NPCA submitted the following position to members of the Senate ahead of anticipated votes on June 28, 2025.
Since 1919, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has been the leading voice of the American people in protecting and enhancing our National Park System. We also work to protect the surrounding landscapes to safeguard wildlife corridors, historical resources, watersheds and more. On behalf of our nearly 1.6 million members and supporters nationwide, we urge you to oppose the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 1, One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025. Supporting this bill is a vote against America’s national parks.
Last year, there was a record 331 million visits to America’s national parks, and for good reason. These cherished places protect and share some of our nation’s most important cultural and natural resources with visitors from across the country and around the world.
Title V: Energy and Natural Resources
Despite this, NPS has been chronically underfunded for more than a decade. The hiring freeze instituted in January, rescission of job offers and forced departure of 2,500 staff only makes matters worse. Instead of pushing back against these attacks, this bill robs the National Park Service of critical staffing funds. Section 50305 rescinds $267 million in funding for rangers, emergency responders, curators, scientists and other critical staffing needs. This dedicated funding fills critical roles in the Park Service’s workforce to help them plan, implement and maintain infrastructure and other improvements across the system. In addition, Section 50305 also rescinds $12 million, which is helping prepare national parks across the country for floods, fires and storms. These dedicated investments are small compared to the big results they produce in protecting the natural and cultural resources people want to see when they visit their parks.
Under Section 50301, millions of acres of public lands – specifically Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands – would be auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder with no public input and weak guardrails on what could be developed. These lands are critical to the ongoing protection of national parks, wildlife habitat, clean water sources and public access points to nature. Over 100 national park sites, from Yellowstone to Zion, are directly adjacent to lands managed by the BLM and could be eligible for sale. This could result in accelerated and intense development surrounding national park units without consideration for wildfires, invasive species and a host of impacts that could change the ecological health of our parks. This slapdash proposal is ill-conceived and short-sighted.
National parks do not exist in isolation and are part of larger interconnected landscapes. What happens on nearby lands has a direct effect on the water, air and wildlife which move across park boundaries. Oil and gas development on lands adjacent to national parks can have lasting impacts on park resources. Section 50101 seeks to open more federal lands to oil and gas development until all available lands nominated by the oil and gas industry in Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Nevada are leased. At a time when the Department of the Interior is offering as many leases as possible, this bill aims to take in less revenue from industry. Section 50101 also lowers the royalty rate paid by oil and gas companies from the current 16.67% to 12.5% - the rate that was set in 1920. This rate is lower than the royalty rate in the states listed above with oil and gas development on their state lands. The rate is also lowered to 12.5% for offshore oil and gas development in Section 50102. Money from royalties goes to states to use for education, health and safety programs. The money that stays with the federal government goes to help manage western waters, contributes to conservation programs including the Great American Outdoors Act Legacy Restoration Fund and helps fund the U.S. Treasury. This bill would ensure fewer funds flow into these accounts while making it easier to drill for oil near national parks.
Title IV: Commerce, Science and Technology
Section 40008 would rescind unobligated funds for highly effective National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) programs providing critical grants for coastal communities to enhance their resilience to extreme storms and funds to address the long-term infrastructure backlog at marine sanctuaries. Many of these funds are critical to the protection of national park coastal and marine resources. For example, grants for coral reef restoration in the Florida Reef Tract benefit multiple park units and the south Florida economy.
Title VI: Environment and Public Works
Sections 60004 and 60016 repeal funding for air monitoring across the country. Air monitoring is a vital source of information that serves to keep the public safe and well informed about the state of the air quality in parks and communities, particularly for sensitive populations like the young, elderly, those exercising and those with respiratory illnesses.
Section 60012 repeals funding for and delays implementation of the Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP), which is critical to ensuring the successful and efficient reduction of oil and gas methane emissions. Methane is often leaked and vented during oil and gas operations which degrades air quality around national parks, threatens public health, and harms unique resources that national parks protect like dark night skies.
Title IX: Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Section 90001 would allocate $46.5 billion to build additional border wall, river barriers, secondary barriers, and replacement barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Over 800 miles of border wall and fencing already stretch along the border, including along the entire southern boundary of public lands like Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona. Additional infrastructure accompanies these barriers, including roads, lights, towers and other facilities. We have already seen significant environmental degradation from the construction and continued presence of this infrastructure, with limited planning or attention given to mitigating the impacts on sacred sites, water quality, wildlife habitat and the visitor experience. The additional construction funded through this bill could be devastating to the six national parks along the border, along with the surrounding ecosystems and communities.
These provisions are anti-national parks. We urge you to remove them from the bill and to oppose a final bill that includes them.
