Issues

America’s national parks are in a financial crisis. For years, the National Park Service has been operating on a shoestring budget while dealing with decreases in staffing and record high visitation. On top of these woes, the Park System maintenance backlog has reached an all-time high – nearly $13 billion in needed repairs to crumbling roads, trails, restrooms, visitor centers and other infrastructure.

Over 327 million visitors went to national parks last year, and yet, some members of Congress and the Trump administration regularly consider deep funding cuts to the National Park Service.

Years of underfunding by Congress has forced park managers to often make difficult choices between providing visitor services or repairing worn out facilities. Grand Canyon’s aging water system, which supplies drinking water for millions of visitors is falling apart, while the Blue Ridge Parkway is deteriorating. Yet, the Park Service doesn’t receive nearly enough funding to keep the maintenance backlog from growing let alone keep up with even the most basic repairs and maintenance our parks need.

With mounting repairs and record crowds, our rangers are being forced to do even more with much less. And they shouldn’t have to. We need members of Congress to stand up for the future of America’s legacy and fight to ensure rangers have the resources they need to maintain our parks so they may thrive in their second century.

The National Parks Action Fund supports H.R. 1957, the legislative vehicle for the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act.

One of the most fundamental missions of the National Park Service is to protect landscapes and sites that together tell America’s story. It is important for members of Congress to recognize the vital role that the Antiquities Act and other conservation tools, like the Wilderness Act and the Land and Water Conservation Fund, play in the protection and conservation of our shared cultural heritage. Members must defend these tools so that future generations will have the opportunity to more easily access and experience all their national parks and public lands have to offer.

From the Statute of Liberty to the Grand Canyon, the Antiquities Act has helped preserve places of natural, historical, and cultural significance for more than a century. Except for the Organic Act of 1916, no law has had more influence over the development of the modern National Park System. The Trump administration has already moved to revoke protections for national monuments, actions in stark opposition to the spirit of the Antiquities Act.

Our national parks need and deserve champions in Congress who will ensure that our nation’s most treasured places are managed responsibly and preserved unimpaired for future generations.

The effects of climate change are happening now, and all our national parks are suffering. Their lakes and rivers are drying up, glaciers are melting, beaches are eroding, and historic structures and artifacts are crumbling. Wildlife that use our parks as habitat are being forced to seek refuge in new, more developed areas putting tremendous pressure on centuries-old migration patterns.

Congress must protect our national parks against all threats, including climate change by pushing for stronger public lands policies and funding. They must defend our nation’s air, climate and water laws and hold polluters accountable to those laws to reduce pollutants that harm our communities and parks and accelerate the climate crisis.

There is no time to waste. Congress must step up and work across the aisle to protect our health, communities, and parks and all they stand for.

National parks don’t exist in isolation. They are part of larger ecosystems and landscapes that include other public and private lands, but harmful activities on these surrounding lands are increasingly affecting the land, water, wildlife, and visitor experiences, within national park boundaries.

The Trump administration has made oil and gas development a priority over conservation and lands protection. And many in Congress are working to make the administration’s goals a reality, attempting to weaken standards that protect national parks from oil drilling within their boundaries.

The Trump administration has also attempted to open all of America’s coastlines to expanded offshore oil and gas development, which would threatens more than 60 coastal national parks that provide recreation opportunities to millions of visitors, economic benefits to thousands of local communities and critical protections for marine life.

National parks are no longer safe from the impacts of encroaching oil and gas development at their borders. Congress must stand up for national parks, to protect their landscapes and waters from harmful oil and gas development.

Hundreds of millions of people visit our national parks each year to experience our country’s most pristine landscapes and iconic wildlife. What would the rugged hills of Yellowstone be without the grizzlies and wolves crossing them, or the turquoise waters of Biscayne without the sea turtles swimming amongst its reefs? Even the National Park Service’s own emblem features a bison, a species once faced with extinction but, thanks in part to national parks, is once again thriving.

Unfortunately, some members of Congress are working to remove safeguards for wildlife in the very places these animals should be protected.

In recent years, legislation has been introduced that would dismantle protections for certain species and undermine the Endangered Species Act. If these bills become law, protections for animals and plants across the country will be lost. We must stop these efforts in their tracks.

We need champions in Congress that will support the Park Service’s primary mission of conservation so that wildlife can continue to thrive in our national parks. Congress must work to protect the approximately 600 species of threatened and endangered plants and animals that call parks home.

Tell your congressional representatives to protect the ESA and not gamble with the future of our national parks’ plants and animals.

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