During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing last week, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) questioned Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about proposed sale of National Park units.
00:00I'll now recognize Ranking Member Huffman for five minutes.
00:02Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
00:03I wish I had more time to get into this disparagement of renewables
00:06because your own state, Mr. Secretary, has 40% wind energy power in North Dakota,
00:11nearby, and Iowa, it's 60% plus.
00:14We have 40%.
00:15My time, Mr. Secretary, 60% plus.
00:17Some of the lowest electricity rates, one of the most reliable grids in the country,
00:21so we could absolutely have a robust debate about some of the things you just said,
00:25but I want to ask you about this balance sheet philosophy
00:28because you said nobody liquidates assets unless they're going out of business,
00:32but we've all seen corporate raiders like Carl Icahn build entire careers,
00:36taking over family-run businesses and raiding their employee pension funds.
00:41It happens all the time in private equity, but public lands should not be like that,
00:46and so I want to give you a chance to assure us that you're more like Teddy Roosevelt
00:50and less like Carl Icahn when it comes to managing our federal estate.
00:54You recently said that you, in your Senate testimony,
00:58that you were not proposing to sell off or divest any of the 63 so-called crown jewel national parks,
01:06but there were 370 other units managed by the national park system.
01:11These are places created by Congress that allow people across the country
01:15to get the national park experience in their own communities.
01:18They range from the MLK National Historical Park to Belmont Paul Women's Equality National Monument,
01:24Teddy Roosevelt Birthplace Historical Site,
01:27other beloved units that are critical to telling the American story.
01:31So simple yes or no, Mr. Secretary,
01:33will you allow the sale or divestiture of any of these units of the national park system
01:40to state, local, or private entities?
01:43I can give examples of where I...
01:45Yes or no, sir. It's a straight-up question.
01:47I don't think it's a straight-up question.
01:49I thought you wanted to have a dialogue, but the dialogue...
01:51I don't want a dialogue.
01:52I want a yes or a no.
01:53Okay.
01:53Will you allow any of those units to be sold or divested?
01:56Well, thank you for being clear that you don't want a dialogue.
02:00All right.
02:00I want a limited dialogue.
02:04This is not a yes or no answer.
02:07I mean, you can ask me for a yes or no,
02:08but it's not a yes or no because this would require a thoughtful approach.
02:12I'm hearing, Mr. Secretary, that the sale or divestiture of some of those units is on the table.
02:16Is that fair?
02:17Well, take Knife River Indian Village in North Dakota.
02:19Less than 1,000 visitors.
02:21We've got a bunch of...
02:22We have a superintendent.
02:23We have federal resources there.
02:24Mr. Secretary, I'm just going to take that as a yes.
02:26I have limited time and more questions.
02:29So you have said that...
02:30But would you support us?
02:32The greatest gift...
02:33I'm not here to answer questions.
02:34I'm here to ask them, sir.
02:35So I know you said you're traveling the country listening to Park Service personnel.
02:39I was attempting...
02:40I was attempting to give you...
02:41I'm trying to get to a question.
02:42So you said you're listening to National Park Service personnel.
02:46I want to ask you about Alcatraz because I represent that park unit.
02:51There is no one in the National Park Service from the superintendent down to the janitor
02:55who would tell you turning Alcatraz into a federal prison again is a good idea.
02:59Will you listen to your Park Service personnel on subjects like that?
03:04Or will you go along with Donald Trump when he proposes something crazy in order to try
03:10to stick it to Nancy Pelosi for political reasons?
03:12Yes or no?
03:14Well, I work for the President of the United States.
03:16And the Park Service is part of the executive branch.
03:20And the Park Service reports up through the executive branch.
03:23So while we want to listen to everybody, it's a...
03:27You know, front-line soldiers don't get to decide whether or not we go into war or not.
03:31I mean, you're asking a hypothetical question.
03:33But isn't it your job to keep crazy, purely political things that are destructive to your agency off the table?
03:40Well, it's completely subjective on a definition of how you're describing an idea.
03:48Has anyone in the Park Service told you that's a good idea to reopen Alcatraz as a prison?
03:53I'm happy to get consultation from locals, from National Park, whatever.
04:00But it's a pejorative in terms of where you're describing these ideas.
04:05Sir, I really do hope you will listen to your Park Service personnel.
04:08Now, I want to ask you...
04:09Is the Park Service personnel in charge of the decisions around the nation's resources?
04:13I just hope you'll listen to them.
04:14You've said that you're doing a listening tour with them.
04:16I hope you will listen to them.
04:18Now, you have said that American public lands are assets that should be leveraged to pay down the national debt.
04:25Finance experts, including the former Republican director of the CBO, have said your proposal could only work if the U.S. entered into agreements with our foreign creditors to put specific lands up as collateral.
04:36I want to ask you specifically, because some of these creditors are China, Canada, France, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE.
04:43Will you put American public lands up as collateral in agreements with any of these foreign interests?
04:50No.
04:50And the thing that you've just suggested has never been discussed, never been in a meeting with that.
04:55So I don't even know where that idea came from.
04:57This is...
04:58There's not...
04:58When we...
04:59You're talking about leverage, meaning debt.
05:00But we're talking about if we want to run advertisements to the American people and say, you own part of $36.5 trillion of debt, which we do every time we have a presidential campaign, we should also be running ads and say, Americans, you own part of a, what, $100 trillion, $200 trillion of assets?
05:18But, sir, you have repeatedly said we should use our public lands to eliminate the national debt.
05:23Yes, because we're getting a horrifically poor return on the assets that we have in our country.
05:28If our national balance sheet's worth $100 trillion and Interior pulled in $20 billion, a 1% return on a $100 trillion balance sheet would be $1 trillion.
05:40We'd have all kinds of money for you guys to appropriate to spend on deferred maintenance.
05:44Our parks would be sustainable forever.
05:47These are simple things.
05:48But, you know, we've got the greatest resources, land, minerals, rare earth minerals, wind, solar.
05:53I mean, you name all the resources we have on public land.
05:56We're managing them in a way where we're getting really horrifically bad returns.
06:00And there's nothing contrary with getting good returns.
06:03I mean, some of the companies that have the highest return in the country are also the greatest stewards of the assets that they manage.
06:09We can do the same thing.
06:11Thank you, Mr. Say.
06:12I hope we'll have a second round because this is too important to not do justice to this issue.
