Late last week, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer negotiated a deal to reopen Grand Canyon National Park using state money while the federal government is shut down.
Under the deal, the state will pay the National Park Service $93,000 per day for up to seven days at a total cost of $651,000 to open the park. Tacit in the agreement is the hope that the shutdown won’t last much longer than another week.
U.S. Sens. John McCain [R-Arizona] and Jeff Flake [R-Arizona] issued a joint statement Saturday, Oct. 12, applauding the deal while aiming their ire at dysfunction in Washington.
U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick [D-District 1], whose district includes the Grand Canyon, Sedona and Camp Verde, also issued a statement Friday, Oct. 11, thanking Jewell and Brewer for reaching a deal. Kirkpatrick also thanked her one-time rival, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar [R-District 4], for authoring legislation to reimburse states for the costs they will incur for opening national parks with federal funds. Whether those federal funds ever come back to the states is anyone’s guess.
Jewell and the state of Utah negotiated a similar deal to reopen Lake Powell, which is also a huge draw for tourists coming to Northern Arizona.
Sedona and the Verde Valley benefit from American and international tourists heading to these areas. With the parks closed, we noticed many of the hotels, motels and resorts in the Verde Valley were booked up and our restaurants were filled with visitors looking for something else to do.
The shutdown ended nonessential federal programs and furloughed nonessential federal employees. Verde Valley cities and towns survive on tourism, directly or indirectly, and most of our other services — construction, grocery stores, medical services — exist to support residents who live here thanks to our robust tourism industry. In Arizona, public access to national parks and U.S. Forest Service lands are essential to our economic survival.
When the Founding Fathers drew up the Constitution, they gave the purse strings for federal services to Congress. They expected healthy debate over what federal programs and services to fund. Little did they expect debate would cause the government to cease functioning.
Arizona shouldn’t have to fork out its hard-earned tax revenues when our members of Congress refuse to pay the bills.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
