Serious Cuts Looming in 2025 National Parks Budget
Our overcrowded, underfunded parks are at risk of great harm if the current version of the 2025 National Park Service budget, passed by the House of Representatives, becomes law. The House version calls for a $200 million reduction in the NPS budget, when a substantial increase is desperately needed.
Former Park Superintendent Phil Francis, speaking on behalf to the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, had this to say about the House of Representatives version of the NPS 2025 budget.
“The largest cut would be to park operations, which would decimate parks that are already woefully understaffed. It would destroy already low employee morale and might just be the breakpoint for employees who are constantly forced to do more with less.”
Officials with the National Parks Conservation Association reiterated Mr. Francis’s concern.
“The National Park Service is only a tiny slice of our federal budget — less than one-fifteenth of one percent — yet delivers significant economic benefits, with $15 in economic activity generated for each dollar invested. While the popularity of national parks has remained steady over the years, staffing levels have not. Parks have fewer staff than they did a decade ago. In fact, park staffing has eroded by 23% since 2010. The National Park Service is already chronically underfunded, and these deep and unrealistic cuts proposed in the House’s Interior appropriations bill would only make matters worse if it were to become law.”
Over 300 million people visited a national park last year. Why would you cut the one federal agency that the people of the world absolutely adore and which generates billions of dollars in tourism revenue? Is this the best way to perpetuate “America’s best idea”? Please let your elected officials know that parks are important to you, as well as the tens of thousands of species of plants and animals they protect, and the hundreds of millions of people who find sanctuary, inspiration, and recreation within their borders.
