Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

MiamiHerald.com/columnists

Selling off our national parks to private developers…. well, you got to give it to Cliff Stearns. That’s just good modern Republican business sense. Sell ’em. Drill ’em. Frack ’em. Turn the Grand Tetons into a ski resort. Hang a zip line over the Grand Canyon. Convert Yosemite into a corporate retreat. Strip mine the Smokies. Erect drill rigs in the Everglades.

But comparing a sell-off of so much scrubby parkland to getting rid of the family Caddy — that’s near about blaspheme where I’m from.

Stearns, a ranking congressman from Ocala (better known, lately, as a Florida’s most prominent birther), uttered his slander on the most sacred of down-home family values last month at constituent meeting in Belleview. He was railing against a proposed new national trail commemorating the route Buffalo Soldiers rode through California back at the turn of the last century. The black Army outfit, essentially America’s first park rangers, patrolled the newly created Sequoia and Yosemite national parks, protecting the federal land from wildlife poachers, timber rustlers and illegal grazing.

“Would you want to walk 200 miles?” Stearns asked his constituents. (That suggests that, if Stearns had been around in 1921, he’d have been even less enthused by the construction of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Would you want to walk 2,181 miles?)

Stearns said that “we don’t need more national parks in this country. We need to actually sell off some of our national parks, and try and do what a normal family would do.”

Normal families usually don’t have national parks in their domestic portfolio. But Stearns persisted. “They wouldn’t ask Uncle Joe for a loan, they would sell their Cadillac.”

This was too much. Back where I’m from, in West Virginia, rednecks with Caddies would sooner sell their kids (a relatively plentiful commodity) than part with an Eldorado. If it happened to be the 1959 model with soaring fins and Marilyn Monroe bumpers, well, he’d consider tossing the wife and her momma into the negotiations.

Previously, Rep. Stearns’ peculiar interest in the national parks system had focused on legislation to rescind the ban on firearms inside the parks. But other Republican members of Congress have lately proposed selling off chunks of parkland and national forests. Or opening up parks to oil and gas exploration. The new Smokey the Bear poster comes with either of two mottos: either “Don’t Shoot” or “Drill, baby bear, drill.”

Under Gov. Rick Scott, Florida’s state parks have similarly been re-imagined as commodities. Last year, Gov. Scott’s administration, pushing a flurry of new proposals to reengineer state government as a business enterprise, decided that the state’s 160 parks should each be self-sufficient — or else. The state park service decided 53 “unprofitable” state parks would be shut down. Private operators would be able to build campgrounds, with RV hook-ups, inside another 56 parks. Another proposal would allow a single, well-connected company to construct and operate fancy golf courses in other parks.

The public, which tends to regard a state park somewhat differently than, say, a strip shopping center in Kendall, was not amused. A great howl ensued. Scott suddenly decided he didn’t mind the unprofitable park system so much.

This past session the Legislature did pass bills allowing commercial advertising along state scenic trails, giving “scenic” an odd new definition, but opponents managed to limit the damage to just seven trails. A bill to allow gas and oil drilling in state parks died a worthy death.

No one, in the past session, proposed selling off the state’s oceanfront parks to condo developers. Maybe the Legislature’s big dogs are only waiting for the real estate market to recover. In the new Florida, you gotta think like a entrepreneur.

Oddly enough, Cliff Stearns’ antipathy toward the creation of new historic parks was not so apparent in 2006, when the onetime operator of a small motel chain pushed through federal legislation (and funding) to designate Fort King, site of a major dust-up in the Second Seminole War, as a national historic landmark.

On July 1, 2008, Stearns rightfully took full credit for the dedication of the 39-acre national historic site, which — I’m sure this is just a coincidence — happens to be located right there on 39th Avenue in his hometown of Ocala. “Our nation is rich in natural resources, scenic wonders and historic events and locations” he said.

When Stearns said “rich,” who knew he was speaking as a real estate speculator?

I bet Fort King would make a dandy location for a new motel. Do I hear bids? Anyone want to swap their old Caddy?