When a single F-35 fighter for the Air Force -- just one -- costs in the neighborhood of $100 million, and when the helmet for the pilot of that fighter costs $400,000, is it too much to ask for better funding for America's greatest idea?
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell was practically glowing over President Obama's $4-trillion-plus FY17 budget request, which seeks but $3.1 billion for the National Park Service.
"Highlights" of the request for Interior, she said Tuesday, include the president's "(c)ontinuing historic efforts to revitalize the Nation’s parks and public lands for the next century in recognition of the National Park Service Centennial."
Just days after Park Service Director Jon Jarvis announced that his agency's maintenance backlog was nearly $12 billion, the Interior secretary was applauding the president's proposed $250 million increase in the Park Service's "essential programs and operational needs."
But then, Secretary Jewell works for the president, and so has to support his request. And while the Republican-held Congress most certainly will reject it, the 306.6 million folks who visited a unit of the National Park System last year should lobby Congress to do the president a billion or more better for the parks.
While we are fast approaching the National Park Service's centennial, Park Service salaries continue to lag against those of their peers in the land-management agencies, morale across the agency continues to flag, and the National Park System's infrastructure continues to deteriorate.
Aside from the Find Your Park campaign, which seems to be succeeding in drawing more crowds into the parks, how is the Park Service itself being celebrated on its 100th birthday? As the centennial approaches, park managers are increasingly concerned about how they will manage visitation and resources this summer. The requests from Park Service headquarters to generate centennial events are wearing down some in the field.
What the agency needs is a serious dose of optimism, enthusiasm, and invigoration. One Park Service retiree recently quipped that what the agency needs is another Mission 66, that 10-year program to prepare the National Park System not only for its 50th anniversary in 1966 but also for the onslaught of Baby Boomers who were discovering the joys of seeing America in their Chevrolets.
The National Park Service is the second most-liked agency in federal government, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, and yet the infrastructure and employees are not treated accordingly by those who hold the purse strings in Washington.
“Despite this encouraging movement away from years of damaging budget constraints that have harmed our parks, they still face significant challenges," Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association, said Tuesday in trying to voice some optimism around the president's request. "The Park Service continues to lack the funding needed just to keep up with its now near $12 billion deferred maintenance backlog, the construction account central to addressing half of this backlog remains more than 60 percent below its level 15 years ago in today’s dollars, and there are not enough rangers and other staff to protect nationally significant resources and handle the record-breaking crowds heading to our parks.
How dire are things across the National Park System? According to the agency's own asset inventory:
* Water systems: There is $172.8 million in "critial systems deferred maintenance" in water systems across the parks landscape, and another $422.1 million in deferred maintenance that was not performed when it should have been;
* Waste water systems: Sewer systems across the parks currently face $114.8 million in critical systems deferred maintenance, and another $270.5 million in deferred maintenance;
* Trails: These paths face $173.2 million in critical systems deferred maintenance, and another $481.6 million in deferred maintenance.
And the list goes on, to the tune of $11.9 billion. Healthy parks, healthy people?
"One of the most important ways Congress can support parks as they move into their next century of service is to make sure next year’s budget includes significant increases to the agency’s maintenance and operations accounts," said Ms. Pierno. "The Park Service needs these resources to tackle overdue repairs, fill vacant ranger positions, leverage philanthropic support, protect parks from development, and allow our parks to thrive in their second century."
Before the parks can thrive in the Park Service's second century, though, they need to survive today's budget climate. Perhaps if the National Park Service had its own air force it would merit more attention from Congress and the president.
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Comments
It is true that the National Park Service needs a larger budget. However, as I have noted before, this is an artificial "crisis" created by anti-national park interests and their allies in Congress, who would be happy to starve the National Park System to death.
This problem continues, because most Americans either do not know this is happening or, if so, why it is happening. Indeed, many of them have fallen for the bogus meme by anti-parkers, that "we can't afford the parks we have, so we can't afford to create new ones and should privatize the ones we have." As a result, anti-park members of Congress do not pay any price for diverting funds from the National Park Service.
This situation is inexcusable, considering the findings of the Pew public opinion poll cited in the article. The poll indicates not only that the National Park Service is the second most popular federal agency (just behind the Postal Service, another agency that anti-government zealots would love to privatize), but also that BOTH Democrats and Republicans agree on this.
So the reason there no political will to address the budget needs of the National Park System is not due to a lack of public support. It is a lack of public awareness and of a broad-based, citizen movement to demand congressional action.
Back in the 1970s, conservationists provided leadership, created the Alaska Coalition, and pushed through the Alaska Lands Act. This, despite a largely unfriendly Congress and the vehement opposition of the entire Alaska delegation. We need this kind of leadership today.
This kind of bold, nationwide citizen movement is still possible. Such a movement defeated the Keystone XL pipeline, despite the power of wealthy oil interests and the support of the political establishment.
