"... If he thinks the purpose of national parks is sort of revenue commodity production, we've got a big problem," Professor John Freemuth said of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's concern that Glacier National Park staff aren't as focused on timber management as they are about visitors.
What would the National Park System be without a National Park Service? Would you treasure Old Faithful, Delicate Arch, or Thunder Hole as much without a nearby ranger to answer your questions, provide some reassurance for your safety, and care for the integrity of the natural resources that drew you to these places?
It may not be such a far-fetched idea under the Trump administration, and you might just see a trial run this weekend. Traveler has learned that in the event of a government shutdown Friday, the National Park System will remain open. Non-essential Park Service personnel will not report to work, but concessions will continue to operate, and visitors will be free to enter.
"The word for weeks is that we don't stop people from coming in as long as we don't have to spend money," a park superintendent said. "Concessions can still operate. Partners can run things as long as there is no reimbursement (from the government)."
At the Park Service's Washington headquarters, spokesman Jeremy Barnum confirmed Wednesday night that the parks would indeed remain open to visits in the event of a government shutdown.
"We fully expect the government to remain open, however in the event of a shutdown, national parks will remain as accessible as possible while still following all applicable laws and procedures," he said in an email. "For example, this means that roads that have already been open will remain open (think snow removal) and vaulted toilets (wilderness type restrooms) will remain open. However services that require staffing and maintenance such as campgrounds and full-service restrooms, will not be operating. The American public and especially our veterans who come to our nation's capital will find war memorials and open-air parks open to the public."
This type of "soft closure" would give Republicans in Congress cover in the event of a shutdown. If you remember, during the last shutdown in October 2013, Republicans bore the brunt of the criticism for the park system being closed to the public. (Except in a few states where state tax dollars were used to keep parks open by paying the salaries and other bills. The Interior Department signed contracts with the states to allow them to operate the parks during the shutdown.)
But it's also highly possible that this approach is about more, much more, than giving the GOP cover in the mid-term elections this fall.
"They will always be able to say, 'Hey, we didn't shut down the parks. The gates were still open, weren't they? All we did is send most of those parasitic bureaucrats home and you still had a good time right? It just goes to show that less government is better," one ranger told us.
A conspiracy theorist would say a government shutdown is the perfect opportunity for the Trump administration to show Congress and the American public that parks can be run effectively without the NPS. Just connect the dots:
* We know the administration wants to cut the NPS budget and staff. President Trump's FY18 budget proposal called for a 13 percent cut in the Park Service budget, and the loss of about 1,200 full-time jobs;
* The Property and Environment Research Center, a free-market proponent, long has touted the possibility of “national park franchises” that would be run by the private sector;
* President Trump still has not nominated a permanent director for the National Park Service;
* Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke already has said that when it comes to campgrounds, NPS staff is best suited to clean restrooms, not manage them;
* In Washington, the National Park Service was being moved out of the third-floor offices it has occupied for decades so one of Secretary Zinke's deputies can take it over. The deputy, identified by The Washington Post as Doug Domenech, is assistant secretary for insular areas, a political appointee;
* Secretary Zinke is proposing a massive reorganization of the Interior Department, one that, if implemented, would drastically reorganize the various bureaus under the Interior umbrella and challenge them to mesh their various missions.
Too, in a recent interview with Outdoor Life, the secretary was dismissive of Park Service staff at Glacier National Park because they were not focused on timber management.
“I had a parks administrator tell me that timber management wasn’t his priority, that his priority was managing visitors," he was quoted as saying. "I told him, ‘Then what do I need you for? If managing visitors is your only job, then all I need is a ticket-taker at the entrance gate.’ So many people get into park management because they’re preservationists. I’m a conservationist, and that means actually managing what we’re stewards of.”
Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, doubted Wednesday that the administration wants to do away with the Park Service completely. But...
Is a "soft closure" of national parks during a government shutdown, one that would allow visitors to explore the parks and concessionaires to operate while most Park Service personnel are furloughed, a step towards greater privatization of the park system?
