Are federal campgrounds about to be privatized under Trump?

Tim Pearce, DCNF

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and the National Park Hospitality Organization (NPHO), which represents private service-based companies, agree that the National Park Service (NPS) needs to outsource more of its responsibilities to private enterprise.

Image: Shutterstock Yosimite National Park

At a Recreational Vehicle Association (RVIA) meeting June 6, Zinke said cuts to the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) budget combined with a multibillion-dollar backlog of deferred maintenance to national parks has him looking at ways to cede some park management responsibilities to private companies, E&E News reports.

“As the secretary, I don’t want to be in the business of running campgrounds,” Zinke told RVIA members, according to E&E News. “My folks will never be as good as you are.”

The NPHO is helping lead a campaign to turn over some NPS duties to private enterprise. Derrick Crandall, the group’s counselor, met with Zinke in April to discuss such opportunities for businesses.

“Why is it inherently a Park Service responsibility to clean toilets, pick up trash and take reservations for campgrounds? Is that something that the agency has a particular expertise on, is it in their wheelhouse?” Crandall said according to The Hill. “There is an important role for the Park Service in campgrounds in the future, but that is in the interpretation role, the educational role. It’s not necessarily taking reservations, cleaning bathrooms.”

President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts $11.7 billion from the DOI. The budget was announced in May and has directed the tone of federal agencies’ operations under Trump.

“Working carefully with the President, we identified areas where we could reduce spending and also areas for investment, such as addressing the maintenance backlog in our National Parks and increasing domestic energy production on federal lands,” Zinke said in a DOI press release when the budget was announced. “The President’s budget saves taxpayers by focusing program spending, shrinking bureaucracy, and empowering the front lines.”

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