Republican lawmakers plan to investigate mounting reports that
federal officials are kicking families out of their homes and shuttering
private businesses because they sit on federal parkland -- describing
the spectacle as an over-the-top response to the partial government
shutdown.
"We are receiving a lot of reports" of businesses being shut down,
said Mallory Micetich, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Natural
Resources Committee.
She confirmed the committee is investigating these reports, as part
of a widening probe into the National Park Service's response to the
partial government suspension.
Micetich cited as one example a privately run inn along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.
The innkeeper tried, unsuccessfully, to repel federal efforts to shut down his business, the Pisgah Inn, last week.
Owner Bruce O'Connell told FoxNews.com on Monday that rangers are
still outside his business, blocking the entrance to the parking lot. As
of late Monday morning, he said there were three cars and five rangers
stationed outside.
"Their message is, 'sorry, we're following orders,'" he said, describing it as a "24/7 blockade."
He said he's hired a lawyer, and is hoping to seek a temporary restraining order soon in federal court.
O'Connell originally defied a Thursday deadline to shut down. But the
disobedience didn't last long -- police showed up Friday to physically
block the entrances to the inn, according to The Asheville Citizen-Times.
The Blue Ridge Parkway itself is open, but various properties along
it are now closed, including one other privately run inn that apparently
closed down without a fight.
O'Connell's face-off with the feds coincided with a family being forced out of their private home by Lake Mead in Nevada.
According to KTNV in Nevada,
Joyce Spencer, 77, and her husband Ralph, 80, were told to leave their
home last week because it sits on federal land. The couple reportedly
has owned the home since the 1970s, but were given 24 hours to get out
last week.
In Philadelphia, NBC 10 reports that the iconic City Tavern restaurant was also told to close, since it sits inside Independence National Historical Park.
Republicans argue these actions, on top of efforts to close off
open-air monuments like the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C., constitute
an overly aggressive effort to make shutdown-related cuts seem more
visible.
"Many of these non-federally funded sites exist throughout the United
States and operate with no staff or resources from the National Park
Service," a statement from Republicans on the House Natural Resources
Committee said. "This is yet another example of the Obama administration
attempting to make the government shutdown as painful as possible and
forcing closures of private and nonprofit operators that did not happen
during previous government shutdowns."
In North Carolina, the Citizen-Times reported that a local parks
official said he was directed by Washington to block access to the
Pisgah Inn.
Micetich said some of these decisions are left up to individual park
supervisors, which is why each individual park might be enforcing the
rules to varying degrees.
House Natural Resources Committee leaders wrote last week to National
Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis asking his agency to keep all
correspondence pertaining to decisions on what to open and what to
close.
Among the issues they'll examine, they wrote, will be "the staff time
and costs associated with the transport, erection, and maintenance of
the barriers ... [and] the staff time and costs associated with
patrolling and securing these sites prior to and during their closure."
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