AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
National parks like Yellowstone and the Great Smoky Mountains are bracing for record crowds again this summer, just as President Trump is trying to cut more than a billion dollars from the Park Service budget. The administration says the tourist experience won't be affected. But as NPR's Kirk Siegler reports, conservationists and lawmakers tell a different story.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: The headlines focus on the fallout from President Trump's DOGE staffing cuts, leading to visitor center closures, bathrooms going uncleaned. But National Park advocates say the crisis is way bigger. Trump's proposed big, beautiful budget bill for the current fiscal year would rescind more than $250 million in funding that pays for rangers, emergency responders and scientists, and next year he wants to cut 1.2 billion more. Kristen Brengel is vice president of the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association.
KRISTEN BRENGEL: This is just a bad decision from the administration to put it in the president's budget and think the American public doesn't want to protect our national park system anymore.
SIEGLER: An analysis by her group found that in order to cut that much out of the agency's operating budget, the president would need to sell off 350 national park sites, not the 63 official national parks, but the smaller places, like, say, Martin Luther King National Historic Park in Atlanta or California's John Muir National Historic Site.
BRENGEL: You think President Trump always wants to do these overtures toward American legacy, and so it's very, very strange and doesn't really jive with what we saw last time around.
SIEGLER: In his first term, Trump signed a bill adding money for parks. This time, he wants to transfer some of these smaller sites to state ownership, but it's unclear states are interested. For instance, a Utah parks official confirmed to NPR in an email there are no plans to manage anything but state parks. The Department of the Interior did not respond to an interview request, but Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently told the Senate Committee he's trying to cut what he considers unnecessary bureaucracy and hire more people to actually work in national parks.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DOUG BURGUM: Whether they're driving a snowplow in the wintertime, or whether they're working with this interpreter in the summertime or whether they're doing trail work, if they're firefighting. I want more of that. I want less overhead.
SIEGLER: There was bipartisan backlash, including from the chair of Senate Appropriations, Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LISA MURKOWSKI: When we see a skinny budget that proposes to cut 1.2 billion or 35% from Park Service, it's hard to square it with the claims that DOI is focused on fostering the American economy.
SIEGLER: Murkowski says national parks generate billions for the U.S. economy. The fate of Trump's plans to dramatically cut funding from America's national parks now rests with the Senate.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLANCE'S "MAPLE SYRUP") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR鈥檚 programming is the audio record.
