Kingman and Heritage Islands Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise today to speak about the Kingman and Heritage Islands Act of 2010, H.R. 6278. In particular, I wish to describe the legislative history and intent of this act. Earlier this year, essentially identical legislation, H.R. 2092, passed the House and the Senate but has not been enacted for reasons that I will address in this statement. Therefore, the House and Senate committee reports describing H.R. 2092 should be referenced as applicable legislative history for H.R. 6278.

D.C. Delegate ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON introduced H.R. 2092, The Kingman and Heritage Islands Act of 2009, on April 23, 2009. The bill was considered by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on September 10, 2009, and ordered reported favorably with an amendment. On October 7, 2009, H.R. 2092 passed the House of Representatives under suspension of the rules and the subsequent day, H.R. 2092 was referred to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The committee considered the bill on May 17, 2010, and ordered the bill reported to the full Senate with one amendment. On September 27, 2010, the Senate passed H.R. 2092 by unanimous consent. Due to a mistake, however, the version that the Senate passed on September 27 contained a few drafting errors and did not reflect all of the modifications that our committee had intended.

Rather than seek the enactment of the Senate-passed version of H.R. 2092, and in order to avoid any confusion among the government entities responsible for implementing the bill, Delegate NORTON subsequently introduced H.R. 6278 with the support of the chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. H.R. 6278 consists of the text of H.R. 2092 as my committee had amended it and intended it to pass in the Senate. Delegate NORTON introduced H.R. 6278 on September 29, 2010, and it passed the House of Representatives on November 16, 2010, under suspension of the rules. After being received in the Senate, the bill was held at the desk and today it will pass the Senate by unanimous consent.

Because neither the relevant House nor Senate committee had the opportunity to file committee reports describing H.R. 6278, the committee reports describing H.R. 2092 should be considered as applicable legislative history for this bill. The report filed by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report is House Report 111-275 and the report filed by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is Senate Report 111-300. In the remainder of my statement I further describe the background and intent of the legislation.

The Kingman and Heritage Islands Act of 2010 would allow the District of Columbia to use all of Heritage Island and portions of Kingman Island--the Islands--for recreational, environmental and educational uses. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created Kingman and Heritage Islands in the District of Columbia from sediment dredged from the Anacostia River.

Until the enactment in 1996 of the National Children's Island Act of 1995--the act--the National Park Service held administrative jurisdiction on both islands. The act required the Federal Government to transfer title of the islands to the District of Columbia for use as a children's recreational park. It also mandated that title to the islands would revert back to the Federal Government if the District did not use the land in a manner consistent with the purposes specified in the act. The Secretary of the Interior transferred title of the Islands to the District via quitclaim deed in January 1997. In 2000, the Secretary of Interior wrote the District a letter stating that the District had fully lived up to the letter and spirit of the act and that DC should retain title to the Islands.

DC has not developed a children's recreational park on the Islands, and since that time, it has re-evaluated its needs and interests and no longer seeks to use the Islands for that purpose. In 2003, in accordance with a memorandum of understanding between DC and several Federal agencies, including the NPS, the District developed the Anacostia Waterfront Framework Plan--Waterfront Plan--to redevelop and revitalize the Anacostia waterfront. The Waterfront Plan envisions using the islands for nature-themed exhibitions and educational projects. The District also has developed a Comprehensive Plan to serve as a general policy document to provide overall guidance for future planning and development in DC.

Recently, the District has taken steps toward implementing the Waterfront Plan. In the summer of 2007, the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, now part of the DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, partnered with a number of other organizations to begin using the Islands to host environmental programs and cleanup. Since May 2008, Living Classrooms, a nonprofit educational organization with a focus on experiential learning, has been managing the islands and running programs there, including educational programming and volunteer events aimed at restoring the Islands.

To ensure that the activities DC has authorized do not raise any questions about its title to the Islands, the District has asked Congress to amend the act to sanction the broader work now occurring on the Islands. H.R. 6278 would do just that, by amending the National Children's Island Act in order to allow the District to conduct recreational, environmental and educational activities on the Islands, consistent with the Waterfront Plan and the District's Comprehensive Plan. If any portion of the land is used for an activity that is not recreational, environmental or educational, the reversionary process as outlined in the bill could begin.

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