As the Pew poll reconfirmed, there is a huge, bipartisan base of national park supporters. Now, we need to organize them behind a campaign to support our existing National Park System and to expand the system to include other places across the country that are worthy of national park status.
We did it before, and we can do it again.
Your link on salaries lagging isn't quite salary data showing differences among agencies. Rather, those data are % of employee survey respondents satisfied with salary, which is lower in NPS than in other DOI bureaus, let alone than in most government agencies. Certainly in science & technical jobs, NPS grades the same duties 1-2 full GS grades below other DOI agencies, but a comprehensive job by job comparison across government agencies that would be definitive of lagging salaries would be very difficult to conduct.
More interesting to me in the bestplacestowork site is the overview of NPS:
http://bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/detail/IN10
The number of NPS employees is shrinking, now down to 12815 from 16404 in 2003 (the 16K in 2010 includes recovery act temporary hires). That's down 22% from the peak (2.2%/yr compounded for 11 years). The 2009-2014 5 year averages are 978/yr leaving NPS and 501/yr joining, greater than 4% net loss per year for 5 years. On the order of 8% leaving per year is a bit high for 30-40yr working careers and ~2-3 employers per career; 2-4% hired per year is low. There's also a huge churn among new hires: 2.1% of the workforce was hired in 2014, but only 2.3% of the workforce had less than 3 years of experience, so the majority of hires from 2012-2014 were not with NPS at the end of 2014. [I'm assuming that these numbers don't include seasonals "Temporary NTE1040hrs", but they don't say.]
At the park level, fixed or decreasing budgets combined with increasing utilities as well as salary & benefits per employee, mean the books can only be balanced by hiring fewer seasonals, not replacing staff like interpretive rangers and facilities workers, and deferring maintenence on facilities not the top priority (FBMS has an algorithm for how much to underspend on tier 1, 2, & 3 facilities). Rec Fee funds cannot be used to pay salaries of park employees or pay for routine maintenence. They can only be used for "projects" with a direct impact on visitor experience, and can't be borrowed against or saved up across several years to cover big ticket items such as major restrooms or visitor's centers. I'm glad I don't manage a park!
ps: The new NPS units contribute almost nothing to the budget shortfalls. Some established on former BLM land are still managed by BLM under their budget, other historic monuments are tiny, some like the Anza Trail are virtual.
No worries, friends. Soon all the parks will be wired and everyone can just stay home on their comfortable couches and make virtual visits muncing popcorn and slurping beer or soda while flipping back and forth between a football game and Old Faithful. (Of course there will probably be commercial breaks between views of the elk and chipmunks, but Americans are so well conditioned to commercials that no one will notice.)
Lee, your disdain for technology in national parks is astounding. I've read your comments for years on NPT and while you do make solid points about the parks, this is one where you are completely wrong. The internet, smartphones, computers and those other high fangled devices are here to stay. Shouting about how the kids should be out eating dirt and smelling pine cones instead of having their faces stuck to a screen of a phone, isn't going to stop it from happening. The parks should be "wired," because this is 2016 and that is the way the world works, my friend. The NPS made a decsion a few years back to stop sticking its head in the sand and pretend like technology and parks couldn't coexsist. And thank goodness they did, because the NPS was headed down the road of irrelavancy. Having worked for the NPS for 15 years now, I can see the difference in the way people experience their parks. What I see is smartphones and social media, and the internet enhancing people's visit to a national park. We don't get to dictate how people experience their public lands. Technology and viewing national parks through the internet isn't stopping people from coming to these places. No. In fact, what I am seeing and what other parks are seeing, is that when a park is providing a virtual experience online, that increases the likelyhood of that person being inspired to actually COME VISIT the park. Isn't that what we want? People being inspired to visit and love these places?
Mundsy, nice post. I am a fan of Lee's posts, but am with you on this issue. I would like to thank Traveler for the article on the NPS maintenance backlog and the thom2 post. Unfortunately, it is not just our parks and public lands that are reaping the shortfalls of the neo-liberal austerity budgets of Friedman and Greenspan, our nations infrastructure including roads, bridges, water systems, schools, well the list is quite lengthly, need serious attention also. There is plenty of blame to go around, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, appointed by President Clinton, "explained to the more populist members of the incoming administration that the rich are running the economy and make the decisions about the economy". This in 1992. One interesting development of the current election cycle is the attention being made to this issue. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Mundsy, my good friend, that was supposed to be sarcastically satirical.
I just hope that electronic entertainment never overtakes the wonder of our parks.
One thing that worries me, though, is the diminishing number of real, live, honest to gosh interpretive rangers who just might maybe perhaps be able to help modern youngsters pull their faces out of that screen and introduce them to the wonderful world they may be missing.
Technology has provided some wonderful opportunities to enhance park experiences for visitors. But there needs to be a balance. Finding that balance may be a challenge. (And I've noted a disturbing number of "Out Of Order" signs on technologically advanced visitor center displays -- although that might be part of the maintenance backlog.)
