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Earlier today, we brought you live coverage as NASA's oldest active astronaut, Don Pettit, and two cosmonauts began the procedures to return to Earth after more than 200 days at the International Space Station. | |
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| Joining us now to discuss the impact of Doge Cuts to the National Park Service is Kristen Bringle. | ||
| She's the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. | ||
| Kristen, thank you so much for being with us. | ||
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unidentified
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Thanks for having me. | |
| You've been on the program before, but remind our audience what your organization does, the mission, and who you work with. | ||
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unidentified
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Sure. | |
| We are 1.5 million members and supporters large, and we are the largest national advocacy group for national parks. | ||
| So we work to preserve and protect these wonderful, iconic places. | ||
| You just talked about the number of members you have. | ||
| How are you funded? | ||
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unidentified
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We are funded through membership, so people paying dues and also some foundation money. | |
| We're going to be talking about national parks. | ||
| Wanted to show our audience some statistics about that. | ||
| The national park system, people may think of the major parks, but there's actually 433 units, including monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical parks and sites, lake shores, seashores, recreation areas, scenic rivers, and trails, and the White House. | ||
| They manage more than 85 million acres across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, plus U.S. territories. | ||
| They, until earlier this year, had about 20,000 permanent, temporary, and seasonal employees. | ||
| And in 2024, they also had about 138,000 volunteers helping them across the board. | ||
| When we talk about the Doge cuts, tell us what staffing and funding has looked like in the past year or so. | ||
| Did they have what they needed to operate those sites and locations? | ||
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unidentified
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No, actually, for the last 15 years, the Park Service has been down about 20% on staffing. | |
| And so we've already seen sort of a lack of staff in the parks, and Park Service staff stretched pretty thin. | ||
| So these additional cuts are really harmful. | ||
| And the way that the cuts were made in this indiscriminate way, it means that everyone from a superintendent who leads the park staff to a custodial worker, all of them have been a subject of these cuts. | ||
| And remind us, because there has been back and forth when it comes to staffing, there were cuts and then callbacks, and then there will now be temporary hires. | ||
| What is the Park Service, what is their staffing level at currently? | ||
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unidentified
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I wish I could tell you the precise number. | |
| A lot of this information is being withheld from the public right now, but there was a hiring freeze instituted right away with the new administration, and there were already vacancies in our national parks. | ||
| So what ended up happening was they rescinded some positions early on. | ||
| Then they fired probationary staff people to the tune of about 1,000. | ||
| Then they exempted seasonal staff. | ||
| So that was great that they could actually hire the seasonal staff that they needed for the busy summer months. | ||
| And then there have been a series of early retirements and buyouts. | ||
| So we're projecting, we think, about 2,400 to 2,500 Park Service staff have been sort of forced out over the last two months. | ||
| But I would bet that that number is actually probably higher. | ||
| That's the best we can get from the Park Service with our conversations. | ||
| And we have been having a spring break period where summer is coming upon us and parks are being told that they still need to operate despite having smaller staffs. | ||
| Talk about the impact and strain that it puts on those areas. | ||
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Yeah, I just visited a couple of national parks myself with my children and these places are bustling right now. | |
| They are extremely active. | ||
| There are lots of folks and they just simply don't have enough seasonal staff hired yet and their normal sort of everyday staff there in place to handle the influx of visitors. | ||
| So we're just worried that this is going to be a tough spring break and summer and that the parks aren't going to be able to handle this influx. | ||
| And with this policy that was put in place recently by the Secretary of Interior to keep all facilities open, it really puts pressure on the Park Service staff to have as many visitor services possible, even though they have stretched their staff so thin. | ||
| And so we're just worried that we're going to have really tired, overworked Park Service staff and not enough people to sort of keep up with the volume of visitors. | ||
| And we wanted to let our audience know that Kristen will be with us for about the next 30 minutes or so. | ||
| If you have a question or comment, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines are broken down regionally. | ||
| So if you are in the Eastern or Central time zone, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're in the Mountain North Pacific, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| And also, a special line for those who have recently visited a national park. | ||
| You can call in at 202-748-8002. | ||
| Kristen, I had shown a headline. | ||
| It was in yesterday's USA Today, National Park hit with staff shortages. | ||
| It says, visitors may struggle to find open restrooms. | ||
| That's maybe a minor reason or minor issue when it comes to other things like safety in the parks. | ||
| Talk about specifically some of the areas that people who have been cut, the work that they did. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| So most interpretive staff are the people who do that sort of preventative safety, who say to you, you might want to change your shoes. | ||
| You should bring more water. | ||
| So there's sort of that first line of park rangers that you see when you enter the park who advise you. | ||
| I have seen plenty of people try to do hikes and flip-flops. | ||
| So they really try to make sure that you have the gear that you need for the day to do the activities that you want to do. | ||
| What we're also concerned about, though, is that when those probationary staff were fired, we learned that search and rescue folks were fired. | ||
| Parks, we love our parks, but parks don't have handrails and guardrails everywhere. | ||
| And so sometimes people get themselves into trouble. | ||
| And our concern is that when we hear that search and rescue staff were let go, we don't even know how many people are able to do that type of work right now in parks. | ||
| And we don't know what the safety issue is going to be for some parks going into the summer. | ||
| So we're really worried that people may find themselves in a position of not being able to get help when they need it. | ||
| So we're advising visitors this year to really take it easy. | ||