"I think there’s clearly interest though that they want to contract out more to the private sector to do the work that we’ve been doing all these years," said Mr. Francis, who spent more than four decades with the Park Service, including eight years as superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway. "I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. A government shutdown is one thing, but to contract all the services out that the National Park Service does? That would take years. Maybe they have years to do it.”
At Boise State University, Professor John Freemuth, whose primary focus is public lands management and who is executive director of the Cecil D. Andrus Center for Public Policy, said there certainly is cause for concern for how the Trump administration is managing public lands and the National Park System.
"Connect the dots. In other words, this isn't one event that came out," he said. "Let's say this kind of statement (to keep the parks open during a government shutdown) came out during the Obama administration. You and I wouldn't be having this conversation. But you connect all the other dots."
The professor, citing the interview Secretary Zinke conducted with Outdoor Life, questioned how well Secretary Zinke understands the mission of the National Park Service.
"That amazing thing at the end of your note you sent me about Glacier National Park, which is absolutely befuddling, it suggests that the secretary doesn't understand the mission of the National Park Service," said Dr. Freemuth. "And then, to suggest that dealing with visitors is not a priority. I was a seasonal a long time ago. That's how people fall in love with the Park Service, the rangers they meet who help them. That's almost a window into his thinking. If he thinks that, then getting rid of non-essential personnel fits right in to the fact that in his mind the mission of the Park Service is not what the rest of us think it is.
"... And if you don't need those people, then it does open the door to the argument that some private group could run the parks, which is appalling," said the professor.
When the park system shut down for 16 days in October 2013, the Park Service figured the economic loss at $414 million. There are those in the tourism industry who don't think a similar loss should be incurred if the government shuts down again, that Park Service personnel don't need to be around to ensure concessions operations run satisfactorily.
"We support a tradition of health and safety functions occurring in parks even during a shutdown, and use of visitor-generated park revenues to provide visitor services. Concessions operations in parks rarely rely upon daily NPS staff operations and most can operate during a federal shutdown, just as ski areas and other recreation services continued in 2013 in national forests," Derrick Crandall, president of the American Recreation Coalition as well as the counselor to the National Park Hospitality Association, which represents park concessionaires, wrote in an email Wednesday.
While that sounds fine, parks such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and Golden Gate operate much like small cities, with fire departments, EMTs, law enforcement, sewer and water systems, and more. Too, many parks are home to archaeological, paleontological, and cultural artifacts that could be tempting to some visitors emboldened by the lack of rangers. Not to be overlooked is the dangerous nature of some parks: Mount Rainier with its heavy snows, icy roads, and avalanche potential. Zion with its steep, narrow trails that lead to precipices with thousand-foot dropoffs, and dangerous slot canyons. Acadia with its pounding surf. Big Cypress National Preserve with its wild backcountry.
Mr. Crandall did not immediately respond to a follow-up question of whether the Interior secretary's position that parks should remain open, albeit without full NPS personnel, during a government shutdown marked a transformative moment for the agency. Others thought the Trump administration's handling of the National Park System and its agency certainly deserved close attention by the public.
"This is unchartered territory that raises frightening questions about the integrity of our parks, their management, and the visitor experience," said John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations for the National Parks Conservation Association. "The administration needs to recognize the profound responsibilities only the Park Service can meet to steward parks and provide for visitor enjoyment."
"I think people that are used to, and friends of, the parks need to pay serious attention to all this, because it appears to be a pattern," added Dr. Freemuth.
To a generation of environmentalists and conservationists, James Watt, who served a short stint as Interior secretary under President Reagan, epitomized the threat to public lands. Now, perhaps, Ryan Zinke has eclipsed him.
"I think so," ventured Dr. Freemuth. "I have a good friend at the University of Wyoming, Greg Cowley, and Greg wrote a book on Federal Lands, Western Anger, and he pointed that Watt wanted to go back to more multiple use, oil and gas and all of that. But he fought the privatizers in the White House. In fact, I know some of them who blame Watt for frustrating their agenda, which was to privatize more and more of the public lands. In that sense, I wonder if Zinke is worse."
