Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has been urged to reinstate positions the National Park Service lost through the Valentine's Day mass termination of federal employees, to fill the positions lost through those who opted to take the Trump administration's deferred resignation program, and to not "decimate the world’s most prestigious National Park System."

Directions from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management on how federal agencies should craft their reduction-in-force (RIF) plans raise questions of how the National Park Service will go about cutting its ranks.

In an open letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former chief scientist for the National Park Service asked that he highlight for President Donald Trump that America's national parks "are the embodiment of patriotism and a remarkable example of American exceptionalism."

America's public lands are one of the Nation's most outstanding achievements. Public lands are part of every citizen's heritage and an essential part of the national inheritance. It is especially vital to the people living in the western states, where we enjoy an abundance of public land.