I. Introduction
“The best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst”(1). Historian Wallace Stegner’s feelings about the national parks system were clear, and this lofty praise was not lightly given. America’s national parks are nothing short of amazing. The parks offer some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the world, and cover such an immense variety of environments and interests that it is essentially guaranteed that a visitor will find some park in the country that they can enjoy. From the awe of the Grand Canyon to the quiet beauty of the gardens in Golden Gate National Park, visitors are able to experience an immense diversity of experiences and natural beauty in America’s national parks. The parks provide a vital opportunity for people to connect with nature and be exposed to a more peaceful environment with their friends, their families, or by themselves. They are scattered across the country, creating an interconnected web of protected area for people and wildlife to enjoy in peace.
It is nearly impossible to argue against the merits of the national parks system, and it truly is one of America’s best ideas. But such a system, as with everything in today’s world, comes at a cost. Maintaining 407 parks that cover a total of 84 million acres(2) requires vast amounts of effort, time, and money. It is up to the government to decide the budget for the parks, but it is up to the people of this nation to advocate for these areas and remind Congress of the importance of the national parks budget.
II. Background
The concept of national parks began in 1872, when Congress passed an act establishing Yellowstone National Park as a public park under the sole control of the Department of the Interior(3). Other parks soon followed, but there was no official system for the maintenance or regulation of these new national parks until 1916, when Woodrow Wilson signed an act establishing the National Parks Service (NPS). The purpose of this new body was to “regulate the use of…national parks… by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations”. The number of parks has increased dramatically since the creation of the NPS, now at more than 400 compared to the initial 35. However, national parks and the NPS continue to serve their function to this day: “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same”(4).
National parks have been a vital feature of America since the day that they were established, though it took some time for them to become a mainstay in American culture. A report from the NPS shows that between the years of 1904 and 1940, national park visitation went from 120,690 visits to 16,755,251(5). By, 1980, after another 40 years, that number skyrocketed to more than 220 million recreational visits per year(6). That number has continued to grow, albeit slowly, and visitation in 2014 was 292 million(7). These statistics illustrate the importance of national parks and begin to reflect the necessity of maintaining the parks at their current status and continuing to improve them. For a country with a population of not much more than 300 million, 292 million visits per year is staggering. A significant portion of these visits come from foreigners, but that does not diminish the fact that so many people from America and around the world share a passion for these parks.
The motivation for all of these visits is self-evident for anyone who has been to a national park. Large or small, America’s national parks are a place where something much larger than a few acres of forests are preserved. The parks contain the nation’s history and its beauty. The great cities of the nation contain the country’s modernism, industry, and innovation, but the parks exist to remind people where they have come from and what is truly important in life. National parks provide an outlet unlike any other in America to relax, to explore, and to connect with nature and history in a way no other place can. Speaking about the parks, former NPS director Newton Drury stated: “The National Park System represents America at its best. Each park contributes to a deeper understanding of the history of the United States and our way of life; of the natural processes which have given form to our land, and to the enrichment of the environment in which we live”(8).
III. Money Talks
Beyond the rich natural and historical details of the parks, there is another factor that has become increasingly relevant in discussions of their merits: money. Eventually, every service and good comes down to money, and the national parks are no exception. There are a thousand ways to analyze the economics of a national park, but this brief will focus only on select areas to remain concise.
The first consideration, before looking at the benefits of the parks, is the associated costs. The national park system requires a huge amount of labor and various resources in order to keep everything running smoothly. The NPS currently has more than 20,000 employees covering a wide range of jobs, from archeologists to botanists to park rangers, of which there are only approximately 4,000(9). The rangers do not come cheap, either; a park ranger typically earns anywhere between $30,000-$60,000, depending on experience and responsibilities(10). The NPS relies heavily on its hundreds of thousands of volunteers in order to cut down the number of actual employees required, but the labor costs are still significant. Those employment costs, though, are almost negligible when compared to the total operations expenses.
