In its 109-year history, the National Park Service (NPS) has never seen its budget slashed like this. President Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget, released on Friday, parallels the steep cuts suggested by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The proposal would strip $163 billion from the 2025/2026 federal budget, including a $1 billion reduction in funding for the NPS.
That represents more than 20% of all funding for the park service, one of many federal agencies being dismantled by Trump and Musk. Moreover, Trump doesn’t stop at funding cuts. His proposal also reiterates plans to transfer some national parks to the ownership of individual states, effectively removing them from the park system — something no president has ever done.
Trump defends the budget plan as necessary to reduce the national deficit. To that end, his proposal represents a 22.6% reduction from current federal spending, including additional cuts to the environment, education, foreign aid, and healthcare. But NPS advocates said further reductions to the park service would further erode its ability to handle record visitation.
“This is the most extreme, unrealistic, and destructive National Park Service budget a president has ever proposed in the agency’s history,” Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement. “It’s nothing less than an all-out assault on America’s national parks.”
Fears Mount of Losing Parks: Trump Targets NPS Budget
Many NPS advocates fear that Trump’s plans will result in the loss of some national parks, and that fear has only increased with Trump’s latest proposal.
His budget includes language that suggests he’s willing to offload some of the country’s 433 NPS sites. In an itemized list of major budget changes, the proposal says many of those “are not national parks in the traditionally understood sense.”
“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 proposal states.
But most states lack the funding to manage national parks independently, “so the inevitable outcome is the closure, then privatization of our most treasured public lands,” Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, said in a statement.
“President Trump and Interior Secretary Burgum just revealed a bleak vision for America’s parks and public lands,” Rokala said.
Trump’s proposal isn’t all cuts. While his budget heavily targets park staffing, it also suggests paying $150 million for the country’s 250th anniversary in 2026, and another $40 million to build a new park he calls the Garden of American Heroes.
Trump also doubled down on calls to bring oil and mining into Gates of the Arctic National Park, and Preserve and Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Continued Protests Over Park Cuts
Even before last week’s budget announcement, protests have been steadily mounting over Trump’s cuts to federal agencies managing public lands.
He has laid off thousands of workers, frozen spending, placed slated office buildings for lease cancellations, and delayed the hiring of seasonal workers right before the parks’ busy summer season. Most recently, Trump’s Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum, put an oil executive working at DOGE in charge of the NPS. Burgum has also suggested selling off public lands to help reduce the national deficit.
Many former park officials have criticized those measures, which have led to widespread protests at national parks around the country. Last week, the nonprofit advocacy group More Perfect Union began an ad campaign for 300 billboards in 40 cities highlighting the consequences of Trump and Musk’s park cuts. The group said those include reduced staff, longer wait times, and dirty or unsafe facilities.
“While some elected officials and unelected billionaires would rather privatize or eliminate our public services, we believe strongly in the need for great public parks and outdoor spaces that all Americans can enjoy,” Faiz Shakir, executive director of More Perfect Union, said in a release.
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