Thursday  28 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Terry Anderson, PERC (Bozeman, Montana) and Shawn Regan (PERC, Montana) via Bangor Daily News, in re:  Happy hundredth birthday, national parks! What’s wrong with the national parks is – everything.  “Deferred maintenance” is the polite term. A $12 bil backlog in deferred maintenance – five times higher than its budget from Congress – trails, wastewater systems, forestry, everything. It's not politically feasible fro pols to fund the systems that  need mundane, routine maintenance – they’d rather fund new park and get photo ops.  We need to be able to charge realistic users’s fees.  Competition from, for example, the VA for veterans. Aim also for public-/private partnerships – where private can supply services. Or franchise parks: operate under the banner of the Parks Service and under its imprimatur, but private sector would manage the parks.  “America’s parks are Americas Best Idea” – parks were imagined and built by railroads, which also built the hotels. The hotels now desperately need upgrading.  Free-market environmentalism: for individual parks to retain the funds they bring in and use for their own maintenance. Right here in Montana is the American Prairie Reserve (a nonprofit buying lands and depending on private funding to safeguard the land).     And Congressmen whose districts include natl parks – innovating? No. They see parks a s a way to bring in more state money via tourism. They want to bld up the towns around the parks, but care naught for putting in a new sewage system (this is now a critical problem and absolutely must be dealt with wisely) .   We just got an email from member of the Pitt River Tribe in Washington who was enthusiastic about this. 
How to Create a National Park Without Taxpayers’ Footing the Bill  Should the federal government create a national park in the North Woods? It’s a question that divides many in Maine. Some fear the effects of more federal control in the state. Others say a new park will bring economic growth to a depressed region.