The budget for the fiscal year of 2015 has already been enacted, and the breakdown reveals some interesting information about how the money is spent in the parks(11). The vast majority of the budget is spent on the actual operation of the national park system, including such areas as park management, visitor services, and park support. As would be expected, the largest single piece of the budget is maintenance and operations, which costs more than $700 million. Other areas of interest include construction costs and land acquisition, both of which cost more than $100 million. The NPS budget is clearly designed with a focus on conservation and expansion, which is to be expected. That said, $2.6 billion dollars in addition to $1 billion in mandatory appropriations due to previous expenses is an enormous amount of money that cannot be generated simply by entrance fees. The money comes from the taxpayers, and while the parks offer a significant unmet need for hundreds of millions of people, it is understandable that there are those who would question the true value of the parks. To address that, more economics are required.
Since 1988, the NPS has tracked visitor spending in addition to just visitation statistics(12). The statistics show a breakdown of the spending, most of which is in out-of-park lodging, but arguably the most important piece of data is the total. In 2013, visitors spent a total of $14.5 billion during visits to national parks, and it is estimated that the secondary effects of that spending resulted in more than $26 billion of economic activity. The budget, though, was only $2.8 billion(13). This essentially means that for every dollar invested into national parks, there is a ten dollar return on that investment(14). The economies of “gateway communities” (those within 60 miles of a national park) are significantly bolstered, as can be seen in the job market. The National Park Conservation Association found that 267,000 private-sector jobs are generated every year thanks to national parks(15). National parks, beyond their inherent value to the country in preserving its natural beauty and history, are lucrative investments that drive the economy in the neighboring regions and across the entire country.
Evidence of the necessity of national park funding and the detrimental effects of budget cuts was brought to the nation’s attention during the government shutdown of 2013. During the 16 days that the government was shutdown, national parks across the nation were closed and visitors were denied entry. These two weeks, which luckily occurred during the offseason for the majority of the nation’s parks, are estimated to have decreased visitation by nearly 8 million visits, which in turn cost the nation more than $400 million(16). The parks and their surrounding communities are extremely reliant on the park budget, and if parks are forced to shut down permanently or during certain days due to a lack of funding, the entire nation will suffer as a result.
IV. The Current State of Affairs
The current discretionary NPS budget of approximately $2.6 billion for the fiscal year of 2015(17) is simply one more data point on the negatively sloping trend of the national parks budget in recent years. Though a mere .074% of the nation’s total budget(18), the budget for national parks is continually eroded. In 2002, after adjusting for discrepancies between the value of the dollar, the national parks budget was approximately $3 billion(19), representing a 13% decline. Visitation, however, has remained essentially constant and has even seen a slight rise, with 276 million visitors in 2002(20) compared to 292 million in 2014. The NPS is serving more visitors and is spread across more parks, all with a significantly reduced budget due to congressional limitations.
The drawbacks to budget cuts are numerous and would affect a broad range of people and sectors. These include cutting park ranger programs, ceasing work to study or protect endangered species, decreasing positions for law enforcement officers, and in the most drastic scenarios, temporary or prolonged closure of certain parks. In 2013, many of these consequences took effect. A visitor center in Mt. Rainier was left closed, along with the Declaration House in Philadelphia where Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence was, and Acadia National Park in Maine remained on reduced winter operations for an extra month, all to save money and meet the budget allocated by Congress(21).
If the NPS’s budget continues to decline as it has over the past decade, then the services and benefits offered by national parks will begin to disappear as well. In addition, the quality of the parks will start to slowly worsen over time as more and more necessary funds are lost. The NPS currently has a backlog of maintenance projects that will cost approximately $10.8 billion, with $3.7 billion of those projects deemed as critical(22). This money goes towards necessary projects, such as providing safe drinking water at the Grand Canyon or fixing guardrails in Yellowstone.
