National Parks Experts Urge Congress To Press Burgum On
Staffing, Censorship, and Funding At Upcoming Hearing
For Immediate Release: Monday, May 11, 2026
Contact: Sam Nurick | sa*@***************es.com
On Wednesday, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum will testify before the House Natural Resources Committee. In advance of the hearing, experts from the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, an organization made up of more than 5,000 current, former, and retired employees and volunteers of the National Park Service, released the following topics that should be covered at the hearing.
Because behind the postcard views and facade pushed by the Administration, the National Park Service faces a deepening internal crisis. Staffing reductions have hollowed out the workforce that keeps parks functioning, and resources and visitors protected. More reductions in force may still be coming.
These pressing issues should be front and center at Wednesday’s hearing.
Staffing:
The National Park Service has lost nearly 25% of its permanent staff since the start of this Administration. Although they have since sought to reassure the public that parks are operating normally, this is simply not the truth.
While park employees are needed to staff entrance gates and work with the public, the reality is that essential work happens behind the scenes too. It is IT specialists ensuring that radio communications are working in case of emergencies, human resources specialists who work to hire new park staff, scientists monitoring fragile ecosystems, permitting specialists coordinating public access, procurement staff managing contracts and projects, and planners ensuring parks can operate safely during peak visitation.
These positions have been gutted. Visitors may not immediately see the consequences when programs and offices lose employees, or regional support teams are downsized. But these offices and programs support critical work being done in the parks. And eventually, the effects reach everything: causing delayed maintenance projects, slower emergency response coordination, deteriorating trails and roads, weakened resource protections, permit backlogs, and increased burnout among the remaining staff asked to carry impossible workloads.
Secretary Burgum owes Congress and the public a transparent accounting of how many positions have been eliminated, where those losses occurred, and how they are affecting park operations and public safety.
Continued threats to the workforce:
Secretary Burgum has suggested that National Park Service employees have voluntarily left their jobs or retired. But many staff who left were not at retirement age—they left because they felt pressured or traumatized by attacks on the federal workforce. Secretary Burgum has created a culture of fear, political pressure, and retaliation that has forced many long-time employees to leave.
While under oath, Congress should push Secretary Burgum to commit to the workforce at the department and to clean up the toxic environment many feel he has created.
Erasing history and science:
Under orders from Secretary Burgum, the National Park Service removed a slavery exhibit at Independence Park in Philadelphia. They also removed signage acknowledging climate change at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. And at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in New York City they removed a reference to historical events like slavery, Japanese internment camps, and conflicts with Native Americans. In addition, interpretive signs addressing climate change were removed at Acadia National Park in Maine and the word ‘transgender’ from Stonewall’s website.
National parks have a sacred mandate: to preserve and interpret the full breadth of the American experience, the good and the bad. Erasing history doesn’t make it go away, it just makes it more likely to repeat itself. And harkens back to some very dark and dangerous times in the world.
Congress should demand to know from Secretary Burgum the cost of these orders, how the erasure of history is in line with the mission of the National Park Service, and how doing so honors all of our nation’s history—particularly as we celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday.
The public deserves fully funded and staffed parks, protected landscapes, and honest answers. On Wednesday, Congress must do its job.