The U.S. Senate?s Energy and Natural Resources Committee has scheduled a confirmation hearing for several of President Barack Obama?s nominees for positions in the administration, including Jonathan Jarvis as director of the National Park Service.
The hearing before the full committee is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 28, and will be Webcast live on the committee?s site.
Obama nominated Jarvis earlier this month as NPS director, a position that has been vacant since the president took office.
Mary A. Bomar, who served under President George W. Bush, retired on Jan. 20.
Daniel Wenk, deputy director of the Park Service and a career Park Service employee, has been acting director since January.
Wenk is best known to Hatteras and Ocracoke islanders and visitors as the federal bureaucrat who testified last September in House and Senate committee hearings against bills to jettison the consent decree and reinstate Cape Hatteras National Seashore?s Interim Protected Species Management Plan.
If Jarvis is confirmed as director of the National Park Service, he will become a key player in the long-range ORV management planning that is now underway at the seashore.
On July 10, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar praised President Obama?s announcement that he intended to nominate Jarvis to be director of the National Park Service. Jarvis, a 30-year veteran of the NPS, currently is the regional director for Pacific West Region.
?President Obama has made an outstanding choice for director of the National Park Service,? Salazar said. ?There is no substitute for experience, and Jon Jarvis has three decades of hands-on experience in our parks that will be invaluable as we seek to reinvigorate and improve our National Park System in time for its 100th anniversary in 2016.?
As regional director for Pacific West Region, Jarvis is currently responsible for the 54 units of the National Park System in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands of Guam, Saipan, and American Samoa. He oversees 3,000 employees with a $350 million annual budget.
Prior to becoming regional director in 2002, Jarvis spent three years as the superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park in Ashford, Wash., where he managed the 235,000 acre National Park with a staff of 300 and a $14 million budget.
?President Obama has made a commitment to bring new life into our National Park System, and Jon Jarvis has proven he is the right person to make sure that happens,? Salazar said.
In the 1990s, Jarvis served as superintendent of Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve in Alaska.
A trained biologist, he also served as chief of natural and cultural resources at North Cascades National Park, where he was the chief biologist of the 684,000 acre complex of two recreation areas and one national park. Jarvis is currently the co-leader of the Children in Nature task force with the National Association of State Park Directors.
A native of Virginia, Jarvis has a B.S. in biology from the College of William and Mary and completed the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Program in 2001.
He is also the brother of Destry Jarvis, who represented the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Wilderness Society on the federally appointed committee that attempted ? unsuccessfully –to negotiate a long-range ORV management plan for the seashore.
This is what The New York Times said in a July 13 editorial about Jarvis? nomination:
The best news we have heard in the past nine years about the national parks is President Obama?s decision to nominate Jon Jarvis to be the new leader of the National Park Service. Mr. Jarvis, a career employee and director of the Pacific West region since 2002, spoke out fearlessly against the Bush administration?s alarming effort to promote commercial and recreational activities in the parks at the expense of conservation ? historically the service?s central mission.
And this is from a July 19 report on Jarvis? nomination by Les Blumenthal of McClatchy newspapers:
He has tangled with a California senator over oyster farming in a national seashore and, according to colleagues, jeopardized his career by opposing a Bush administration management plan to commercialize the parks and emphasize recreation over conservation.
During his 30 years in the National Park Service, starting as a ranger, he championed the effort to transform the “scenery management” approach of “old buffalo” superintendents into one where protecting natural and cultural resources is as important as attracting tourists.
The Environment News Service reported:
Mitigating and adapting to climate change is a high priority for Jarvis in his work with the National Park Service.
In April, Jarvis testified before a congressional subcommittee that climate change “challenges the very foundation of the National Park System and our ability to leave America’s natural and cultural heritage unimpaired for future generations.”
He told the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, “Our national park units can serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine, a place where we can monitor and document ecosystem change without many of the stressors that are found on other public lands.”
“Coastal parks are extremely vulnerable to climate change,” Jarvis warned. “These ecosystems are predicted to change as sea level, ocean acidity, and water temperatures rise,” Jarvis told the subcommittee. “Shorelines and park boundaries will change as sea level rises resulting in a net loss where parks cannot migrate inland.”