There is another side to this story, of course; the country’s debt is staggeringly high and cuts need to be made somewhere. By cutting some money from programs that are deemed to be nonessential, lawmakers are able to start getting the nation back on the right track and reduce spending across the board. Additionally, although many members of Congress support the national parks, especially the ones in their districts, some feel that the consequences of the spending costs are either over exaggerated or regrettable, but necessary. For example, Representative Jason Chafftez stated that “There’s no reason we have to open the parks later. They’re going to have do more with less”, whereas Representative Steve Daines reminded his constituents that “the reality is that we have an escalating debt crisis”(23).
V. The Solution
America’s national parks, like many species of animals that they protect, are endangered. As budgets rise to the top of congressional to-do-lists, national parks fall to the bottom. As the parks continue to operate on smaller and smaller budgets, they are forced to cut programs, delay necessary maintenance, and shorten the time that they will remain open. People are losing access to the parks, meaning that they and their surrounding communities are losing the essential spending from those visitors. This continues in a vicious cycle; the park receives less funding, so people aren’t able to go, then the park has even less money, so even fewer people go, etc. It is time for this cycle to be reversed, and the only way that can happen is if the national park budget is increased.
The current 2016 proposed budget includes an additional $443 million of additional discretionary funds, which would address several key areas of national park spending. Extra funding would go towards park rangers, allowing the NPS to hire more rangers and increase the salaries for current rangers, creating and protecting jobs. $40 million would go to the Centennial Program, which helps the parks raise money from private investors. And finally, the majority of funding would go towards addressing the greater than $11 billion backlog of projects, which would create construction jobs and ensure the safety and the beauty of the parks(24).
This additional funding is just a small step towards addressing the problems with the NPS budget, but it is necessary that the nation begins taking these steps in order to preserve the glory of the national parks. The parks must not be allowed to simply wither away due to lack of funding and interest or else some of the greatest natural lands in the world will be lost and inaccessible. Only by bringing this matter to the attention of Congress through phone calls, petitions, or even just emails can the country ensure that this generation, just like every other generation for the past 100 years, will be able to pass on this legacy of greatness and beauty down to the next.
1. “America’s Best Idea Today”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 17 Sept. 2009. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
2. “Frequently Asked Questions (U.S. National Park Service)”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 26 Mar. 2015. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
3. “History (U.S. National Park Service)”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 01 Apr. 2015. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
4. “Section 1.4 of the 2001 Edition of National Park Service Management Policies”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
5. “Public Use of the National Parks; A Statistical Report”. Publication. 1904-1940. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Print.
6. “Public Use of the National Parks: A Statistical Report”. Publication. 1970-1981. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Print.
7. “Annual Visitation Summary Report For: 2014”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
8. “Famous Quotes Concerning the National Parks”. National Park Service History: NPS Thinking, Famous Quotes Concerning the National Parks. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
9. “Work with Us (U.S. National Park Service)”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 01 Apr. 2015. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
10. “USAJOBS”. USAJOBS – The Federal Government’s Official Jobs Site. United States Office of Personnel, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
11. “Budget Justifications and Performance Information Fiscal Year 2015”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 2014. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
12. Thomas, Catherine, Christopher Huber, and Lynne Koontz. “2013 National Park Visitor Spending Effects: Economic Contributions to Local Communities, States, and the Nation.” (n.d.): n. pag. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, July 2014. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
13. “Budget” 2015
14. “The Economics of National Parks”. The Economics of National Parks. National Parks Conservation Association, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
15. “Made in America: Investing in Our National Parks for Our Heritage and Our Economy”. National Parks Conservation Association, Nov. 2011. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
16. Lovitt, Rob. “National Parks Contribute Billions to Economy, Report Finds.” NBC News. National Broadcasting Company, 3 Mar. 2014. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
17. “National Park Service Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Justifications”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 2015. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
18. “Made in America”
19. “Made in America”
20. “Annual Visitation Summary Report For: 2002”. National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
21. Dawson, Christopher. “7 Ways Budget Cuts Will Hit National Parks – CNN.com.” CNN. Cable News Network, 20 May 2013. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.
22. “Made in America”
23. Dawson, Christopher
24. “Get in Touch.” Congress: Please Restore Park Funding for 2016. National Parks Conservation Association, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.