Testimony: Public Witness Day on FY26 Appropriations

Chair Murkowski, Vice Chair Merkley and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony on behalf of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). Founded in 1919, NPCA is the leading national, independent voice for protecting and enhancing America’s National Park System for present and future generations. We appreciate the opportunity to provide our views regarding the National Park Service (NPS) FY26 budget, and to outline our deep concerns with the administration’s actions undermining NPS’ ability to meet its mission. These actions are in contradiction to this subcommittee’s bipartisan investment in our national parks and in violation of its intent in appropriating funds to support them.

Increase the Operation of the National Park System (ONPS) by $250 million

The park service is being severely undercut by the executive branch, and the bulk of this testimony outlines the many impacts of staffing losses and other actions. However, we want to note our fiscal request for FY26—an increase of $250 million for ONPS. This account needs particular attention after the damaging FY24 cut and flat funding in FY25. ONPS provides the critical funding for personnel and other operational needs. It is the core funding that allows national parks to meet their mission protecting the world-class cultural and natural resources for which they were designated, and to ensure the safety and enjoyment of the visiting public. Unfortunately, because the ONPS has not kept up with needs, NPS continues to struggle with insufficient staff due in part to the impact of uncontrollable fixed costs. Accordingly, staffing for the operation of parks fell by 20% between 2010 and 2023. This challenge has been compounded by a 16% increase in visitation. Congress must reverse the trend of staff losses with enhanced investments. However, increased appropriations will have limited impact if the administration does not end its many actions undermining NPS staffing and the fundamental ability of NPS to perform its duties as Congress intended – and as the American people expect and deserve.

Help end the administration’s actions that are undermining the National Park Service

It is impossible to outline our request for increased funding for NPS staffing without stating our alarm at the multi-pronged attack on the National Park Service since January 20th. We know the importance and influence of this subcommittee and urge you to demonstrate your oversight role over these actions. As many as 2,500 NPS staff—nearly 13% of its workforce—has been lost in a series of actions that are undermining resource protection, visitor safety and experiences, and the short- and long-term capacity of NPS to operate with the expertise and human power that is necessary to meet its mission. In addition to the assault on park staff, important park leases are being cancelled with no backup plans; credit lines have been frozen or limited; grants, agreements, contracts and procurement are being delayed or canceled; park partners have been unable to access funds; Americorps and other supporting projects are being halted, and more. These actions are unsustainable and are preventing NPS from doing its job serving the American people. It is also an affront to the work this subcommittee has done to invest in our parks. We urge you to demonstrate oversight and consider bill language, oversight hearings, reporting requirements or other actions that can help stop these destructive actions.

Hiring Freeze and Seasonal Hiring Delays: For many NPS units, the hiring freeze initiated at the infancy of the administration has strained operations to the point that providing basic visitor services while ensuring adequate protection of resources has been difficult if not impossible for some parks. While the eventual release of seasonal staff has been helpful, the hiring process was significantly delayed. Some parks have not had the anticipated applicant pool and will have to try to make ends meet with much fewer seasonal staff than in past years. Other parks are getting into the busy season and still don’t have the numbers hired that they need. We encourage members of the committee to inquire about the status of seasonal NPS hiring. However, seasonal employees need oversight by career professionals, and they are no substitute for permanent staff. A notable example is at Yosemite, where campgrounds were closed due to an anticipated lack of staff and the loss of a wastewater treatment operator. We know other parks are struggling with similar challenges. The loss of permanent and collateral-duty staff is directly threatening visitor safety, emergency response, natural and cultural resource protection, and public access.

Deferred Resignations and the devastating impact on operating capacity and institutional knowledge and expertise: We are alarmed by the threat of administration’s effort to restructure federal agencies and slash their workforce capacity, with deep concern about what this would mean for a park service that is already so badly damaged by a series of deferred resignations that has led to as much as 13% of the NPS workforce fleeing the agency under duress. Our data indicate that NPS lost 700 personnel in each of the first two resignation offers, followed by as many as 1,100 staff lost through the last Deferred Resignation Program. The dedicated rangers and other NPS staff have felt under assault by a diversity of actions—not all of which are outlined in this testimony—and have feared for their jobs, so it should be no surprise that so many have left. This has meant lost capacity to serve visitors and ensure their safety, perform and contract needed maintenance, and protect irreplaceable cultural and natural resources.

More than a hundred superintendent positions are vacant as a result, most Regional Directors are now gone, and numerous other associate directors and other senior staff have left the agency. Between these managers and the experts who operate and repair technical park equipment, contract out and oversee complicated repair and reconstruction projects and more, NPS has been losing expertise from which it will take years or more likely decades to recover. This essentially amounts to an impoundment of the funds this subcommittee appropriated in FY25 to operate national parks and undermines your power of the purse. The threat the situation will become much worse demands the attention and oversight of this subcommittee.

