Posted on 01/11/2009 11:04:32 PM PST by Coleus
Hopes are running high that a long-pending bill to designate Paterson's Great Falls as a national park is moving toward approval in Washington.
"It's hugely exciting!" said Caley Gray, spokesman for Rep. William Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, who has been working to pass a designation bill since 2000. "It's been a long time coming." The vote by the Senate today could test whether the expanded Democratic majority can overcome a Republican filibuster. The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, is hardly a done deal.
The Senate must first hold a cloture vote before it can proceed with debate of the public lands bill, a huge bill of which the Great Falls legislation is a part. Three-fifths of the "duly sworn" members — or 59 senators — must vote to invoke cloture before the Senate can begin debate on the bill. Then they would debate for perhaps several legislative days before voting on the bill. Although the measure was passed in the House of Representatives during the previous session of Congress, it must again be approved in a procedural vote by the lower chamber.
"It's more likely that the Great Falls park legislation will pass in the House of Representatives as part of a larger public land bill," Gray said. The Senate lands bill combines more than 150 bills to expand wilderness areas and protect other federal lands. It was blocked several times last year by Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, who has pledged to filibuster. He says the spending in the bill is excessive — almost $4 billion over five years — and that the measure calls for removing millions of acres of federal property from oil and gas development.
The National Park Service also opposed the designation as a national park in 2006 after conducting a study, concluding that construction and management costs of the 109-acre area could be as high as $21 million. It also expressed concern that Paterson's 77-foot-high falls would have to compete for funding with the other 391 areas already in the cash-strapped national park system.
Pascrell contends that declaring the Great Falls a national park would venerate Paterson's past, attract visitors and revitalize the entire city. Lautenberg, in a statement Saturday, also voiced his support of the designation. "The Great Falls in Paterson is a landmark that deserves recognition as a national historic park," he said in a news release. "Giving the Great Falls this designation would go a long way toward recognizing the beauty and history of the site and helping preserve it for future generations." The National Park Service already operates a site with a similar name — Great Falls Park — in Virginia.
Sounds like political b.s. to me! Pork, pork, pork..... oink, oink, oink.......
Surely there has to be a limit on what is worth designating as a National Park. A 77 foot waterfall does not strike me as one of nature’s great wonders, though I’m sure it’s scenic in its own way. But there are countless THOUSANDS of scenic spots in the USA and surely we do not need thousands of “national” parks.
Despite living the majority of my life in MA-NY-PA I had never heard of the “Great Falls of Paterson” until this moment. Now that could be some great failing of mine, or it could be, just possibly, that this is not a very significant site on a national scale worthy of a large federal appropriation.
Politicians, especially the Demagogues, are happy to feed like pigs at the federal trough, but this sounds like a real LOSER of a project.
80 foot waterfall? Not very impressive. Sounds like it’d make a nice city park, or even a state park.
But as an unwanted National Park - pure pork.
This is just ridonkulous.
I dunno, I’ve seen it, and it is in fact pretty damn impressive. I wouldn’t have a problem with National Park designation, in terms of natural scenery and history.
Exactly right. It's not just pathetic; it's sickening.
Why did they have the National Park Service study it if they were going to ignore the recommendation anyway?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.