Will David Vela be re-nominated to be director of the National Park Service?/NPS

Here we are, nearly three years into the Trump administration, and there’s still no Senate-confirmed director of the National Park Service. It’s not entirely the president’s fault. President Trump did, after all, nominate David Vela, at the time superintendent of Grand Teton National Park, last year for the job.

But the Senate didn’t confirm Vela before that last session of Congress ended, and since then the Trump administration has yet to re-nominate Vela, or anyone else for that matter, for the job.

While President Trump is happy to rely on “acting” directors and secretaries of various federal agencies, a move that denies the Senate its right to get to better know how an individual might command and then either confirm or reject them, how the National Park Service is being managed is demoralizing to its far-flung workforce.

Indeed, the Park Service has been led by deputy directors “acting with the authority of the director” since the president was sworn into office back in January 2017.

While there’s word that P. Daniel Smith, the current de facto Park Service director soon will be moving on, whether David Vela will be re-nominated for the director’s job or simply serve as another deputy with the authority of the director remains to be seen.

Does it matter? After all, the president’s agenda will be carried out, whether a Park Service director is acting or has officially been confirmed by the Senate.

Still, in discussing the lack of a confirmed director with high-ranking Park Service personnel, both active and retired, the disheartening effect on the workforce of such an absence at the top of the agency was pointed out.

Let’s not forget that it was just a few years ago, in 2016, that the National Park Service was celebrating its 100th anniversary. There was a great swelling up of optimism that year for the next 100 years, and record-breaking crowds turned out to explore and enjoy the National Park System.

Sadly, that optimism within the agency has been popped like a balloon.

“There had been a hope that the gaze might turn inward a bit, to allow people to catch their breath and come together with efforts that were more focused on internal 'mission support' kinds of changes, cementing the education embrace of the mission, finally getting better at employee safety,” one Park Service veteran told me. “Now, if a career NPS employee can’t even be re-nominated to the position, it sends another quite powerful message to the staff about belief in the career employees as a whole,” they added.

As that individual pointed out, there has been no real agenda for the Park Service under the Trump administration.

Jon Jarvis, the Park Service director under President Obama, said when he took the job that the agency “has the best-run ships in the worst Navy.” While Jarvis put together a strategic plan and had his ships sailing in the same direction, today’s Park Service seems rudderless, and actions the administration has taken with regard to its leadership can't have been helpful.

The administration basically forced Dan Wenk, a long-tenured and well-respected park superintendent, into retirement. And there are a number of regional offices being led by “acting” directors. Those moves also have cut at employee morale, another superintendent told me. Then, too, there's the prospect of a significant upheaval via Interior's intent to reorganize its bureaus, a move that could both impede the Park Service's conservation and preservation missions and have political appointees calling the shots.

“Probably worst of all,” I was told, “the use of national parks as political footballs and the administration’s directive to keep big parks open and misuse fee revenue to fund park operations was a serious blow to morale."

Secretary Bernhardt’s latest directive, that the Park Service expand eBike access without going through the proper process, was another slap in the face, they said.

Whether we see a Senate-confirmed director of the Park Service before the next presidential election arrives remains to be seen. But it would be a step, albeit a small one, in boosting employee morale.