Hudson River Valley Special Resource Study Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HINCHEY. I want to express also my deep appreciation and gratitude to the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, Nick Rahall, for working with me to move this important piece of legislation. I also would like to thank Chairman Grijalva and the staff of the Natural Resources Committee for all the support and guidance throughout this process.

I would like to mention that there are no restrictions in the context of this legislation for any of the things that were just mentioned. None whatsoever. In fact, all of those kinds of activities will be enhanced and encouraged and be much more easy to achieve and more beneficial to the communities.

H.R. 4003 would authorize the National Park Service to conduct a special resource study of the Hudson River Valley to evaluate the area's national significance and determine the suitability and feasibility of designating the area as a unit of the National Park System, a unit of the National Park System, not a national park.

This legislation is cosponsored by each of the Members whose district is within the proposed study area. And that in and of itself of course is very interesting. They have garnered strong support locally. Twenty-four local organizations have already endorsed the bill, and I expect to see that there will be more in the coming weeks and months.

The Hudson River Valley is one of the most significant river corridors in our country. The historical, natural, cultural, commercial, scenic, and recreational resources spread throughout the region, and in the way they do so they are absolutely unparalleled. The Hudson River Valley's landscapes are known around the world. In fact, the beauty of these great landscapes inspired the first and one of America's great artistic movements, the Hudson River school of art. Painters such as Thomas Cole and Frederic Church immortalized the region's scenery for generations to come. These works and others inspired the American preservationist movement and the movement to establish in our country national parks.

Today the region is home to a rich and sensitive ecosystem that also affords ample recreational opportunities, including hiking, canoeing, and other activities. One of the most recent additions is the Walkway Over the Hudson. Initially a rail bridge that was considered a marvel of the Industrial Revolution, it was abandoned in the 1970s following a fire on one of the trains that went across that bridge at that time. It recently was restored and reopened, however, over the course of this past October, and it is now the longest and highest pedestrian overpass in the United States. It is a remarkable bridge, where people get enormous amounts of joy walking across it, over a mile across it, and give them an opportunity to get a sense of the Hudson River Valley looking north and south as they walk across this marvelous now Walkway Over the Hudson.

From a historical perspective, the Hudson River Valley has played a central role in our Nation's narrative and our Nation's development. In 1609, of course, Henry Hudson first sailed up the river that now bears his name. And we just recently celebrated the 400th anniversary of that very important trip. During the American Revolution, the region bore witness to events that determined the course of that Revolutionary War and the establishment of the freedom and independence of our Nation.

In the 19th century, the Hudson River Valley helped foster the American Industrial Revolution and became one of the commercial corridors of our country. In 1807, Robert Fulton piloted the first successful steamboat voyage up the river. Later in the century, the Hudson and its estuary, the Mohawk River, connected the Nation's greatest port, New York City, with the entire western section of the United States through the Erie Canal network and the central Great Lakes. In the last century, the region was home to Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Hyde Park. Later, the region gave birth to the modern environmental and labor movements.

Preserving and promoting the Hudson River Valley's resources has been a top priority for me dating back to my time in the New York State Assembly. While in the State legislature, I authorized legislation to lead to the creation of the Hudson River Valley Greenway, creating a process for voluntary regional cooperation among 264 communities within 13 counties that border the Hudson River on both sides, east and west. When I came to the Congress, I authorized legislation that led to the designation of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, which provides technical assistance to local communities or local managers to assist them in managing natural and historic sites of national importance up and down the Hudson River. These designations have provided tremendous benefits to the Hudson Valley region, but it is clear that more can be done to protect, preserve, and promote the area's unique resources and its dramatic contribution to the historic development of the United States.

I believe an enhanced National Park Service presence is warranted completely and would have a tremendously positive impact on our local economy while at the same time preserving and protecting the region's resources. The authorization of this special resource study will begin that process.

Just to be clear, no one believes the Hudson River Valley should be turned into a Yellowstone-type park. That would make no sense for the region. In fact, I firmly believe that any eventual park unit designation should and will protect private property rights and that local governments should retain local control of land-use decisions involving all of the property up and down the Hudson River that is not Federal property. There are civil existing park units, such as the Mississippi River and recreation area, a little bit we have heard about just recently, which fit these criteria and could be models for our region.

I believe the study should examine these models and the positive impact they have had on their local economies.

Passage of this bill and the subsequent study would position the Hudson River Valley to gain the full attention of the National Park Service for all of the significant and substantial historic contributions this region has made to the development, establishment, and the continuation of the United States, as well as for the area's pristine natural beauty.

For all of these reasons and more, we are offering this Hudson River Valley Special Resource Study Act, and we have gained enormous support from everyone who has heard about it internally here within the Government of the United States, but even more importantly, widespread endorsements of this up and down the Hudson River Valley, north and south and east and west.

And so I offer this bill.

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