In recent years, Congress has appropriated $2 million for the annual Independence Day celebration in Washington, D.C. This year, while that event occurred as scheduled, at the other end of the National Mall President Donald Trump spent millions of additional dollars on his own military-themed “Salute to America” Independence Day celebration.
The cost of Trump’s event, $2.5 million, was diverted from the National Parks Service, specifically from a $300 million account generated by visitor fees and a special fund to honor the centennial of the National Park Service in 2016. The taxpayer-funded budget of the NPS is $3.2 billion. While visits to national parks have increased 14 percent since 2011, to 300 million annually, staffing over that period has decreased by that same amount, 14 percent, leading to a serious deferred maintenance problem at parks across the nation.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations with the National Parks Conservation Association, a non-profit that works to strengthen, protect and promote U.S. national parks. Here, he discusses the funding diverted from the National Park Service for Trump’s military celebration, the dire needs of U.S. parks, and why Congress should fill the budget gap.
JOHN GARDER: It was vastly inappropriate for a number of reasons. Robbing those fees as well as fees from a matching grants program undermined maintenance projects that are overdue,. as well as other programs and projects that are important to the visiting experience. Congress was very specific in passing fee legislation as well as creating the Centennial Challenge Program, which is that matching grants program that these were things that were intended to enhance the visiting experience and supplement appropriations dollars. One of the things that was so offensive about it was it also went around Congress. There was no effort to check in with appropriators and say, “This is the money we’re going to use from these accounts and here’s why we think it’s important to visitors.” They really just said they were going to do it and went ahead and did it without any consultation.
It’s unfortunate that these needed fee dollars were robbed for the 4th of July event — that was unnecessary — because most of those fee dollars go towards deferred maintenance projects, that is, the backlog of overdue repairs that is really challenging the park service and of deep concern to the many communities that surround national parks — businesses, local economies, elected officials as well as groups that support the parks.
BETWEEN THE LINES: I know there’s a huge dollar amount for deferred maintenance that’s not in the NPS budget. Can you talk about that?
JOHN GARDER: The park service deferred maintenance backlog has been growing over the years because current funding sources have been insufficient. So now the problem has grown to $12 billion of decaying trails, visitor centers that have old wiring and plumbing that needs to be replaced, leaking roofs, roads that are degrading, water systems that need to be upgraded or replaced. Many things visitors don’t see, some that visitors do. The list goes on and on. Importantly, this is not a problem that be indefinitely deferred. The longer Congress waits to address this problem, the worse these facilities will become, the more it will cost to address the problem, and the more it will start threatening the visiting experience because if things aren’t repaired, they will have to be closed down, and that becomes even more of a problem.
BETWEEN THE LINES: And I just want to be clear: you said $12 billion, right, not $12 million?
JOHN GARDER: That’s right. Which if you do the math is four times the annual budget for the National Park Service.
BETWEEN THE LINES: What, if anything, is Congress doing about this huge budget shortfall?
JOHN GARDER: So, Congress has made efforts with current funding sources to increase support to address the deferred maintenance backlog through the highway bill that is passed every few years, which addresses the transportation half of the deferred maintenance backlog — roads, bridges, tunnels and so forth — and they’ve been gradually increasing those funds, which is very important. However, that’s insufficient.
For example, they’re getting somewhere on the order of $300 million annually, but some of these projects are huge, like the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which alone is $250 million. So, those increases are helpful; Congress should continue with that trend, but it’s insufficient. The non-transportation side — visitors centers, water systems and so forth — are funded through annual spending bills. Congress should be commended for increasing those funds the last five fiscal years, but those are also insufficient and given current funding constraints in Congress, those current funding sources will be insufficient to address this problem. So something bigger is needed, which is why bipartisan members of Congress have introduced legislation that has huge support — more than half the members of the House of Representatives, almost half of the Senate — that would dedicate $6.5 billion towards this problem over five years. The funding comes from a portion of receipts that come from energy revenue — offshore and on-shore drilling and renewable energy. In the Senate it’s S 500, the Restore Our Parks Act; in the House, HR 1225, the Restore our Parks and Public Lands Act, which addresses deferred maintenance at parks but also other federal public lands like national wildlife refuges.
BETWEEN THE LINES: How does the future of funding look under the current administration?
JOHN GARDER: This isn’t the first time that the administration has robbed fees for other purposes, and we and members of Congress are deeply concerned that they are essentially turning this into their slush fund for whatever they want to spend these dollars on.
For more information visit National Parks Conservation Association at npca.org.
