Star-Spangled Summit Act of 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chair Westerman for the opportunity to speak on this bill, and I also thank Ranking Member Huffman and my colleague Congresswoman Elfreth for their willingness to hear this bill on the House floor today.

Mr. Speaker, it should not take an act of Congress to fly an American flag on a mountain, but here we are, as we often are, in Congress.

In 2000, a constituent of mine, Scoutmaster Robert Collins, led a Scout troop on a hike to Kyhv Peak above Utah Valley in Provo to raise the American flag at its summit. What began as a patriotic gesture by the Scouts evolved into an annual tradition.

Each year, for over two decades, Robert Collins, joined by relatives, friends, and community members, hiked to the summit to continue the tradition.

The flag standing at the peak became a symbol of local pride and a recognizable landmark in my district.

However, in 2022, the U.S. Forest Service restricted the display. An act of patriotism, one that asked nothing of the Federal Government and cost the taxpayer nothing, was shut down by Washington bureaucracy.

For years, my community waited for answers, but the Forest Service was never able to remediate the situation.

That is why I introduced the Star-Spangled Summit Act. This bill directs the Forest Service to issue the permit. In short, it is simple. It does one thing well: lets Mr. Collins carry our flag up that mountain again.

Mr. Speaker, in the grand scheme of issues this body confronts, this may seem like a small fix, but I believe this bill represents a larger challenge. This story reflects the challenge familiar to Utah and to communities across the West.

In Utah, two-thirds of our land is managed from Washington, and too often, the decisions made about that land are disconnected from the people who actually live there. Local traditions get tangled in Federal processes. Common sense gives way to bureaucracy. Good people doing good things are left waiting for years.

Utahns know our lands, and we know our communities. It is my belief that Utahns should not be buried under layers of bureaucracy when making decisions about the place that they call home.

For 250 years, Americans have raised our flag. We have raised it at Yorktown and at Gettysburg. We have raised it at Iwo Jima and on the surface of the Moon. Yes, we even raised it over the mountain peaks of Provo.

We raise the flag because it stands for something larger than any one of us: the idea that a free people can govern themselves.

As we mark 250 years of American self-governance, we owe our communities a government that works with them. The Star-Spangled Summit Act restores a measure of balance that returns a small piece of decisionmaking to the community it belongs to, and it ensures the American flag can continue to wave.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 4684, the Star-Spangled Summit Act.

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