Overcrowded and underfunded: Trump’s cuts to national parks threaten the US’s ‘best idea’
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- National Park Service has lost close to 25% of its permanent staff since 2025 through mass firings and retirement/resignation incentives, according to former NPS director Jonathan Jarvis, who first joined the agency during the 1976 bicentennial.
- Spending on park projects outside Washington DC has dropped roughly 70% since fiscal year 2026 began — an $854m decrease from the prior year, with roughly $235m pulled from Pacific west parks including Yosemite, according to an investigation by the Atlantic.
- Meanwhile, spending on the national capital region has soared more than 92% as over $100m in park fees were redirected to the president's favored projects, including 250th birthday celebrations.
- Yosemite scrapped its peak-season reservation system this summer, producing Memorial Day weekend traffic jams, illegal parking on delicate terrain, and hours-long lines for bathrooms and buses.
- A federal judge ruled on June 12 that the administration's removal of dozens of exhibits was an attempt to 'rewrite the Nation's history with a white-out pen,' ordering the materials restored before July 4th; the administration appealed.
- The park system recorded roughly 323 million visits in 2025 — more than the NFL, MLB, NBA, NASCAR, soccer and Disney theme parks combined — even as $24bn in needed repairs remain unfunded.
- The recent death of 22-year-old Josue Baires Alfaro, swept over Yosemite's Nevada Fall in June, remains under investigation while the interior department directed parks to stop publicly notifying the public about injuries and fatalities.
Why it matters: The National Park Service is one of the few federal agencies beloved across party lines, yet the simultaneous loss of 25% of permanent staff, a 70% drop in non-DC project spending, and a federal judge's 'white-out pen' ruling on erased exhibits mean that a $24bn maintenance backlog will worsen precisely as record 323 million annual visitors arrive — with staffing gaps already translating into at least one visitor death under investigation.
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