Interior Department agencies.