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A new proposal under consideration by the Trump Administration would allow private companies to play a larger role in national parks, transferring public assets and heritage to private industry. The set of recommendations, which were issued by the Interior Department’s controversial Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee, proposes blackout dates for senior discounts; privatizing campgrounds; and commercializing parks through Wi-Fi access, food trucks, and Amazon deliveries.
The proposal is justified by the Trump administration as a response to federal agency maintenance backlogs—even as the administration proposes steep cuts to those agencies. The move toward privatization would be in direct conflict with the original vision of national parks as a celebration of wonder and exploration in the outdoors. Such proposals are also contrary to the mission of the National Park Service to conserve rather than exploit the lands they are tasked with stewarding.
The recent proposal comes from a committee organized by former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in 2017, which includes a number of business executives with a vested interest in park privatization. In 2017, the Washington Post reported that NPS officials had issued a warning that 4 of the people nominated to serve on the panel had been flagged for conflicts of interest.
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The corporate interests on this committee stand to financially benefit from the privatization and corporate giveaways they are empowered to make. And they are strategically inflating the Park Service’s maintenance backlog to use it as a talking point to scare the public into accepting privatization as necessary in our national parks.”
