"I think we're going to need to look at land exchanges among the public land agencies as a way of rationalizing park boundaries, creating parks. The expansion of Joshua Tree National Monument and Death Valley in the California wilderness discussions is a nice example of that.
"These all bring some additional budget implications. And we're going to have to be very creative; we're going to have to look at the revenue side of this Department and ask some hard questions: Are we faithfully collecting every nickel that the United States is entitled to in the MMS program? What about grazing fees? What about hard-rock mineral royalties? What about visitor fees to parks? Before we ask Congress for money, we have to say we're fulfilling our responsibility to the budget by collecting revenues for services rendered and resources used.
"...I think its unrealistic to expect large-scale increases in funding anywhere in government in the 1990's."
"I am going to give BLM a real chance to step up and say, "We can equal the Park Service as a recreational manager." I am going to give them the opportunity."
 SOLEDAD CANYON-Secretary
of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and other dignitaries helped inaugurate the
completion of the border-to-border Pacific Crest Trail June 5 In a ceremony
that included the driving of a "Golden Spike," linking the national hiking and
equestrian trail in the same way that Union Pacific and Central Pacific barons
coupled the nation's first transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah,
124 years earlier.The Pacific Crest Trail was established as part of the National System of Recreational and Scenic Trails by the National Trails System Act, which was |
passed by Congress and signed by then President Lyndon Johnson on Oct. 2, 1968. The nation's longest hiking and horseback trail stretches 2,638 miles from the Washington-Canada border on the north to the California-Mexico border on the south, spanning three states, more than a hundred mountain peaks, and nearly a thousand lakes. Its path crosses BLM, Forest Service, National Park Service, and private land. The Departments of Interior and Agriculture share responsibility for trail development and supervision. BLM California's Caliente and Palm Springs-South Coast Resource Areas manage several segments of the trail. Secretary Babbitt called the achievement an extraordinary metaphor for what can be accomplished when federal and state agencies, local communities, groups and organizations work together. "Trails not only connect natural landscapes, states, and ecosystems-they |