Washington, DC — The Trump administration is weighing a sweeping “realignment” of the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to internal documents reported by The Washington Post. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) warned today that the plan repeats the defining pattern of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s tenure: major decisions made behind closed doors, without Congress, without the public, and without evidence they will work.

The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are agencies within the Department of the Interior.

According to the Post, staff are meeting this week and next to discuss the realignment, including “pending duty station changes” at the Park Service. The documents do not say whether offices will close or move, or whether employees will be fired. Interior did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.

“Doug Burgum is reorganizing the agencies that protect our parks and wildlife the same way he has run the entire department: in secret, on the fly, and with contempt for the people who do the work,” said PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse.” Before he moves a single ranger or biologist, he owes Congress and the public answers to a simple question: what happened the last time?”

The last reorganization produced chaos, not savings. In April 2025, Burgum launched the largest reorganization in Interior’s history, moving roughly 5,000 positions out of the bureaus and into his own office without congressional approval. He promised “significant efficiencies.” After PEER sued under the Freedom of Information Act, Interior admitted in April 2026 that it has no records showing any savings, and no records of the costs it imposed on the bureaus. Meanwhile, Interior has lost about 11,000 employees, and former staff describe a hostile workplace designed to push them out.

The Park Service is already hollowed out. The Park Service has lost about a quarter of its staff, and the administration has withheld millions in park funding, the Post reports, leaving visitors with long lines, fewer tours and dirty bathrooms and employees working in chaotic environments without clear lines of authority in the agency leadership. At the same time, Burgum has diverted at least $67 million in park entrance fees to President Trump’s beautification projects in Washington, D.C., including the botched Reflecting Pool renovation.

Wildlife protections are being dismantled from the inside. The Fish and Wildlife Service is the agency charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act and managing National Wildlife refuges. This year Burgum narrowed the definition of “harm” to exclude habitat destruction, ended automatic protections for threatened species, and gave economic interests more weight in decisions about critical habitat. A new Fish and Wildlife report recommends cutting headquarters and regional staff. Those offices house many of the scientists who review projects under the Endangered Species Act and enforce the law.

“Burgum has already weakened the Endangered Species Act. Now he wants to reorganize away the people who enforce it,” said Whitehouse. “Shifting a few positions to refuges does not make up for poor management at Interior headquarters and gutting the science that keeps species from going extinct.”

The public and Congress are shut out. Under Burgum, Interior has cut public comment from environmental reviews and proposed eliminating comment periods for major projects on public lands. This realignment follows the same playbook: planned in internal meetings, disclosed only through leaked documents, with no notice to the public or Congress. A similar overhaul of the Forest Service, including moving its headquarters to Salt Lake City, has been put on hold by a federal judge.

“These are the public’s parks and wildlife areas, and Congress funds the agencies that manage them,” Whitehouse added. “Burgum keeps acting as if neither the public nor Congress has any say. The new Congress must make clear that they do.”

PEER calls on Congress to:

• Require Interior to halt any Park Service or Fish and Wildlife realignment until Congress has reviewed it;
• Demand all planning documents, cost estimates and staffing plans for the realignment;
• Call Secretary Burgum to testify on the results of his 2025 reorganization, including the savings he cannot document; and
• Direct the Government Accountability Office to review Interior’s reorganizations and their effect on parks, refuges and endangered species.

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Read PEER’s finding that Interior has no records of reorganization savings

See how the Secretary’s office absorbed thousands of bureau staff

Review the diversion of park entrance fees to D.C. projects

Read the Washington Post Story About the Potential Reorganizations

PEER protects public employees who protect our environment, natural resources, and public health. We support current and former environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values across federal, state, local, and tribal governments.