Upcoming budget battles over the nation's debt ceiling could be devastating for national parks/NPS file

Efforts by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to exact spending cuts in return for agreement to raise the nation's debt ceiling could have crippling impacts on the National Park Service.

John Garder, senior director for budget and appropriations at the National Parks Conservation Association, said if the GOP succeeds the ramifications could be similar to those endured by the Park Service back in 2013 when Congress failed to avoid a budget sequestration that led to a 5 percent budget cut for the National Park Service.

At that time, units of the National Park System were asked to figure out how to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars, more in some cases, from their budgets. Yellowstone National Park shouldered the heaviest burden in terms of pure dollars, as it was asked to outline cuts totaling $1.75 million from its FY 2013 budget of $35 million, according to documents sent from the National Park Service director's office.

Before the funding issues were resolved, parks closed campgrounds, there were Sunday closures of some parks, and 900 permanent positions went unfilled.

"We saw how much indiscriminate spending cuts can hurt national parks during failed budget negotiations in 2013. At that time, across-the-board sequester cuts forced superintendents to make painful choices about cutting back services," Garder told the Traveler in an email Thursday. "Visitor centers reduced hours, parks delayed seasonal openings, campgrounds were unstaffed or closed, and our parks went without nearly 2,000 permanent and seasonal staff. Congress and the White House need to come to an agreement that prevents our parks from cuts that hurt the visiting public. Park resources, their visitors and the countless local economies that depend on functional and inspiring visiting experiences cannot afford that.” 

In a letter (attached below) to the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said cuts proposed by the GOP would hit the Park Service hard.

"For the Department of the Interior, the proposed funding cap would reduce funding below FY 2023 levels by 4 percent (-$611 million) if non-defense and defense funding share reductions equally, or -22 percent (-$3.7 billion) if non-defense programs take the full reduction," the Interior secretary wrote on March 27. "The -22 percent scenario would reduce Interior’s funding to $13.1 billion, well below the FY 2016 funding level. Reductions of this magnitude would require Interior to make difficult choices that would have real impacts to the lives of Americans."

Furthermore, she wrote:

• Implementing the proposed FY 2024 reductions by the House of Representatives (House) would require Interior to impose a hiring freeze, restrict new hiring to backfilling critical positions, and take deep cuts in the number of seasonal employees hired to accommodate peak visitation to the national parks, national wildlife refuges, and public lands. Reductions-in-force cost money in the near-term, create disruption, and would exacerbate an already difficult staffing situation and reverse recent efforts to rebuild staffing capacity lost during the last administration.
• The House proposed reductions would be particularly difficult for the National Park Service (NPS), which in 2022 supported 18,660 full-time equivalent positions (FTEs)—roughly 30 percent of Interior’s total staffing in 2022. Approximately 55 percent to 60 percent of NPS’ annual appropriation funds staffing across the national parks and program support offices. Faced with the significant reductions under consideration and increased Federal pay, NPS would implement a hiring freeze, reduce seasonal hires, and prepare to furlough permanent employees for varying periods of time, reducing staff by as many as 5,000 FTEs.
• Visitors to the national parks would feel the impact of funding reductions at parks across the Nation. Parks would need to reduce hours, close visitor centers, reduce trash collection and facility cleaning, as well as ranger-led programming. The need to curtail services such as snow plowing would impact decisions including whether to maintain winter access to parks like Yosemite National Park, which welcomed over 336,000 visitors this winter despite record levels of snow. 

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, assailed the GOP proposal during a hearing Wednesday on President Biden's FY2024 budget proposal.

"As Secretary Haaland detailed in her letter to the Appropriations Committee, the Republicans’ extreme budget proposal would undermine the agency’s ability to fight wildfires, disrupt our efforts to address drought and secure water resources in the West, reduce support for tribal nations, create visitor safety issues at our national parks, and—in an especially interesting turn of events—curtail American energy development by gutting the very federal permitting offices that my colleagues consistently complain about as being too slow," he said. "In doing so, the MAGA agenda can achieve its ultimate goal: Hobbling the Interior Department to the point of dysfunction and then scapegoating that dysfunction as an excuse to give Big Oil and other polluting industries more loopholes, more handouts, and less accountability, putting the fox squarely in the hen house."

During that hearing, Rep. Bruce Westerman, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the committee, criticized Interior for doing little while spending lots.

"At every turn, the Biden administration has opposed pro-growth policies and American energy production through blanket bans and limited lease sales. Not only do these bans on energy and mining contribute to our skyrocketing inflation, but they also jeopardize our national security and fund our adversaries," said Westerman. "It’s not just energy, either; this administration continues limiting access to federal lands, sits back while wildfires burn out of control and refuses to take long-term action on western water issues. Yet even as DOI continues to do less work, its budget continues to increase at an alarming rate, with little to no explanation for how and where our taxpayer dollars are spent."