Pointing back to the Outdoor Life article and Secretary Zinke's comments about timber production being more important than visitor management, the professor said, "that Glacier comment, whether he was just stupid that day or just not paying attention, if he thinks the purpose of national parks is sort of revenue commodity production, we've got a big problem."
Comments
And who will protect the Parks from the visitors? An unstaffed, or understaffed, park is an invitation to the destruction of America's mst beautiful and precious natural resources. If you haven't seen the kind of destruction that less protected public lands are subjected to: grafitti, initials carved in trees, tree limbs cut for firewood, litter, and on and on, then you can't appreciate how imprtant adequate staffing is. And if you haven't visited enough National Monuments, National Parks, National Forests and BLM-managed public lands to know this, you really shouldn't make politicized comments about necessary protection of natural resources.
If it were a true government shutdown we would never have any. The most evil device Congress has ever invented in its history has been the "continuing resolution".
And in response to the parks concession employee above, what really needs revamping in the Concessions Management Act. Too much power given to these businesses. If you fdon't like the NPS, then quit yyour job and move outside the park boundary and work for McDonalds where you're likely to make more money anyhow.
Yeah, there are thousands of volunteer EMTs around the nation - I was one for years. [How many uncompensated hours of professionally qualified labor have you put in like that on behalf of people you don't know?] How many EMTs have both the speciaalized training to do wilderness rescue and how many of those particularly experienced ones live within proximity to wilderness areas is another matter. You are depending upon a volunteer system to fund and maintain the specific types of expensive communications equipment, climbing equipment, and so forth to rescue your entitled touchas when you fall into a mountain crevasse? This is the obscene mirror image of you right wing nuts who panic at the idea of the government helping someoine you don't know, but at the same time you expect strangers to volunteer to do the same for free.
James Watt referenced above was - after leaving office - very nearly convicted of several felonies in an episode that spoke volumes about his character and that of those who formerly promoted him to the administration which he served. He pled to a misdemeanor and disappeared from public consciousness (except for a lingering bad taste in our mouths.) Gale Norton was investigated for a pay to play and denial of honest services scheme involving an oil company. The investigation petered out in the Justice Department because they couldn't be assured of a slam dunk conviction. She was, however, recognized as the poison pill that she is and replaced with someone who represented more of what GWB felt about Interior Department issues - benign neglect more than active damage. And now we have Zinke, who couldn't even slide through a few first months before being investigated by his own IG for unethical conduct. I'm waiting for him to declare himself admiral over the Interior fleet of marine vessels and install counterassult teams in his USPP protective detail.
Funny that no one sees "their side" as the problem again. As I hear it from "the Press," the Democrats are refusing to budge unless the Dreamers are finally legalized. The Republicans are refusing to budge unless they get "the Wall." Unless I miss my guess, this has nothing to do with "us," except to prove that the Big US (the United States) is in trouble. And don't think for a moment that your argument is above reproach. It's not, because argument for its own sake is the problem. If we wanted good government, all of us would believe in the rule of law as the critical foundation of that government. No one gaming the system would be called a Dreamer; no Wall would need to exist. We had that country once, if still an imperfect country. Losing that country, and thus turning debate into argument, remains the only threat to our national parks.
Government in the 21st Century is already a mix of government employees, private sector employees, non-profits, contractors, volunteers, state and local entities, etc. It is very much a web of interconnectiveness and rarely are things clearly black and white and the ability to run our parks successfully requires a collaborative outlook and mind set. So, if there is a shutdown, a lot of people are let down - not just government workers. A lot of people are let down and I bet many of them voted for both candidates in the 2016 election. This isn't how you would run a business and it isn't how you should run a government.
Remember this at election time. Drain the Swamp by voting out ALL incumbents. It's time to at least try for a fresh start.
At least today, though, instead of blaming Dems, McConnell is turning his ire on trumpf. "If he'd just tell us what he wants we'd give it to him."
Sheesh!
McConnell is a bafoon.