{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hydesmith.senate.gov/barrasso-bill-aims-improve-rescue-response-national-parks", "Barrasso bill aims to improve rescue response in national parks", "2025-12-16", "2025", "2025-12", "Republican", "Senate", "MS", "Cindy Hyde-Smith", "H001079", "www.hydesmith.senate.gov", "hydesmith", "https://www.hydesmith.senate.gov/newsroom", "scraper", "By Katie Klingsporn\n\nWyoming\u2019s U.S. Sen. John Barrasso is pushing legislation to upgrade emergency communications in national parks \u2014 a step he says would improve responses in far-flung areas of parks like Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.\n\n\u201cThis bill improves the speed and accuracy of emergency responders in locating and assisting callers in need of emergency assistance,\u201d Barrasso told members of the National Parks Subcommittee last week during a hearing on the bill. \u201cThese moments make a difference between visitors being able to receive quick care and continue their trip or facing more serious medical complications.\u201d\n\nThe legislation directs the U.S. Department of the Interior to develop a plan to upgrade National Park Service 911 call centers with next-generation 911 technology.\n\nAmong other things, these upgrades would enable them to receive text messages, images and videos in addition to phone calls, enhancing their ability to respond to emergencies or rescues in the parks.\n\nEach year, rangers and emergency services respond to a wide range of calls \u2014 from lost hikers to car accidents and grizzly maulings \u2014 in the Wyoming parks\u2019 combined 2.5 million acres.\n\nOutside park boundaries, the state\u2019s emergency service providers also face steep challenges, namely achieving financial viability. Many patients, meantime, encounter a lack of uniformity and longer 911 response times in the state\u2019s so-called frontier areas.\n\nImproving the availability of ground ambulance services to respond to 911 calls is a major priority in Wyoming\u2019s recent application for federal Rural Health Transformation Project funds.\n\nBarrasso\u2019s office did not respond to a WyoFile request for comment on the state\u2019s broader EMS challenges by publication time.\n\nThe bill from the prominent Wyoming Republican, who serves as Senate Majority Whip, joined a slate of federal proposals the subcommittee considered last week. With other bills related to the official name of North America\u2019s highest mountain, an extra park fee charged to international visitors, the health of a wild horse herd and the use of off-highway vehicles in Capitol Reef National Park, Barrasso\u2019s \u201cMaking Parks Safer Act\u201d was among the least controversial.\n\nWhat\u2019s in it\n\nBarrasso brought the bipartisan act along with Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.).\n\nThe bill would equip national park 911 call centers with technological upgrades that would improve and streamline responses, Barrasso said. He noted that hundreds of millions of visitors stream into America\u2019s national parks annually. That includes more than 8 million recreation visits to Wyoming\u2019s national parks in 2024.\n\n\u201cFolks travel from across the world to enjoy the great American outdoors, and for many families, these memories last a lifetime,\u201d he testified. \u201cThis is a bipartisan bill that ensures visitors who may need assistance can be reached in an accurate and timely manner.\u201d\n\nThe Park Service supports Barrasso\u2019s bill, Mike Caldwell, the agency\u2019s associate director of park planning, facilities and lands, said during the hearing. It\u2019s among several proposals that are \u201cconsistent with executive order 14314, \u2018Making America Beautiful Again by Improving our National Parks,\u2019\u201d Caldwell said.\n\n\u201cThese improvements are largely invisible to visitors, so they strengthen the emergency response without deterring the park\u2019s natural beauty or history,\u201d he said.\n\nOther park issues\n\nNational parks have been a topic of contention since President Donald Trump included them in his DOGE efforts in early 2025. Since then, efforts to sell off federal land and strip park materials of historical information that casts a negative light on the country, along with a 43-day government shutdown, have continued to fuel debate over the proper management of America\u2019s parks.\n\nSeveral of these changes and issues came up during the recent National Parks Subcommittee hearing.\n\nAmong them was the recent announcement that resident fee-free dates will change in 2026. Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth will no longer be included in those days, but visitors won\u2019t have to pay fees on new dates: Flag Day on June 14, which is Trump\u2019s birthday and Oct. 27, Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s birthday.\n\nConservation organizations and others decried those changes as regressive.\n\nAt the hearing, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), assured the room that \u201cwhen this president is in the past, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth will not only have fee-free national park admission, they will occupy, again, incredible places of pride in our nation\u2019s history.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hydesmith.senate.gov/barrasso-bill-aims-improve-rescue-response-national-parks"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6396562568843365, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}