The Interior Department is reportedly using at least $90 million in entrance fees paid at America’s national parks to cover the cost of President Trump’s projects in Washington, including repairs to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and an extensive fireworks display scheduled for the July 4th holiday.
The Washington Post’s Jake Spring, Dan Diamond and Naema Ahmed report that the repairs to fountains and statues around the nation’s capital will cost an estimated $76 million, while the fireworks will cost $1.6 million – about five times more than average.
The fees are being redirected from parks nationwide, and advocates say that shift is making it harder to pay for basic needs at the parks such as maintenance, repairs, and improvements. Roughly 20% of all entrance fees are placed in a general fund for use anywhere in the country, and so far this year, about $105 million from that general fund has been dedicated to the region around the capital, while just $27 million has been approved for everywhere else.
“That is not how it was designed to work,” Ed Stierli of the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, told the Post. “It shouldn’t just be all at one park at the expense of the entire national park system.”
Katie Martin, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, said the administration is looking for alternative ways to cover the cost of deferred maintenance projects, including the use of “endowment funds.” Martin also said “we should all be grateful” for the fact that the president is so focused on projects in the nation’s capital.
Critics, though, say there is a cost of focusing so much on one spot. Aaron Weiss, the executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group, told The New York Times that the national parks can ill afford more deferred maintenance. “Our parks and public lands have been underfunded for decades, and there are many genuinely urgent projects in need of funding across the country,” he said. “Instead, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is determined to divert millions of dollars to projects that President Trump can see out his window.”