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Park advocates are taking Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to task for misleading Congress about the staffing crisis unfolding in the National Park Service on his watch. Burgum testified that NPS would hire more than 5,000 rangers for the busy summer tourist season, but so far, only 3,300 seasonal and temporary staff are working at the Park Service, according to Interior's own database.
As of May 13, the National Parks Conservation Association reports that there were just over 18,000 employees at NPS, a drop of more than 16 percent from Fiscal Year 2023. The slow hiring of seasonal staff this year is nearly 40 percent lower than in FY 2023.
One park employee told E&E News that the Trump administration's chaos and job cuts have made it harder to recruit temporary employees.
“Hiring seasonals is always challenging with the low pay in NPS, but folks don’t want to work for the current regime due to even less job security,” they said.
Burgum moves to open Alaska wilderness to drilling and mining
In the midst of the staffing crisis, Burgum traveled to Alaska to announce plans to remove protections from millions of acres of sensitive lands in Alaska, rescinding a Biden administration rule that sought to bring balance to the pristine area known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. In 2023, a Center for Western Priorities analysis found that nearly 90 percent of public comments supported the Biden administration's protections.
Burgum was accompanied on his Alaska trip by Energy Secretary Chris Wright to promote a proposed liquefied natural gas pipeline in Alaska—a project that has stalled because of its immense price tag and a lack of customers for Alaskan LNG.
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Secretary Burgum’s narrative doesn’t match the reality unfolding in our parks. The Park Service is in a full-blown staffing crisis. Even national parks like Yosemite are struggling to provide basic visitor services with overwhelmed park staff. Thousands of essential positions remain vacant across the system, including roughly 100 superintendent roles. The agency is being stretched to the limit without the leadership or resources it needs to function.”
