It’s difficult to keep up with the many changes to the U.S. government happening under President Trump — and the nation’s parks are no exception.
Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget, passed by the House this week, would make the deepest funding cuts to the National Park Service in its 109-year history. But Trump and his Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, are also moving forward with other changes to how Americans can enjoy public lands.
This week, Burgum overturned a plan to phase out single-use plastics in national parks. President Biden’s Department of the Interior (DOI) issued the plastics ban in 2022 in an effort to “reduce the impact of plastic waste on our ecosystems.”
Moreover, Burgum doubled down on a Trump executive order from March that wants to remove “revisionist” history suggesting that “America is purportedly racist.” On May 20, Burgum ordered all national parks to post signs asking visitors to report any information that “disparages Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).”
Burgum is also moving forward with a Trump mandate to review all parks, monuments, statues, and other DOI properties to determine if they’ve been “changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history.”
The Department of the Interior did not respond to GearJunkie requests for examples of revisionist history in national parks.
Burgum: ‘Plenty of Time’ to Stop Climate Crisis
In 2022, the Biden administration’s ban on single-use plastics in national parks was celebrated by parks groups and environmental organizations as a major win for the nation’s public lands.
But according to Burgum’s order this week, the ban presented “operational and logistical challenges” for the parks, including visitor services, field operations and procurement. The order also directs DOI departments to repeal any policies that “limit the availability of plastic products without a compelling scientific or statutory basis.”
However, the plastic ban received broad support at the time it was passed. Nearly 70,000 people and 300 organizations petitioned the DOI to stop selling single-use plastics in national parks. And a poll by Oceana discovered that 82% of American voters support the ban. It remains a serious problem, according to the 5 Gyres Institute, which estimates that plastic represents 77% of pollution found in national parks.
But Burgum refused to back down from Trump’s controversial policies for the parks system this week. Speaking before a House committee, he said there’s “plenty of time” to solve the climate crisis, Mother Jones reported. In another Congressional meeting, he also defended Trump’s budget plans for even deeper cuts.
“We got several thousand people working in IT, and I don’t know what they do,” he said, referring to information technology.
Removing ‘Negative’ History From Parks
Trump said in a March 27 executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that the United States isn’t getting the credit it deserves for its record of “remarkable achievements.”
To fix that, Burgum is moving forward with a review of all DOI property to determine if any sites “inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.”
To “encourage public participation,” Trump and Burgum have ordered all 400+ sites under the DOI’s purview to add signs asking visitors to report anything that casts the United States in a “negative light.” The signs will include QR codes for easy response and must include the following message:
(Name of property) belongs to the American people, and (name of land management bureau) wants your feedback. Please let us know if you have identified (1) any areas of the (park/area, etc. as appropriate) that need repair; (2) any services that need improvement; or (3) any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.
The order applies to sites owned by the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service. The parks in question include many historic sites important to the history of slavery, Civil War battles, and the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
“Should rangers at Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument avoid speaking negatively about slavery?” Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks Conservation Association, said. “Should rangers at Manzanar National Historic Site avoid talking about the imprisonment of Japanese Americans? This new order sets a dangerous precedent of prioritizing nostalgia over truth at our parks.”
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