Episode 97: Funding Cuts, Harmful Policies and Your Visit to National Parks with Alan Spears

A recent article in the Washington Post described the current administration's attempts to cancel leases for many National Park Service buildings saying that it could save taxpayers millions of dollars. This move came after the firing of about 1000 probationary workers.I wanted to learn more about the National Park Service and how funding cuts will affect visitors this summer, but more than that - about the cultural and historical background of our national parks and the politics affecting them.So I called on Alan Spears to help us out. Alan is currently the Senior Director of Cultural Resources in the Government Affairs department. He serves as the National Parks Conservation Association's resident historian and cultural resources expert. Alan and I talked about his experience when working on a clean-up project that necessitated a helicopter rescue. We discussed the totality of the National Park Service, the number of visitors each year, and how the extent of funding cuts will affect visitors' experience at the parks and the affect it is having on the park workers. We talked about the mission of the National Parks Conservation Association.We discussed the fact that recently there has been an attempt to rewrite and erase part of American history by an executive order to remove content that "disparages Americans". Trump issued an executive order entitled "Restoring truth and sanity to American History". The order directed the Department of the Interior to conduct a review of history monuments, memorials and other properties for "partisan ideology".We briefly touched on the treaty with Tribal lands, mining on public lands, climate change, air quality and what we, as citizens, can do.NPR Interview and Article: Trump wants to restore statues and monuments. Will that happen?https://www.npr.org/2025/03/28/nx-s1-5343613/trump-executive-order-smithsonian-monuments