Clinton Signs Bill Expanding National Parks
11/13/96
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Clinton signs bill expanding national parks
Copyright 1996 by Reuters
11/13/96
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - President Clinton Tuesday signed a parks bill
designed to protect lands in 41 states -- including the Presidio in San
Francisco, the country's oldest continuously operated military post
"This bill will create or improve almost 120 parks, trails, rivers,
historical sites in 41 of our 50 states," Clinton said at a White House
signing ceremony.
"This legislation affirms our solemn commitment to say from one end of our
nation to the other, we will be good stewards of the land that God has
given us," he said.
The bill turns management of the Presidio U.S. Army base over to a
government trust. The National Park Service will be responsible for
overseeing the site.
The measure also authorizes $17.5 million in federal funds to acquire the
Sterling Forest Reserve on the New York-New Jersey border, establishes the
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas and creates a Selma-to-
Montgomery National Historic Trail in Alabama.
"This bill is a model of how we ought to work together," Clinton said.
"This bill had strong Republican support. It had strong Democratic
support."
"We said we were going to put our national treasures beyond partisan
politics and put the people of America, their future and their environment
above that," he said.
Congress passed the bill in one of its last acts of the session, following
some bruising political battles, and it has been endorsed by most parks
advocates and environmentalists.
At times it became a catch-all vehicle for a number of controversial
measures, such as changing rules for grazing livestock on federal lands,
which were eventually removed. Another provision that was dropped was a
plan to raise money for parks by letting corporations become licensed
sponsors.
The Republican-controlled Congress delayed sending the popular measure to
Clinton so he would be unable to reap political benefits by signing it
before last week's presidential elections.
The measure creates four other national parks: the Nicodemus National
Historic Site in Kansas, the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site in
Oklahoma and in Massachusetts the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation
Area and the New Bedford National Historic Landmark District.
The final bill kept some language the White House opposed. It eases
restrictions against development on some Florida barrier islands and allows
those areas to get federal flood insurance.
Environmental and taxpayer groups said that will ruin sensitive beaches and
subsidize unwise development in hurricane-prone areas.
The new law also increases funding for the California Bay Delta
Environmental Enhancement by authorizing $143 million in additional
appropriations through the year 2000.