Rangers have hit out at the Trump administration’s plans to hand over control of National Parks to states, warning that it could lead to the closure of many lesser-known sites and monuments.
The unprecedented plans, announced in a budget proposal for 2026, call for sites that receive “small numbers of mostly local visitors” to be handed over to state control and for a cut of some $1 billion from its $4.8 billion budget.
“The National Park Service is protecting not only these really remarkable natural resources, but some of the most important cultural and historical resources as well,” said one ranger who asked to remain anonymous.
“Oftentimes, those more difficult stories and those smaller stories don’t get as much attention as those big-name national parks,” the ranger said, adding that they could now be under threat.
There are more than 430 national parks that span across 85 million acres, including every U.S. state and territory. Among that number are 76 national historical sites and 87 national monuments that include archeological sites and shorelines like the Canaveral National Seashore in Florida.
The ranger said sites like the Nicodemus National Historic Site in Kansas, the only remaining Black settlement west of the Mississippi River, receive very few visitors, but have significant historical and cultural importance.
“It’s telling such an important historical story that it would make sense to me and others that it would be a national park and part of the national story that we protect, but when you’re only looking for diamonds, those smaller gems are on the chopping block, it seems,” they said.
Some rangers see a more sinister reason for the handover of national parks to state control.
The budget proposal comes amid a push from the Trump administration to open national parks for mineral extraction, mining, logging and drilling.
“Any indication of ‘states rights’ is a smoke screen for ease of access to drilling and logging,” said another ranger, who also asked to remain anonymous over fears of reprisals from the Trump administration.
They were also concerned that the handover to state control would inevitably lead to closures.
“The states don’t want these lands. They’re a huge financial burden. They’re going to be sold off and massively downsized,” they said.
Precisely which parks would be handed over to the states is unclear from the budget request. The proposal claims that the budget “would continue supporting many national treasures, but there is an urgent need to streamline staffing and transfer certain properties to state-level management to ensure the long-term health and sustainment of the national park system.”
The budget proposal comes just three months after the Trump administration abruptly fired some 1,000 National Park Service employees as part of a huge reduction of the federal workforce spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory board that has been given sweeping powers by the White House to reduce government spending.
Two courts later ordered the workers to be re-hired, but many of them remain in limbo.
Brian Bengs, 54, was a ranger in Wind Cave National Park, in South Dakota, when he learned his job was at risk of being cut by Musk’s DOGE. The Air Force veteran later resigned and launched a second run for Senate in the state as an independent.
He sees the budget plan as an attempt by the Trump administration to exploit the national parks for profit.
“This is an attempt to recreate the Gilded Age, where public lands were looted for resource extraction, and it helps out the rich folks,” Bengs said.
“An effort to privatize would be easier at the state level. In many of these states, they want money because they can’t afford to do things themselves. So the politicians will be more than happy to turn over whatever resources to the federal government, to private developments, mining companies, and whoever.”