| Don't stretch yourself too far out there in terms of what your capabilities are, because we just don't know if there's going to be enough staff to help you get back if you get lost, if you get hurt. | ||
| Another article in USA Today, staffers urge visitors to take part in National Park Week. | ||
| We mentioned that. | ||
| Today is the start of National Park Week. | ||
| And the article is talking, talks about the staff and puts it in perspective, talking about those roughly 20,000 employees. | ||
| It says for perspective, he compared that to Walt Disney World, which has roughly 80,000 cast members. | ||
| It says, but the responsibilities as National Park Service go well beyond an organization like Disney World. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, absolutely. | |
| Parks are complicated. | ||
| You have the Grand Canyon, Canyon Country. | ||
| People get dehydrated. | ||
| People have accidents there walking on the trails. | ||
| They don't have the capability to actually do the hikes. | ||
| But you also have battlefields and you have historic sites. | ||
| And people need different kinds of help when they're in parks or direction. | ||
| And so there are so few staff people in most parks right now that we're just worried that folks aren't going to have the same experience that they're used to and be able to turn to someone and ask for help if they need to. | ||
| So it's not even close to that 80,000 number. | ||
| So it's not going to be the same type of services that people might expect when they travel somewhere. | ||
| Our topic is the state of national parks and impact of Doge cuts. | ||
| We will start with Tom in San Jose, California. | ||
| Good morning, Tom. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I just, I have like three points. | ||
| First of all, you listen, and there's going to be some Trump followers that will call in and say, we don't need no stinking parks. | ||
| You know, we need to cut back and all this. | ||
| You watch, just like I heard the other day somebody say about Social Security. | ||
| I don't need my Social Security track checked because I trust Trump. | ||
| Now, I live in San Jose and I use Yosemite quite a bit, and I can't even get a reservation. | ||
| They're not even doing reservations now. | ||
| And I remember going up there before when there aren't reservations and you get backed up in these long lines. | ||
| You don't even know if you're going to get into the park. | ||
| You can't get reservations. | ||
| You don't know what's going to go on. | ||
| I don't have any faith in going up there and using these parks now the way it is. | ||
| And I think it's just because of these followers of Trump's, they're letting this happen. | ||
| The Republicans set back and they don't care and do anything. | ||
| And the people are responsible that voted for Trump are responsible for this. | ||
| And they don't care until it affects them. | ||
| So maybe somebody will call in and go, yeah, okay, I'm going to miss my park. | ||
| But you watch. | ||
| People that follow Trump will call in and say, we don't need no stinking parks. | ||
| I don't care about those parks. | ||
| We need to cut back because there's waste in everything because I watch only Fox News. | ||
| That's what I want to say. | ||
| Thanks, Tom. | ||
| Yosemite does need a reservation system. | ||
| I completely agree with you. | ||
| And it has worked in the past. | ||
| And we've seen the lines diminish and people be able to park and have a great experience in the park. | ||
| So we've been really endorsing those reservation systems so people know when they can get into the park and that they can find parking and then enjoy their day. | ||
| Look, our parks are definitely in a state of desperate need right now. | ||
| And we are really concerned about their ability to be managed well. | ||
| People love these places though. | ||
| And we know Americans love visiting our national parks. | ||
| 332 million people visited our parks last year alone. | ||
| That's historically such a high for the national parks. | ||
| So we know people love these places. | ||
| We know it doesn't matter what political persuasion you are. | ||
| People are going there in droves. | ||
| I was just in two park units this past week. | ||
| Lots of people loving the parks. | ||
| Not sure what political party they're in, but we know that there's this desire to want to keep these places in great condition for future generations. | ||
| And we really hope that there's both the public support and political support for maintaining these parks well and not letting them deteriorate or be understaffed. | ||
| Your work includes talking with members of Congress. | ||
| What have you been hearing from them about these Trump cuts and what are you asking them to do? | ||
| What actions are you asking them to take? | ||
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unidentified
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So we are asking Congress to do a couple of things right now. | |
| We are in appropriation season, even though we haven't seen any bills yet. | ||
| So we're still asking them for more money for the parks and we do every year. | ||
| So we already know that parks are underfunded. | ||
| So we're lobbying them on that. | ||
| But we're also saying to them, call the White House, call the Interior Secretary, get the hiring freeze lifted, and also stop the cuts. | ||
| The parks can't take it anymore. | ||
| So we're really trying to get Congress to think about the effects this is having on the individual parks, especially the ones they care about, and calling those parks and finding out how understaffed they are right now. | ||
| But we are asking Congress to step in here and to make sure our parks are taken care of. | ||
| Let's hear from Mary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I just wanted to make a comment. | ||
| You know, I live in Center City, Philadelphia, and I walk around the city all the time. | ||
| So I'm walking through a national park on a regular basis. | ||
| And the day after the election, I went down to Independence Mall and Independence Hall to kind of regroup. | ||
| And it's very concerning to me about all these cutbacks because we're supposed to be celebrating the beginning, you know, 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year within a few months. | ||
| And with all these cutbacks, it's very upsetting to think that these people are going to be inundated and damage may happen to the park, you know, because let's face it, a lot of people are disrespectful of other people's property and stuff. | ||
| So they have to constantly be vigilant about people not touching things. | ||
| And they keep the parks beautiful here. | ||
| But at the same time, I think the occupant of our Oval Office right now, his only concern about a national park, whether he's ever been in one or not, is how to extract money out of it instead of the greater good for all of us, all of us. | ||
| And, you know, having been to the Grand Canyon, seeing how majestic it is, but also how dangerous it could be, you know, having walked down those trails, and this was 40 years ago. | ||
| So, you know, I can only imagine the inundation of Instagrammers there now. | ||
| But 40 years ago, it was busy. | ||
| But I can't even, I'm glad I went when I did. | ||
| Let's just say that. | ||
| So I commend the park people for working diligently and thank you. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| Thanks, Mary. | ||
| You sound like an amazing park visitor that has seen many places and lives with one in your backyard. | ||
| Independence Hall, like you said, we're about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country's independence. |