Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told the National Park Service on Friday that he wanted to personally approve any new projects funded through fees paid by park visitors/NPS file
Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Friday ordered the National Park Service not to launch any projects or programs funded through recreation fees and intended for use in improving the visitor experience.
More so, the acting secretary told the agency that he wants to review all "project descriptions and project cost information" for those paid for with funds collected under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, and personally approve those not already under way.
"Please stay tuned for more information - we may need to refine these instructions as we continue to discuss this with the Acting Secretary," wrote Lena McDowall, the Park Service's deputy director for management and administration in an email to regional directors, deputy regional directors, and assistant regional directors that was obtained by the Traveler. "To conduct this review, Acting Secretary Bernhardt has requested information on every project planned for this fiscal year. He will be reviewing project descriptions and project cost information for all FLREA projects. Please note that he will review this information for projects already underway as well as for those not yet started."
The directive comes two months after Bernhardt gave the Park Service permission to use FLREA funds -- up to a quarter-billion dollars, if necessary -- to send additional staff into the National Park System during the partial government shutdown to clean up after visitors. The move was criticized at the time by park advocacy groups and some members of Congress as a highly questionable and possibly illegal use of the revenues.
It also comes just three days before President Trump is to present his Fiscal 2020 budget proposal to Congress, a proposal that reportedly will propose significant budget cuts across domestic programs.
Park Service personnel Friday morning began preparing spreadsheets for the acting secretary that would outline the planned projects and their costs.
"We will know more about what additional instructions the Acting Secretary may have for us once he begins reviewing projects," wrote McDowall. "Please ensure that all of your parks and programs receive this directive."
As FLREA was envisioned and set up, the revenues from entrance fees and other approved programs are to go to enhance the visitor experience. That could be through better facilities, more interpretive programs, or restored habitat.
Some of those funds also typically are spent on seasonal positions, such as staffing campgrounds. With that money put in question during the partial government shutdown, it was feared that it could throw a wrench into summer hiring plans, as the National Park Service's human resources offices in January normally would be moving into the introductory steps of organizing this summer's hiring.
Additionally, more than 55 percent of the fees typically go towards deferred maintenance projects, so handcuffing the Park Service's ability to use those funds could add to the maintenance backlog, estimated at $11.9 billion at the end of Fiscal 2018.
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I think more context is needed to Gentile's comment. Here's how the NPS defines Critical Maintenance and Deferred Maintenance:
FWIW, tomorrow we have a story on the latest deferred maintenance backlog numbers.
His ilk want the government to be penny-wise and pound-foolish because they are either fools or know that makes the commonwealth less effective. In the latter case, they can swoop in with cost-plus private sector management and make $Texas at the expense of quality of service and the average citizen.
The number that is represented as the deffered maintenance backlog does not represent everything the park wishes to get done .that list would be in the hundreds of billions. I do this job for the national park service and while I certainly would admit the number is not necessarily accurate strictly speaking, it is snapshot in time and a decent approximation. Some facilities only get inspected in-depth occasionally so often the most recent numbers are old .there is an argument that the DM number is the bottom end. If the service hired people to conduct condition assessments on all of their facilites I suspect the number would actually be higher.
This might be a stupid question, but this is a dumb idea, right? If I'm understanding this correctly, he will be reviewing, like, hundreds of proposals a week, if not a day? He has to approve every decision made about how to spend entry fees collected for every park in the country?
The old saying pay me now or pay me more latter applies to National Park maintenance just as much as it applies to spending money on your own home. Do you wait until a leaky pipe breaks to do something about it?
It is a control issue.
Remember this one
All NPS Employees
I wanted to share an important update with you related to the use of Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) funds during the lapse in appropriations.
As you may know during the recent lapse in appropriations we worked with the Department of the Interior to make recreation fee revenue available to many of our national parks. This allowed us to provide additional staff to address the mounting maintenance and sanitation issues that arose at a number of highly visited parks across the country. As a result, parks were not only able to quickly address these issues, but also provide necessary protection for park resources. This solution allowed us to keep our commitments to the American public to ensure they have access to their parks while protecting the resources under our care.
I am thankful to all of you who quickly used these funds to restore accessibility and basic services including maintaining restrooms, trash collection, road maintenance, campground operations, law enforcement and emergency operations, and distribution of critical safety information at entrance gates.
In the FY 2019 Further Additional Continuing Appropriation Act (Public Law 116-5), Congress extended appropriations through February 15 and wisely made such funds available to cover the period during which there was a lapse.
We have confirmed with the Office of Management and Budget that the NPS can move obligations made during the appropriations lapse from the FLREA fee account and apply those obligations to the National Park Service annual operating account. In short, Congress has enabled us to fully restore the FLREA account to pre-lapse levels.
Restoring these FLREA balances enables us to maintain our commitment to the visitor experience at parks by using these funds for important projects at parks moving forward.
Parks that were approved to use FLREA during the lapse in appropriations for basic visitor services and excepted activities where appropriate should not move any charges to or from FLREA accounts until further guidance is provided.
We are still working to address issues related to the lapse in appropriations, most importantly ensuring that every employee receives their pay as soon as possible.
I want to thank you for the professional and dedicated manner in which you all have resumed the important work at parks and programs after a long and difficult lapse in appropriations.
We are most grateful to have you back.
Sincerely,
P. Daniel Smith
Deputy Director
Exercising the Authority of the Director for the National Park Service
One reason: Sometimes -- and some kinds -- of preservation cost a tremendous amount of money. National park units protect ancient and historic documents, objects, and structures that need specialized care and repair. It operates thousands of water and waste-water systems. It uses hundreds of thousands of buildings, roads, and trails that require upkeep many of which are regularly damaged by extreme weather and heavy use. Equipment breaks and ages out. Fires, floods, and storms happen, and whatever is damaged is not covered by insurance (the government self-insures). Multiply all this by the number of national park units and such a backlog becomes easier to imagine.
Are the funds being used in a diierent thing like rerouting to a big Wall !