Our country’s National Park System (NPS) is under attack the likes of which this country has never witnessed before.
Until this administration, support for our NPS in Congress has been bipartisan and widespread. That is no longer the case. Under the leadership of Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, the National Park Service has embarked on illegal and chaotic staff cuts, forced resignations, spending cuts, and top-down bureaucratic control that have sent our parks rapidly spiraling into a state of crisis.
To make matters worse, many in Congress and Secretary Burgum are proposing to sell off some national parks and to open others for mining. Secretary Burgum has even proposed using our national parks as collateral for foreign debt. Worse yet, the House just passed a budget bill that contains cuts so drastic they would mean the end of our parks as we know them.
The past few months have been busy as we work to counter these moves by raising awareness of the administration’s efforts to decimate our parks. In this edition of PEERMail, we are sharing with you some of our work from the past few weeks and how you can work together to help save our national parks. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us for more information.
Sincerely,
Tim Whitehouse
Executive Director
P.S. Your support means so much during this challenging time. If you’d like to join others in backing our work, you can contribute here.
Tell Congress to Protect Parks and Public Lands
The best thing you can do is to call your elected representatives and tell them to protect our public lands. The next best thing is to write a letter telling Congress to stop the Trump administration from handing public lands over to private industry and polluters. We have provided a letter that you can edit to send automatically to your elected representatives. Read More »
Over One Thousand National Park Sites Open for Mining
As current national policy directs a drive for more domestic development of strategic minerals, our national parks may be targeted for many more mining operations. Although filings of new mining claims on parklands have been barred by law for nearly 50 years, a new PEER FOIA reveals there are more than 1,000 valid pre-existing claims within national park units. Read more »
How Bad is the House Budget Bill?
The recently passed House of Representatives budget bill will harm our country and the public health and environmental issues we need to collectively address. We have written a brief summary about why this bill is so dangerous and some of the ways it will impact our national parks and public lands. Read more »
