National Park Service Organic Act

Introduction

The National Park Service Act (NPSA), often referred to as the “Organic Act,” is the U.S. federal law that established the National Park Service in 1916. (The term “organic” here refers to the creation of the service as an organization, not to “organic” as in foods raised without chemicals.) According to the act, the National Park Service is to serve “the fundamental purpose” of the nation’s parks, monuments, and reservations, namely “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

The NPSA established the first national park system in the world. Today, the U.S. National Park Service manages over 380 monuments and preserves, including 58 national parks, and has an annual budget of a little over $2 billion and about 15,000 full-time employees. Over 270 million people visit the National Park System every year.

Historical Background and Scientific Foundations

Conservation of particularly striking landscapes as part of the national park system began in the United States in 1872, when an area surrounding Yellowstone Lake was set apart by an act of Congress. However, there was not yet any federal bureau dedicated to managing Yellowstone Park or the other national parks that were soon created.

Enthusiasm for founding a dedicated federal bureau to oversee the park system came originally from outside the federal government. Urban planner J. Horace McFarland, president of the American Civic Association (a private group encouraging planned development to beautify cities) from 1904 to 1925, led his organization in lobbying for a national park law. The group even participated in drafting the language of the act, especially the statement of purpose quoted above, and in 1911 proposed the National Park Service as the name of the new bureau. The service’s statement of purpose, McFarland said in 1917 after the NPSA’s passage, was “the essential thing… the reason we feel that it ‘the NPSA’ is worthwhile.”

McFarland and other supporters of the park system were not primarily interested in preserving untouched wilderness, but in developing tourism and recreation as a boon to the national economy. Unimpaired, in the language of the NPSA, meant primarily unimpaired for purposes of tourism, not unimpaired as a natural ecosystem. The national forest system (today managed by the Department of Agriculture) should, McFarland thought, be “the nation’s woodlot,” while the national park system—managed for recreation rather than resource extraction—would be “the nation’s playground.”

Congressional hearings on the proposed act were held in 1915 and 1916. Despite opposition from ranching and mining interests, the act was passed and was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on August 25, 1916. The functions of the new National Park Service were expanded in 1933, when an Executive Order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt transferred 63 federally owned monuments and military sites to the Park Service from other federal departments. The Park Service thus became charged with historic preservation as well as with the management of scenic natural areas. Today, only an act of Congress can create a new national park, and such actions have become infrequent. As of 2008, the U.S. National Park Service included over 83 million acres in every state but Delaware and in a number of American territories (e.g., the Virgin Islands).

WORDS TO KNOW

CONSERVATION: The act of using natural resources in a way that ensures that they will be available to future generations.

ECOSYSTEM: The community of individuals and the physical components of the environment in a certain area.

Impacts and Issues

The U.S. National Park Service has preserved many spectacular landscapes from development. It has also been controversial, and since 1916 its ecological policies have changed with shifting attitudes toward nature. For example, after the passage of the NPSA, one of the Park Service’s earliest acts was to begin the extermination of large predators such as wolves, coyotes, and mountain lions in Yellowstone National Park. The last wolf pack in Yellowstone was destroyed in 1926. This was typical of manipulations of ecosystems carried on by the Park Service in the pursuit of a more recreation-oriented environment.

However, in 1995, the Park Service reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone, despite opposition from ranchers in adjacent areas. Top predators such as wolves—animals which prey on others, but which are not hunted themselves except by human beings—are crucially important in determining the structure of any ecosystem, as scientists realized clearly in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Thirty-one wolves were introduced in 1995 and 1996; by 2001, there were 220 wolves running in 21 packs. By 2003, there was evidence that the wolves were improving certain aspects of the Yellowstone ecosystem, slightly reducing deer, elk, and moose herds, and changing their grazing behaviors so as to allow riverside tree species to recover that had been damaged by overgrazing.

Wolves also leave unfinished carcasses for scavengers such as coyotes, magpies, and golden eagles, benefiting those species. Seasonal hunts by human beings supply large quantities of dead animal material over a short period, but wolf hunting continues year-round and so is of greater ecosystem benefit. The wolf reintroduction program in Yellowstone is typical of the more science-based decisions of the modern National Park Service.

A small group of people who oppose “big government” in any form would prefer that the federal government owned little or no land, and have sometimes urged selling off national park lands to private owners. For example, Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA) drafted a bill in 2005 that would have sold off 15 national parks. The bill was circulated among lawmakers (but never voted on) partly as a pressure tactic in debates over whether to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. However, any political move to privatize the national park service would probably fail, as the national park service has been extremely popular since even before the 1916 creation of the National Park Service Act.

Primary Source Connection

The National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 remains significant because it formally established an organizational structure specifically for a growing network of parks and monuments that included the world’s first national park. Before passage of the act, the National Park System was operated by the Department of the Interior using soldiers rather than professional park rangers to administer its lands. Since passage of the act, the National Park System within the United States has grown nearly tenfold, from 40 to nearly 400 parks, monuments, and other units. Although the language of the Organic Act has been amended and supplemented by subsequent acts of Congress, the core idea of a nationwide system of parks with unique scenic, natural, or historical value has remained intact for nearly a century.

THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE ORGANIC ACT

An act to establish a National Park Service, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there is hereby created in the Department of the Interior a service to be called the National Park Service, which shall be under the charge of a director, who shall be appointed by the Secretary and who shall receive a salary of $4,500 per annum. There shall also be appointed by the Secretary the following assistants and other employees at the salaries designated: One assistant director, at $2,500 per annum, one chief clerk, at $2,000 per annum; one draftsman, at $1,800 per annum; one messenger, at $600 per annum; and, in addition thereto, such other employees as the Secretary of the Interior shall deem necessary: Provided, That not more than $8,100 annually shall be expended for salaries of experts, assistants, and employees within the District of Columbia not herein specifically enumerated unless previously authorized by law. The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purposes of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of

the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

SEC. 2. That the director shall, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, have the supervision, management, and control of the several national parks and national monuments which are now under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, and of the Hot Springs Reservation in the State of Arkansas, and of such other national parks and reservations of like character as may be hereafter created by Congress: Provided, That in the supervision, management, and control of national monuments contiguous to national forests the Secretary of Agriculture may cooperate with said National Park Service to such extent as may be requested by the Secretary of the Interior.

SEC. 3. That the Secretary of the Interior shall make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary or proper for the use and management of the parks, monuments, and reservations under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, and any violations of any of the rules and regulations authorized by this Act shall be punished as provided for in section fifty of the Act entitled “An Act to codify and amend the penal laws of the United States,” approved March fourth, nineteen hundred and nine, as amended by section six of the Act of June twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred and ten (Thirty-sixth United States Statutes at Large, page eight hundred and fifty-seven). He may also, upon terms and conditions to be fixed by him, sell or dispose of timber in those cases where in his judgment the cutting of such timber is required in order to control the attacks of insects or diseases or otherwise conserve the scenery or the natural or historic objects in any such park, monument, or reservation. He may also provide in his discretion for the destruction of such animals and of such plant life as may be detrimental to the use of any of said parks, monuments, or reservations. He may also grant privileges, leases, and permits for the use of land for the accommodation of visitors in the various parks, monuments, or other reservations herein provided for, but for periods not exceeding thirty years; and no natural curiosities, wonders, or objects of interest shall be leased, rented, or granted to anyone on such terms as to interfere with free access to them by the public: Provided, however, That the Secretary of the Interior may, under such rules and regulations and on such terms as he may prescribe, grant the privilege to graze live stock within any national park, monument, or reservation herein referred to when in his judgment such use is not detrimental to the primary purpose for which such park, monument, or reservation was created, except that this provision shall not apply to the Yellowstone National Park: And provided further, That the Secretary of the Interior may grant said privileges, leases, and permits and enter into contracts relating to the same with responsible persons, firms, or corporations without advertising and without securing competitive bids: And provided further, That no contract, lease, permit, or privilege granted shall be assigned or transferred by such grantees, permit-tees, or licensees, without the approval of the Secretary of the Interior first obtained in writing: And provided further, That the Secretary may, in his discretion, authorize such grantees, permittees, or licensees to execute mortgages and issue bonds, shares of stock, and other evidences of interest in or indebtedness upon their rights, properties, and franchises, for the purposes of installing, enlarging or improving plant and equipment and extending facilities for the accommodation of the public within such national parks and monuments.

Sac. 4. That nothing in this Act contained shall affect or modify the provisions of the Act approved February fifteenth, nineteen hundred and one, entitled “An Act relating to rights of way through certain parks, reservations, and other public lands.”

U.S. Congress

U.S. CONGRESS. “NATIONAL PARK SERVICE ORGANIC ACT.” WASHINGTON, D.C.: U.S. CONGRESS, 1916.

See Also Conservation; Natural Reserves and Parks; Wilderness Act of 1964

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Wright, Gerald, ed. National Parks and Protected Areas: Their Role in Environmental Protection. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Science, 1996.

Periodicals

Biello, David. “No Arctic Oil Drilling? How About Selling Parks?” San Francisco Chronicle (September 24, 2005).

Web Sites

National Geographic. “Wolves’ Leftovers Are Yellowstone’s Gain, Study Says.” December 4, 2003. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/12/1204_031204_yellowstonewolves.html (accessed April 12, 2008).

National Park Service. “Codifying Tradition: The National Park Service Act of 1916.” http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/sellars/chap2.htm (accessed April 12, 2008).

National Park Service. “National Park Service Organic Act.” http://www.nps.gov/legacy/organic-act.htm (accessed April 12, 2008)

National Park Service. “National Park Service Science in the 21st Century.” http://www.nature.nps.gov/scienceresearch/pdf/SCIENCEREPORTMar2004.pdf (accessed April 12, 2008).

Larry Gilman