WASHINGTON DC— League of Conservation Voters (LCV) President Gene Karpinski released this statement ahead of the vote in the House today on HR 1459, the so-called ‘Preventing New Parks Bill,’ which would gut a President’s main park-creation authority, the Antiquities Act, at a time when Congress is refusing to advance dozens of bipartisan, locally supported bills to protect some of America’s last remaining pristine areas:

“Voting for this bill amounts to voting to prevent new parks from being created. This legislation would break the tool that Republican and Democratic Presidents have used for more than a century to protect iconic places like the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty and Arches National Park. It’s a repeat of the same extreme views that led to the government shutdown and the closure of our national parks last year, and is wildly out of step with the American people.”

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