|
More than 700 National Park Service employees have submitted their resignations following the Trump administration's offer to resign. According to an internal agency memo shared with the New York Times, workers who agreed to the resignation plan would not be permitted to work after March 7. Federal workers received the resignation offer in an email sent by Elon Musk last month entitled “A Fork in the Road.” Under the offer, employees who accept will leave their jobs, but continue getting paid through September, while those who do not accept it risked being fired.
The resignations follow the Interior department's decision earlier this month to fire more than 1,000 full-time Park Service employees, which came on the heels of another staffing setback in January when the agency rescinded job offers to about 5,000 seasonal workers. The drastic cuts to the Park Service workforce have sparked massive public outcry, and are already causing some parks to reduce hours, cancel tours, and close visitor centers. As many as 325 million people visit the nation’s 63 national parks and hundreds of historic sites and other attractions that are managed by the National Park Service.
“The National Park Service is in crisis and things are only getting worse. In a matter of weeks, 9 percent of Park Service staff have been lost to mass firings and resignations. And this is on top of hundreds of vacant positions that can’t be filled due to the ongoing hiring freeze,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. “These indiscriminate cuts are neither strategic nor efficient; they are devastating. These actions will set the National Park Service back years,” she added.
Western voters reject anti-public lands policies
In a new blog post, Center for Western Priorities' Digital Media Coordinator and Content Creator Sterling Homard digs into the results of the 2025 Colorado College Conservation in the West poll. Now in its 15th year, the poll results show that voters across the West strongly support protecting public land, water, and wildlife—a far cry from the Trump administration’s policies on public lands.
|
I don't know whether we’ll see overflowing latrines, polluted streams, or deadly wildfires first, but Doug Burgum is already leaving a path of destruction across America’s parks and public lands. These terminations are foolish, heartless, and do nothing to make the government more efficient.”