“At Everglades National Park, rising seas may overwhelm the mangrove communities that filter out saltwater and maintain the freshwater wetlands. Indeed, changes have already been observed as coral bleaching and disease caused by increased sea surface temperatures led to the loss of more than 50 percent of reef-building corals in the Virgin Islands park units since 2005,” he said.
In summary, Jarvis said, “To succeed in its mission in the face of climate change, the Department of the Interior and National Park Service must lead by example in minimizing our carbon footprint and promoting sustainable operational practices. We must take responsibility for understanding how climate change will impact the national parks and take appropriate steps to protect these national treasures.”
North Carolina?s Republican senator, Richard Burr, is a member of the Senate?s Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is the ranking member on that committee of the subcommittee on national parks.
He will be in a position to ask Jonathan Jarvis some questions about the future of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore on Tuesday.
You can e-mail Sen. Burr about your views on the future of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore at http://burr.senate.gov/public/
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For the Webcast of the meeting of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, go to the Senate?s Energy and Natural Resources Web site: http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.ByMonth
Ok guys ? SPEAK UP!!!
I?ve already sent the following to Senator Burr:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Senator Burr,
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!
Don?t let this guy, Jonathan Jarvis, get confirmed as National Park Service Director at the Energy and Natural Resources Committee?s hearing at 10am on Tuesday, July 28!!!
The New York Times said in a July 13 editorial about Jarvis’ nomination:
“The best news we have heard in the past nine years about the national parks is President Obama’s decision to nominate Jon Jarvis to be the new leader of the National Park Service. Mr. Jarvis, a career employee and director of the Pacific West region since 2002, spoke out fearlessly against the Bush administration’s alarming effort to promote commercial and recreational activities in the parks at the expense of conservation — historically the service’s central mission.”
YOUR North Carolina Outer Banks are already being economically savaged by hired-gun lawyers of the National Audubon Society without the Park Service uttering a syllable on behalf of the taxpayers. The final nail in the coffin will be the confirmation of a guy with the proven track record of opposing “recreational activities in the parks”. We need a National Park Service focused on people?s (taxpayer?s) recreation tempered by conservation, not the reverse! We have tons of acres of National Wildlife Refuges and Wilderness Areas in this country.
It?s time for you guys in congress to stand up and stop these environmental extremists before they ultimately succeed in banning recreational activities in our National Parks like what is already happening here in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore RECREATIONAL Area!
Most sincerely,
Jim Boyd
A VERY CONCERNED VOTER
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I?m telling you, we need to speak up now and in every other opportunity we get! Don?t ignore this.
Jim
Good letter, Jim. I just emailed him something similar from his senate website.
These confirmation hearings are political theater of the highest form. Have no doubt about it, the stage is set for the confirmation of Mr Jarvis. There will a litany of praise from the environmental activists organizations and only token of challenge to his well know biases of turning national parks and seashores into wilderness areas.
Assuming his confirmation?which I have no doubt is a done deal given the current political structure of the congress?I suggest our best strategy is to invite Mr Jarvis to a public hearing where he can
1) explain and justify his vision for the future of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area in the light of enabling legislation,
2) show us his vast holdings of science and data which we have yet to see from anyone in the National Park Service,
3) explain to us why the Consent Decree with its 1000 meter boundaries for six Plover chicks that close the majority of the seashore down for 5 months is superior to the Interim Plan that was producing better results 2 years ago,
4) ensure us that there will be transparency and equitable consideration of public opinion in the promulgation of a final ORV management plan,
5) and guarantee to us that we will have as much opportunity for input to a final ORV plan as the environmental activist organizations that gleefully support his confirmation.
Believe it our not, we the people pay his salary. The least he could do is talk to us in public, answer our questions, and justify his policies.
Dr Mike?s latest blog on unanswered turtle questions sort of goes along with this.
http://www.drmikeberry.com/
A Postscript to my blog about Jonathan Jarvis? nomination as director of the National Park Service:
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., met with Jarvis on Friday morning.
Burr?s office issued this statement:
?Both agreed that they will work together to remedy the situation at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.?
Be sure to catch the confirmation hearing tomorrow morning (Tuesday, July 28), beginning at 10 a.m. There are several Obama nominees included in this hearing, so don?t give up if Jarvis is not the first!