Leaked Parks Department Memo Raises Questions about the NRA’s Relationship With the Interior Department

That National Park Service raised serious concerns in late June over a bill backed by the National Rifle Association, but they were disregarded entirely by the agency’s overseer, the Department of the Interior.  According to a memo obtained by McClatchy, the NPS’s acting director, Michael Reynolds, pushed back against provisions that would prohibit his agency from managing commercial and recreational fishing within park parameters. He also objected to language that would prevent the NPS from giving input on certain development projects, and regulating the hunting of bears and wolves in Alaska wildlife preserves. Interior’s response to the memo was less than accommodating. Casey Hammond, a political appointee of President Donald Trump, simply crossed out Reynolds’ comments. NPS officials were later ordered to not voice their issues to Congress, according to Jeff Ruch, the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, who provided a copy of the memo to McClatchy...more

Political appointees disagree with career bureaucrats on legislation? Is that shocking? Of course not, it happens all the time. That's why we have political appointees. The only thing newsworthy in this story is that someone in the Park Service is leaking documents to PEER in an effort to undermine or embarass the Trump administration. Or, if the Parkies operate the way they did when I was there, they made sure the appropriate Congressional Dems had the memo, and the Dems or their staff leaked it to PEER.