Sponsors (2)
The bill modestly increases protected parkland and clarifies park boundaries while enabling CBP to obtain land for a training center, but it reduces public acreage for one parcel, imposes survey costs on taxpayers, and sets governance/accounting precedents that may complicate park management and local relations.
Visitors to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and the public: the National Park Service will gain about 71.51 acres of parkland for preservation and public access.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel: CBP can occupy/acquire a ~25-acre parcel for an Advanced Training Center without purchase costs, enabling consolidated or improved training facilities.
Local governments, the NPS, and federal agencies: requiring a survey and allowing clerical boundary corrections provides legal clarity and finality, reducing future boundary disputes and administrative friction.
Visitors and nearby communities: excluding the ~25-acre parcel from park boundaries reduces total public park acreage and access compared with if the parcel had remained in the Park.
Local governments, rural communities, and park advocates: permanently changing jurisdiction to favor a law enforcement agency without monetary consideration may spur local opposition and complicate management priorities.
Department of the Interior and park accounting: exempting returned land from the park acreage cap could complicate future acreage accounting and create a precedent for bypassing statutory limits on park size.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Transfers ~25 acres to CBP for its training center and ~71.51 acres to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, requires a CBP-funded survey, allows map corrections, and creates a reversion if CBP no longer needs the parcel.
Transfers about 25 acres of federal land in Harpers Ferry from the Department of the Interior to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for use in CBP’s Advanced Training Center, and transfers three CBP parcels totaling about 71.51 acres to be administered as part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The bill requires CBP to pay for and deliver a survey to finalize the legal description of the 25-acre parcel, allows clerical corrections to the referenced map, and creates a reversion rule that returns the 25-acre parcel to Interior if CBP no longer needs it; the park acreage cap will not bar that re-inclusion.
Introduced July 15, 2025 by James Conley Justice · Last progress May 4, 2026