WYOMING — Last month, the Department of the Interior (DOI) disapproved 140 National Park Service project agreements with outside partners, blocking a total of $25.9 million in funding.
While Grand Teton National Park avoided any project rejections, Yellowstone National Park (YNP) saw the DOI block $428,000 for five agreements relating to cultural resources management. On Tuesday, the Center for Western Priorities (CWP) published an interactive map showing the national parks across the country that were affected. According to media reports, most of the agreements were already scheduled for the upcoming fiscal year starting on Oct. 1.
A DOI spokesperson told The Washington Post that the department had rejected agreements with groups that are “actively working against the best interests of the American people and the priorities of this administration.”
The five agreements in YNP that did not receive funding were partnerships with the Great Basin Institute, a conservation nonprofit that works with federal land agencies. The institute reportedly saw at least $12 million in contracts rejected across the National Park Service (NPS). The five disapproved YNP projects would have dealt with the preservation and cataloging of Yellowstone archives, manuscripts and oral histories; engagement for the Yellowstone Library; and the processing and cataloging of Yellowstone bison management records.
“This decisive action is ensuring that these taxpayer dollars are being used in alignment with the administration’s objectives to make life more affordable for Americans, unleash domestic energy production and expand access to our public lands,” the DOI said to The Washington Post.
On the interactive map, CWP included a description of each rejected project and the project impact. For the two YNP projects that would catalog archives and records, CWP stated: “If not awarded, records that the NPS has a legal mandate to curate and preserve in perpetuity will not be collected.” The project designed to improve engagement for the Yellowstone Library would have sought to increase discoverability and expand outreach to park staff and the public through efforts like a bookmobile.
Joshua Tree and Yosemite national parks saw the biggest impact to projects. The DOI blocked $1.2 million for 10 agreements at Joshua Tree and $1.8 million for nine agreements at Yosemite.
“Every one of these projects had its funding secured, and parks were counting on the work getting done,” CWP Communications Director Kate Groetzinger said in a statement. “Blocking these agreements did not save a dollar. It pushed the work down the road and likely made it even more costly in the future. At Joshua Tree, for example, national park staff wrote that without approval for their projects, wildfires there will be larger and cost more to fight. Let’s hear the Interior department explain why that’s a good thing for the American people.”
