Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

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By Ms. MURKOWSKI:

S. 2797. A bill to provide competitive status to certain Federal employees in the State of Alaska; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, as we approach the start of National Police Week and the annual memorial service, I would like to take this opportunity once again to speak about the life and accomplishments of the late Thomas P. O'Hara, a National Park Service Protection Ranger and pilot and an Alaskan hero.

Thomas P. O'Hara was assigned to the Katmai National Park and Preserve in the Bristol Bay region of western Alaska. On December 19, 2002, Ranger O'Hara and his passenger, a Fish and Wildlife Service employee, were on a mission in the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge. Their plane went down on the tundra.

When the plane was reported overdue, a rescue effort consisting of 14 single engine aircraft, an Alaska Air National Guard plane, and a Coast Guard helicopter quickly mobilized. Many of the single-engine aircraft were piloted by Tom's friends. The wreckage was located late in the afternoon of December 20. The passenger survived the crash, but Ranger Tom did not.

Tom O'Hara was an experienced pilot with 11,000 hours as a pilot-in-command. He was active in the communities of Naknek and King Salmon where he grew up, flying children to Bible camp and coaching young wrestlers. Tom provided a strong link between the residents of Bristol Bay and the National Park Service.

Although Tom O'Hara was a most valued employee of the National Park Service, he did not enjoy the same status as National Park Service employees with competitive career status. Tom was hired under a special hiring authority established under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, ANILCA, which permits land management agencies like the National Park Service to hire, on a noncompetitive basis, Alaskans who by reason of having lived or worked in or near public lands in Alaska, have special knowledge or expertise concerning the natural or cultural resources of public lands and the management thereof.

Tom O'Hara possessed this knowledge and offered it freely to the National Park Service. But because he was hired under this special authority, his opportunities for transfer and promotion within the Park Service were limited, even though his service was exemplary.

As a lasting memorial to Tom O'Hara's exemplary career, I am introducing legislation today that will grant competitive status to ANILCA local hire employees who hold permanent appointments with the Federal land management agencies after the completion of 2 years of satisfactory service. In Tom's honor, the short title of this legislation is the Thomas P. O'Hara Public Land Career Opportunity Act of 2006.

It is my sincere hope that the enactment of this legislation will encourage other Alaskans, particularly Alaska Natives, to follow in Tom O'Hara's footsteps and seek lifelong careers with the Federal land management agencies.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

S. 2797

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http://thomas.loc.gov/