[PEN-L:34156] RE: corporatizing the national park service

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:34153] corporatizing the national park service

for what it's worth, I heard on US National Public Radio that Secretary Norton is rated very poorly as an administrator because almost all of the rangers, etc., don't like her way of running the Dept. of the Interior.

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Murray [mailto:seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 11:54 PM
> To: pen-l
> Subject: [PEN-L:34153] corporatizing the national park service
>
>
> [been in the works for almost 20 years..........]
>
> Jan. 26, 2003, 10:34PM
> Park Service may privatize jobs
> Critics say resources could get short shrift inquest for savings
> By JULIE CART
> Los Angeles Times
>
> WASHINGTON -- As part of its push to privatize federal workers, the
> Bush administration has identified about 70 percent of full-time
> jobs in the National Park Service as potential candidates for
> replacement by private-sector employees.
>
> Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who oversees the Park Service, has
> earmarked 11,807 of 16,470 full-time positions for possible
> privatization. They range from maintenance and secretarial jobs to
> archeologist and biologist positions.
>
> Interior Department officials stressed, however, that the number of
> people replaced would not be nearly that high. Moreover, they said
> law enforcement personnel, managerial staff and most park rangers
> would keep their jobs.
>
> But some of the people who have come to embody the institution's
> 86-year-old tradition of public service, as they greet visitors and
> lead them on nature walks, could be replaced by volunteers.
>
> Critics fear that the outsourcing of federal positions, including
> the jobs of the Park Service's corps of scientists, could undermine
> protection of the nation's vast inventory of archeological and
> paleontological sites within parks and hand over the care of
> forests, seashores and wildlife to private companies not steeped in
> the Park Service culture of resource protection.
>
> "This is about respect for professionals. It is about a recognition
> that people spend a lifetime learning their profession and how to
> resist pressures -- political or commercial -- in the public
> interest," said Roger Kennedy, who directed the Park Service during
> the Clinton administration.
>
> "The public understands that parks are not parking lots -- they are
> places that require a high degree of professional skill to manage.
> Not just anyone can do it."
>
> The potential cuts are part of the Bush administration's effort to
> identify as many as 850,000 federal jobs that could be performed by
> private-sector employees.
>
> Park Service Director Fran Minella said she wants to maintain
> uniformed personnel in the parks as a "public face" to visitors.
> Still, some duties performed by rangers, such as nature walks, could
> be conducted by volunteers, Park Service officials said.
>
> Interior Department officials say there is little likelihood that
> all of the jobs identified by Minella will be outsourced.
>
> Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Scott Cameron said he
> anticipated that no more than 4 percent of the current workers would
> actually lose their jobs.
>
> He said much of the changeover would occur as employees retire.
> Cameron estimated that about 20 percent of the Park Service staff
> will reach retirement age in the next five years.
>
> The positions identified by Norton will be examined to determine if
> they can be eliminated or filled more cheaply and efficiently with
> nongovernmental contract employees.
>
> Park Service employees would be given a chance to argue why they are
> better equipped to perform their jobs than private-sector workers.
>
> Officials say the injection of free market-style competition would
> bring out the best in employees.
>
> "This is a way to capture the benefits of competition to produce
> better performance and better value," Cameron said. "Competition
> makes for a much more exciting Lakers game than if only one team
> were on the court."
>
> But critics say the responsibility of overseeing the country's 388
> parks and monuments is too important to entrust to people with
> little or no preparation for working in the nation's park system.
>
> "The Park Service is not a business enterprise," said Frank Buono, a
> former assistant superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park and a
> former manager of Mojave National Preserve.
>
> Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and others charge
> that replacing Park Service scientists with "hired hands" would
> create a conflict of interest.
>
> "There is a fundamental ideological binge that the free enterprise
> system will heal all wounds and solve all problems. Ask Enron about
> the efficiency of the unregulated private marketplace."
>
>