Millions of acres of tallgrass prairie once blanketed the vast expanses of the Midwest between the Mississippi River and the Rockies. Today, nearly 99% of those original 180 million acres have been lost. Congress had the opportunity to save a tiny fragment of the remaining 1% of our prairie heritage by purchasing the historic Z-Bar Ranch.

Representative Dan Glickman (D KS-4) introduced H.R. 2369 to designate 10,894 acres as the Flint Hills Prairie National Monument. The monument would be the first and only unit of the National Park System expressly devoted to protecting tallgrass prairie. According to Representative Glickman, "given that the tallgrass prairie is the most distinctively American land form, this could be one of the most important preservation projects in the country."

The Flint Hills Prairie National Monument designation would authorize the National Park Service to acquire land in the Flint Hills region of Kansas to establish a federal tallgrass prairie preserve. The bill passed by a vote of 284-121 on October 15, 1991. YES is the pro-environment vote.