NPDC: Caring for the American Legacy
Dear Mr. Vogel,
As a kid, I grew up outdoors. Hiking, biking, skiing, camping — you name it, I was there. My very first job was working at a YMCA camp in the foothills of the Berkshire mountains, and since then my love for environmental education has led me from the Northeast to leading backcountry trips in Montana and Wyoming, and visiting California, Alaska and beyond. It came as no surprise to my family that when I arrived at Princeton University in the fall of 2011, I sought out classes on environmental science, the chemistry of atmospheric climate change, and the economic and social impacts of policies designed to protect our natural resources.
My freshman summer, I was lucky enough to work for NatureBridge, an environmental education nonprofit based in San Francisco, CA that runs science programs in many of our national parks. Their programs exposed me to another coast of precious national lands: I taught first through fourth graders about invasive species and tide pools at Coastal Camp in the Marin headlands’ Golden Gate National Recreation Area; I observed middle schoolers fall in love with Yosemite NP, and I heard countless stories of lives changed through trips to Olympic NP, the Channel Islands in Southern California, and most recently, Prince William National Forest here in the DC metro area. My exposure to the critical importance of the National Parks through my experience that summer inspired me to become a lifelong advocate for national public lands.
As a junior in college, I had the chance to conduct my first independent research project. Having learned about President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs in a seminar, I was intrigued by one initiative in particular — the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Writing in 2013, as the LWCF approached its 50th anniversary and faced yet another appropriations season where funding would fall short of the full-funding level of $900 million, I strove to prove through Return-on-Investment calculations that preserving nature has economic — as well as aesthetic — benefits that revitalize our economy as much as time spent in those lands protected by the LWCF revitalizes millions of Americans each year.
The following summer, I developed an even more detailed understanding of how critical the role of the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and other agencies protecting our national lands is. I was honored and excited to intern with the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 2014 on their National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) oversight team. While reviewing agency implementing procedures and developing analyses of current conservation programs may not seem exciting to some, I loved the work. I also learned the value of the statutes that guide our national environmental policy and ensure the enjoyment of public lands and waters for coming generations. Whether a watershed, a unique wilderness, or even a park on the corner of a busy city intersection, access to the lands preserved by NEPA and other legislation — and tirelessly overseen by the NPS and others — is an intrinsic part of many Americans’ identities. Expanding the number of young people that has access to these public lands is a critical mission in order to ensure that the next generation will work as tirelessly to protect them.
By the time I was a senior in college, I knew that the intersection between infrastructure on public lands and environmental protection would be the area in which I would build my career. For a senior thesis topic, I turned again to the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, specifically, this time, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Having heard of a yet-obscure program called Smart From the Start, piloted in 2010 by Secretary Salazar, I embarked on a mission to demonstrate SFTS’s value in preserving existing onshore federal lands by making efficient use of offshore leases for wind energy areas. Evaluating the economic, political and social barriers that currently exist to offshore wind development, I dove into how leveraging the pre-siting, permitting and environmental review assistance provided by SFTS would be valuable to developers seeking to move forward our clean energy economy in a way that preserves our federal lands and waters.
As Wallace Stegner remarked in 1983, and I agree: “National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.” I wholeheartedly believe that granting a permit to November Project DC would make a strong statement from your office that the parks truly exist for the enjoyment of all Americans. As Stephen T. Mather, NPS director from 1917–1929 so beautifully remarked, “The parks do not belong to one state or to one section…. The Yosemite, the Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon are national properties in which every citizen has a vested interest; they belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona.” It is this unity, this togetherness, toward which both the National Park Service and NPDC strive. On Wednesday mornings, those from Massachusetts and Michigan, Florida, California, Wyoming and Arizona — and even those native to DC — come together, in what some would consider a form of worship: Worship of the beauty and grandeur of the outdoors. Our respect for the National Park Service and for the monuments that it protects in our home city is boundless.
You won’t find NPDC littering. You won’t find us jostling visitors to get the best views for ‘selfies,’ or leaving gum on the undersides of benches surrounding the Lincoln Memorial. We are all residents of DC. We are all lovers of the outdoors. And we stand in awe at the beauty of our city and this country when we gather weekly to run up the same stairs that any runner could traverse alone, any hour of the day. We do no damage to the stairs greater than that of each individual runner covering the same route on his or her own. And more than simply ‘doing no harm,’ we do so much good. We motivate residents of this great city to “Get Moving,” as Michelle Obama proclaims. We introduce those who would otherwise be stuck in cubicles to the beauty of a sunrise over the reflecting pool. And, perhaps most importantly for the future of protecting our public lands, a significant number of our members are high schoolers, college students, and the children of older members. These young members of NPDC expected a workout when they ‘just showed up,’ but what we provide is so much more: it is a mindset of reverence of the fact that we live in a country where national public lands are accessible to every single American.
Every Wednesday morning, we are a living symbol of the importance of protecting our national monuments. We are a grassroots movement declaring the value of our public lands. And we are a force for good, inspiring the next generation of environmentalists.
Sincerely, and in the spirit of ‘Caring for the American Legacy,’
Cecelia (CeCe) Coffey
Cecelia.m.coffey@gmail.com