June 6, 2016

Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.  20515  

Dear Representative,  

On behalf of the more than 1.2 million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I am writing to express our support for Section 121 of the fiscal year 2017 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill, regarding the ban on the sale of bottled water at national parks.  I urge you to oppose any attempts to remove this provision.  

On March 2, 2016, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) submitted a FOIA request to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel regarding the National Park Service’s (NPS) December 14, 2011 Policy Memorandum 11-03, which has permitted parks to establish a ban on the sale of plastic disposable water bottles.  

The purpose of the ban was to contribute to the NPS’s Green Parks Plan that addresses “water and energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, reduction of waste streams, construction practices,” and other goals.  The memorandum requires the participating parks to develop “a system for annual evaluation of the program, including public response, visitor satisfaction, buying behavior, public safety, and plastic collection rates.”  Among other questions in the FOIA request, CAGW sought copies of the annual evaluations, including how the ban on the sale of disposable plastic water bottles has affected the reduction of disposable plastic waste in each of the participating national parks.  

After a series of follow-up emails and letters were sent to the NPS regarding the FOIA, CAGW has to date received no data that would prove whether or not the ban on bottled water is reducing waste in the national parks.  

Furthermore, in a “for the record” follow-up question after a December 8, 2015 Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) asked NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis if the NPS is “tracking whether the bottled water sales ban is reducing waste significantly?”  Director Jarvis responded that the NPS is “exploring ways to quantify the waste stream reduction impacts” that resulted from the 2011 memorandum and that it is a challenge to capture the data.  He concluded his response by stating that, “there is currently no mechanism for monitoring the number of plastic water bottles placed into trash receptacles and not recycled.”  

In other words, four-and-one-half years after the sales ban was permitted, the NPS cannot quantify whether banning the sale of water in disposable plastic bottles has reduced waste or has been effective in achieving any of the alleged objectives of the December 2011 memorandum.  
As a result of the failure of this policy, CCAGW believes that Section 121 is entirely appropriate and should be retained.  

Sincerely, 

Tom Schatz
President, CCAGW