Utah’s Bishop says D.C. park closures may have been illegal

Rob Bishop

Rep. Rob Bishop charged Wednesday that the National Park Service may have violated federal law by erecting barriers around open-air monuments in Washington during the government shutdown. Democrats countered that Republicans were engaging in a sideshow to deflect from the GOP-caused closure. Bishop, R-Utah, said that since the park service doesn’t normally place barriers or fencing around the National Mall monuments when docents and rangers leave for the day, doing so during the now-ended government shutdown was illegal. "If there is no specific threat, you have violated the Anti-Deficiency Act," Bishop said Wednesday during a joint congressional hearing on the closure of hundreds of national parks and monuments nationwide. The law prohibits doing work without federal funding. Violations can result in jail time and fines. While about 800,000 federal employees were furloughed in the shutdown and many services were curtailed, the national parks — including the iconic World War II Memorial and others — became the face of a shuttered government. Republicans seized on the barriers and closures as naked political maneuvering by the White House to amp up the sting of the shutdown. Democrats charged back that there wouldn’t have been a single closed park had the GOP not tried to halt funding for the Affordable Care Act, prompting the shutdown in the first place.  Some closures were essentially moot since states — including Utah, Colorado, South Dakota and California — stepped up to fund and reopen parks during the shutdown. The states are hoping to be reimbursed for those costs. GOP members vowed to continue investigating the parks service actions. Before the end of Wednesday’s hearing, Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa said he would issue several subpoenas to the Interior Department for documents relating to the closures. "It’s very clear that the promises you make have no value," Issa told Jarvis...more