As with anything else, let's proceed with caution.
What dream world are you in? A $4.1 Trillion budget, $616 billion deficit and federal debt of $20 trillion is "neo-liberal austerity'?
EC, a complex issue at best and I am getting away from the topic of parks, but you might be interested in some books on the subject, starting with Naomi Kline, "The Shock Doctrine", Thom Hartman, Unequal Justice, or his latest, The Crash of 2016", a recent one, Robert Pollin, "Greening the Global Economy", well the list is quite lengthly. I think you would find them interesting and they would give you an insight not gained from much of our cable media, agree with it or not, into the background and development of our current economic policies labeled by some as neo liberalism. In any case I must drop it there as it is not in the purview of this website. Thank you Traveler for posting so much on the maintenance backlog in the National Parks. I see it daily during the fire season, my hat is off to the NPS and its employees who really do a great job sometimes under vary difficult circumstances as do the vast majority of our Federal, State, City/County employees.
A $4.1 Trillion budget, $616 billion deficit and federal debt of $20 trillion is "neo-liberal austerity'?
That's what you get when you put two major wars on the credit card.
The wars are a minor fraction of those numbers.
Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying
$615,482 for Cost of Military Action Against ISIS.
Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying
$4 million for Cost of War in Afghanistan.
Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying
$57.52 million for Department of Defense in 2016.
Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying
$1.42 million for Foreign Military Assistance in 2016.
Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying
$936,703 for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in 2016.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/category/military/
How much are we paying every hour to keep our parks operating? Let's see . . . . there are 8760 hours in a year, so 3,100,000,000/8760 = $353,881 per hour for our parks. (If Congress approves all that is requested. Not very likely.)
But still a minor fraction of what we spend overall and a minor contributor to the deficit and debt. So your statement that large budgets, signifcant deficits and overwhelming debt is due to two wars is just a fabrication. Besides, I can quote you the language in the Constitution that said it is the role of the Federal Government to provide national defense. I see nowhere where it says it is the role of the government to run Parks. It can do so if it wants, but it is not one of the specific enumerated powers of Article I Section 8 wheres providing a common Defense is in the first sentence. I think I would rather have that American soldier protecting me than Bambi.
So would I. But let's not allow unbridled waste. Just think what could be done, not only in our parks, but also in the rest of our country, if we found the courage and wisdom to stand up to what Eisenhower warned about and use all that money wisely. Did you actually read Kurt's article?
Perhaps what we need is a national parks equivalent of the military industrial complex.
Hmmm, what could we save to go to parks if all the kickbacks to the Democratic Party via crony Solindra type (investments) funded by the American Taxpayer going back to the cash for clunkers episode at the very beginning. All BS including todays action to demand the Pentagon consider Global Warming in their combat directives. Pretty damn stupid for what passes for reality (not) in some of these discussions. Unbridled waste by those running the action.
Lets not allow any waste. But then lets not lie about the facts either. The facts are contrary to your contention that the out of control spending, large deficits and massive debts are due to two wars. As is typically the case you make fabricated claims and accussations that have no basis in fact to support your narrative.
Believe it or not Ron, I don't watch the cable media. I read. I read the Constitution and works of Joseph Story and Edwin Meese. I read books on Economics and History. I have studied comperative economcis in the past, I have an MBA and still take college classes. When a topic arises I go to source documents to get the facts. I don't make them up.
I understand that capitalism has made our country the strongest and richest nation in the world in the shortest amount of time. I know the destructive nature of envy and socialism/communism and want no part of it. Words matter. Calling todays budgets "austerity" is either blatantly ignorant or intentionally deceptive.
I too would like to see more money for the Parks. But I believe an even higher priority is getting our fiscal house in order. If we continue on the current course it will be more than just the Parks that are at risk.
EC, I have always thought you do like the Parks and I agree that fiscal responsibility is an important issue. One of these days, if our trails cross, we can discuss the other issues in another venue. I was reading an article last night in the Nation magazine by Ann Jones, "A Crash Course in Social Democracy", Feb.15 issue. A very interesting perspective of a journalist who worked in Afghanistan then Norway and returned to the US. She makes some interesting points on some of the issues you have raised. In any case thanks for the response.
I find the President's FY 2017 budget for the NPs to be more than a dissappointment, it is a disaster and further evidence of the gradual decline of the entire NPS system. There is not one word of this in public debates. I fear that this long term problem, if not corrected, will lead to the eventual collapse of our great National Park System. We are the hiers of giants, Mather and Albright, who gave us the park system. The question now is are we smart and capable enough to elect a Congress and President who will see that our wonderful system of parks can survive for the next 100 years. I may be pessimist but I think not. I hope that I am wrong.
www.transsiberianexpress.net/trans-mongolian-trains.html