Topline
Roughly 1,500 National Park Service staffers are expected to be fired as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly plans to slash $26 million in grant funding to the agency ahead of the busy summer season.
Key Facts
The U.S. Interior Department is finalizing “reduction-in-force” plans expected to cut another 1,500 staff from the National Park Service, with notices going out to employees within 10 days, Government Executive reported Wednesday, as the Trump administration is planning deeper cuts to the agency.
It comes as the Department of the Interior laid off 1,000 NPS probationary workers on February 14, while another 700 took buyouts.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has targeted dozens of NPS grants for elimination in a cost-cutting binge the Trump administration says will save $26 million, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget, released last week, calls for nixing $1.2 billion of NPS funding, representing nearly 40% of the agency’s current budget—the largest cut in the park service’s 109-year history.
Neither the Department of the Interior nor the National Park Service responded to Forbes’ questions regarding the proposed layoffs and budget cuts.
Which Areas Of The National Park Service Are Facing Cuts?
President Trump’s 2026 budget proposal recommends cutting more than $1.2 billion from the NPS, which manages 433 areas including national parks, monuments, battlefields, military parks, comprising 85 million acres of federal land in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and US territories. The bulk of the cuts—$900 million—would come from NPS operations, with the administration arguing that a large number of sites managed by the NPS should be downgraded to state-run parks and sites. “The budget would continue supporting many national treasures, but there is an urgent need to streamline staffing and transfer certain properties to state-level management to ensure the long-term health and sustainment of the national park system,” the document reads. In addition, Trump’s budget calls for $158 million to be slashed from the National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund, the primary federal funding source for matching grants to many state and tribal historic preservation sites, including those listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “Many historic preservation projects have matching funds from state, local, and private sources, rendering the Historic Preservation Fund highly duplicative,” according to the Trump administration’s budget proposal.
Will The National Park Service Have Enough Staff For Summer?
Maybe. A week after the February layoffs, and following a swell of public backlash, the park service announced it would hire up to 7,700 seasonal positions this year, more than the three-year average of 6,350 seasonal workers it normally hires. “There are just a lot of unknowns about how the seasonal program is going to work and whether it will be successful,” Tim Whitehouse, executive director at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a nonprofit serving as a resource for potential government whistleblowers, told Forbes, adding that it may vary park to park “but they are way behind schedule.”
What Are National Parks Staffers Saying Publicly?
There is not much they can say without risking their jobs. In late February, rangers and other front-line staff at parks across the country received emails with instructions on how to speak with the public about the highly publicized cuts, including avoiding the word “fired” and not blaming closures on staffing levels, ProPublica reported. “Things are really at a breaking point, and the lack of transparency has been inexplicable. I think it is organized chaos designed to breed failure,” Whitehouse said, adding that his organization hears from parks employees who are concerned over cuts.
Big Number
332 million. That’s how many people visited recreational sites managed by the NPS in 2024, according to the agency’s website. The previous year, visitor spending in communities near national parks drove a record high $55.6 billion benefit to the nation’s economy and supported 415,400 jobs, according to a 2024 news release.
Crucial Quote
“The president’s proposed budget plan is beyond extreme. It is catastrophic. If enacted by Congress, our national park system would be completely decimated,” Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), said in a statement this week.
How Will Budget Cuts Impact National Parks?
The proposed cuts to the National Park Service budget could result in more than a 75% reduction to the parks system, according to NPCA calculations that found the cuts would “essentially wipe out budgets and staffing for at least 350 national park units” out of the 433 in the parks system. In early April, Interior Secretary Burgum issued a memo requiring that all park units “remain open and accessible to the American public during the specified hours of operation posted on the respective park units’ public webpages.”
Why Is Motivating The Trump Administration To Slash The National Park Service?
Whitehouse and other advocates for national parks point out that opening federal lands for commercialization aligns with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda to expand oil and gas production in the U.S. Trump’s Secretary of the Interior is Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota who has a track record of championing deregulation and catering to the fossil fuel industry. Project 2025 claims the DOI has an “obligation to develop the vast oil and gas and coal resources for which it is responsible” and a mandate to manage much of federal land overseen by the [Bureau of Land Management] pursuant to “multiple use” and “sustained yield” principle,” drawing a contrast with the Biden administration. “Biden’s DOI believes most BLM land should be placed off-limits to all economic and most recreational uses,” the policy paper said. “We have this group of people who have come in from the outside, who don’t know or care about national parks—many or most of them have probably never stayed in a national park—and they seem intent on extracting value from the parks and commercializing and destroying them,” Whitehouse told Forbes.
Tangent
On Monday, President Donald Trump said he would reopen Alcatraz Prison, which was closed in 1963 after the island prison proved too expensive to operate. The site is a tourist destination operated by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco. It welcomes roughly 1.2 million visitors annually, according to the parks service website.
Further Reading
National Park Service Layoffs Spark Protests, Threaten $640 Billion Outdoor Recreation Industry (Forbes)