The Impending Reductions in Force (RIF): Though there is currently a Temporary Restraining Order on the administration’s effort to further reduce the federal workforce, we fear that a RIF will still take place at NPS. The prevailing expectation is that this would involve the senseless dismissal of hundreds –if not more than a thousand—staff and cut into operations across the park System and Service and across the table of organization. We are particularly alarmed that the RIF is likely to go after the scientists, archaeologists, historians, archivists, air quality experts and other professionals who ensure that park resources are protected. Members of this committee must understand that the experts who work in NPS’ supporting offices are critical to inventory and monitor resources to inform management that protects the health of visitors, staff and wildlife and ensures the long-term protection of both natural and cultural resources. Eliminating expertise within regional and service-wide key programs including Inventory and Monitoring Networks, air quality monitoring, historic preservation, and archaeological services would severely undermine park integrity and long-term resource management.

The work that these supporting office staff do is central to the protection of the resources in the parks themselves. Many parks have little resource protection capacity, and the supporting staff work directly with those parks to ensure work is done to meet the many mandates Congress has provided to protect park resources. This is in essence an efficient and cost-effective arrangement, when staff are shared across many parks to directly support the resources those parks were designated to protect.

We call on members of this subcommittee to perform needed oversight and urge the administration to end these reckless actions:

• We ask you to reach out to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to end the hiring freeze and cease efforts to reorganize and RIF NPS employees.
• Given your FY25 and prior year investments in NPS staffing, we also ask that you request the Department provide a summary of workforce numbers by park, region, and program including any diminished capacity as a result of administration’s actions.
• We ask that you query Secretary Burgum on this series of actions and consider an additional oversight hearing to investigate the harm these actions are causing to the fundamental ability of NPS to meet its legal obligations, including but not limited to the Organic Act of 1916 and the National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998 that requires regular scientific assessment of NPS resources.
• In your FY26 bill or explanatory statement, we ask you to specify appropriations for the Inventory and Monitoring and other key expertise for natural and cultural resources including regional fire, wildlife, air, water and historic resource staff.

We are also alarmed at the president’s skinny budget and urge you to oppose this effort to drastically undermine and eviscerate the National Park System and Service.

The president’s “skinny budget” for the National Park Service is extraordinarily damaging and, if enacted, would be the largest cut in NPS history, with a loss of nearly a third of the NPS budget. Most disturbing is the proposal to slash $900 million from the ONPS budget in order to transfer smaller and/or less visited parks to the states. If the NPS units with the smallest budgets were added, it would take over 350 historic sites, monuments, preserves and other NPS units to achieve that level of savings—over ¾ of the National Park System.

These popular and irreplaceable sites were designated by Congress—with bills introduced and supported by members on both sides of the political aisle—and by presidents from both parties. They have significant historical value, protecting places as diverse as the Flight 93 National Memorial, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and Assateague Island National Seashore. And many—such as those in Alaska—may not be well visited due to their remote locations, but preserve some of the most extraordinary wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities in the United States.

So many of these sites preserve our history—from the profound archaeological sites of the Southwest to the birthplaces of American presidents to Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields to sites like Minidoka and Sand Creek Massacre that teach Americans about the painful chapters in our history. They don’t only protect the places where our history took place, but they also allow Americans of all ages to learn and reflect. They were designated with local support to preserve history, archaeology and places of significant recreational value to hundreds of millions of people each year. While these sites were not designated for their economic potential and should not be viewed merely as financial assets, they do generate significant tourism and resulting economic activity. Many of the units that may be threatened have been designated in more recent decades. For the nearly fifty NPS sites designated since 2000, there is more than $21 in visitor spending for every dollar NPS invests. In 2023, more than 7,000 visitors spent more than $685 million visiting these sites.

Transferring NPS units to states would be an affront to the work of countless communities, bipartisan members of Congress and presidents to preserve and interpret these places. No administration can unilaterally give away national park sites. It’s incumbent on this subcommittee and the broader Congress to ensure these places remain intact and protected by the National Park Service. We call on members of this subcommittee to: reaffirm Congress’ sole authority to reduce or eliminate units of the National Park System and emphasize their national significance; and mandate review and meaningful public input for any proposals to transfer land management responsibility or reduce protections for NPS lands and adjacent federal lands.

The budget also proposes a troubling 42% cut to NPS Construction, undermining the bipartisan investment in the deferred maintenance backlog that Congress has demonstrated in recent years. The Great American Outdoors Act’s Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) has successfully augmented appropriations and other funding sources that have long been insufficient to maintain our parks and has supported more than 500 projects in parks in all 50 states and several Territories. The recently introduced bipartisan America the Beautiful Act (S. 1547) seeks to continue the LRF’s track record of success for eight more years, and we encourage members of this subcommittee who have not yet done so to cosponsor this legislation. This proposal to slash maintenance funding suggests that investments can be focused on the larger, more highly visited parks—the National Parks “in a traditional sense,” an erroneous label. Such an approach to appropriated funding and funding through the LRF would undermine Congress’ intent to ensure that parks large and small, less visited and more visited, all receive the repairs and attention they need and deserve all throughout the country.

The budget also proposes eviscerating the budgets of the Historic Preservation Fund and National Recreation and Preservation accounts. Both these accounts provide for grants and community support to protect and interpret valuable and popular historic sites and community-driven recreational resources and public access. These programs and grants—ranging from Save Americas Treasures grants to National Heritage Areas to the Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance program are popular among members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and in communities of all demographics and deserve this subcommittee’s support.

Thank you for considering our views.