(Photo source: Parkflo.com)
Sixth District Congressman Juan Ciscomani says he’s happy about a Democratic-led bill called the “Public Lands Integrity Act.” Spearheaded by Rep. Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, it would make a minor adjustment to the federal law controlling what can go into a Congressional Reconciliation Bill. Juan signed onto the bill.
A reconciliation bill can authorize spending, or in the case of the high-income tax breaks of last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, reduce federal revenue. But it must balance those with spending cuts. As you’ll remember, Ciscomani supported Trump’s bill to do just that, drastically cutting Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for many of you to provide tax breaks to rich people. And once again, as you’ll see shortly, Juan is misleading us about what’s really going on.
The Public Lands Integrity Act has potential importance—during the OBBB negotiations, Senator Mike Lee of Utah proposed selling off public lands, including chunks of our Coronado National Forest, to balance the bill. That didn’t happen in the end due to public outcry. Vasquez’s bill would put public lands out of bounds for future reconciliation bills, in case Lee or someone else tries this again. So, it’s important, in a mostly theoretical way. But to Ciscomani, “these lands are vital to the unique and striking nature of our state.” Can’t complain about that, but we all know that bill, sponsored by a Democrat, has no chance of passing. It’s more like a letter to Santa Claus.
We can complain about this, though—Ciscomani says and does nothing about the very untheoretical current danger facing our National Parks. He is mute because his boss, Donald J. Trump, is looting their budgets to help finance his spending on Washington, DC, pet projects, in a manner that pleases his questionable taste (the more gold, the better) and his desire to mold the nation’s capital in his own image. A new ballroom for his dinners, a fancy golf course, and a granite walkway for his White House guests at the expense of our National Park system. Really?
Michael Scherer of The Atlantic got a look at Park Service budget documents and had some off-the-record talks with NPS employees. The results are disheartening: “Taxpayer spending on projects in the National Capital Region has increased 92 percent over the past year,” partially using “more than $100 million in fees collected almost entirely from national parks elsewhere.”
As a result, he writes, “other parks are going without. Park Service employees I spoke with describe a quiet crisis unfolding…More than 900 Park Service projects that were expected to be funded this year never received the money.” A source told him that “nearly 70 percent of their approved anticipated project funds” have been cancelled. So, there will be fewer leaky roofs fixed at exhibit halls, historical structures renovated, and handicapped accessible walking paths created, and more youth programs cancelled.
Scherer found that nearly $700,000 was spent to tear up a Tennessee flagstone walkway at the White House, which dated back to the late 1940s, and replace it with African granite, carved in Italy (buy American?). But that’s nothing compared with the $16 million in NPS funds used in the disastrous redo of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, where a no-bid contract to a Trump crony has resulted in a peeling paint mess that has caused the renowned attraction to be fenced off from view just as the Great American State Fair began.
And speaking of the poorly planned and attended attraction honoring the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Scherer reports that about 450 NPS staff from more than 200 parks had been pulled off their regular duties during the parks’ busiest time of year and sent to the Fair. Ciscomani took his son to the Fair (must have been nice—no noisy, jostling crowds). Perhaps he ran into some Park Service employees from his district dragooned into serving in DC for the Great American Nothing.
The staff will likely soon report back to their parks, but the spending on the sites they serve is gone forever. That includes, by the way, $254 million from the NPS Intermountain Region, which contains six locations in Ciscomani’s district, the Saguaro National Park, the Casa Grande Ruins and Chiricahua National Monuments, the Tumacacori National Historical Park, the Fort Bowie National Historic Site, and the Coronado National Monument.
The staffing levels, even when everyone is in their proper assignments, are sparse thanks to the DOGE and other job cuts inflicted on the NPS. Since Trump re-took office in January 2025, the Park Service has lost 24 percent of its permanent workforce, according to the non-profit National Parks Conservation Association.
The Public Lands Integrity Bill (H.R. 9167) has virtually no chance of passing Congress this year. Besides its Democratic lead sponsorship, all legislation has ground to a halt, primarily due to the extreme complications of launching another reconciliation bill (Trump and hard-core GOPers want voting restrictions, which have no place in a budget bill, and which a majority of senators want nothing to do with, anyway).
But Juan Ciscomani trumpets his latching onto the Integrity bill as proof of his National Park bona fides, even as his Supreme Leader drains resources from the parks to make himself feel more important. This is a reminder of Juan’s recent exciting revelation that the Park Service has gotten a $32 billion(!) annual budget. He posted this to his Facebook account, and many of his constituents immediately piled on, because they knew that the amount was no more than the year before, despite inflation and deferred, and even now more deferred, maintenance and construction projects.
Yet again Juan is trying to make us believe he supports a strong National Park system and its employees. But clearly he does not, since he is an automatic vote for a President and his friends in Congress who have reduced staffing and funding of our parks. Like so many of his slippery press releases and newsletter statements, he wants us to believe the things he says, instead of what he actually does, or allows to be done without resistance.
You should take a ride to the Saguaro National Park one of these days, before it gets too hot, and talk to the cactuses, which could give you a more honest version of the state of our National Parks than you’ll ever get from Juan Ciscomani, who will never discuss this with his constituents.
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