Senator Coburn Blames Congress, Bloated National Park Service, For State Of National Park System

Senator Coburn

 by Kurt Repanshek

Just as important programs like Medicare and Social Security have been raided for decades to pay for politicians’ pet projects, Washington has also plundered the National Park Service budget to create new parks and programs with little national significance. -- Sen. Tom Coburn.

Our National Park System has become a bloated, underfunded, kowtowing shadow of the ideal for which it was created, according to U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, who lays out his case in a report that casts a withering portrait of Congress as a poor overseer.

In that 208-page report, Parked! How Congress' Misplaced Priorities Are Trashing Our National Treasures, the Republican from Oklahoma blames years of political self-aggrandizement for a park system that carries an $11.5 billion maintenance backlog and which is showing serious signs of decay and, in some areas, insignificance.

But the senator, well-known for pointing out "pork" in the federal government, also describes an overly bureaucratic National Park Service that he paints as a cumbersome agency that spends more on administration and overhead than on the parks themselves.

"... only half of the funds appropriated by Congress even go to the park superintendents, while the national headquarters and regional offices consume more of the NPS budget than facility maintenance projects," the report charges. "Beyond the staff and funding at the individual park units, there is an expansive amount of administrative and specialty support offices and programs.

"In total, the NPS budget provides $455 million to regional and service-wide support offices," the report illustrates. "In comparison, the 59 National Parks representing the 'crown jewels' of the park system receive $442 million in annual general operation and maintenance funds. An additional $168 million is needed for external administration costs such as space rental, postage, and centralized IT costs."

The report, released late Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., and provided in advance of that to the Traveler, comes at an interesting time, less than two weeks after a budget impasse in Congress was resolved and so allowed the national parks to reopen after being closed for 16 days. That closure of the parks generated much anger in some corners of Congress over how the Park Service handled the system's shutdown.

Whether the details of Sen. Coburn's report are used to attack the Park Service's budget remain to be seen. Action on the report could prove interesting, in that it might ferret out wasteful spending by the agency ... or provide justification for a better-funded Park Service.

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Senator Coburns press release is here.  It has a link to the report and a list of the key findings, three of which are:

Of the top 25 most visited National Parks in 2012, only 8 have been approved since 1970 – of the 25 least visited parks, 20 have been established since 1970

 Congress continues to spend between $255 and $529 million annually for more land despite the inability to care for the federal property we already own

The behavior continues today – despite a $256 million shortfall in maintenance funding and an $11.5 billion backlog, more than 35 bills have been introduced this year to study, create or expand national parks, monuments and heritage areas, including a bill to establish a national historic park on the moon