Ryan Zinke leads public relations charge during government shutdown

By Dino Grandoni

In 2013, when the federal government shut down over an impasse between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans over the Affordable Care Act, images of campers canceling trips to closed national parks and veterans storming barricaded war memorials in wheelchairs filled newspapers and television screens, stoking anger among both Democrats and Republicans as each side sought to blame the other. Five years and one government shutdown later, the Trump administration has a different plan -- to make the government shutdown as low-profile and painless as possible for the general public. Leading that public relations charge is the overseer of the national park system, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. During the government shutdowns in 1993 and 2013, the closure of the iconic sites managed by the National Park Service, a division of the Interior Department, became a flash point for public anger and partisan bickering. Interior moved on Friday before the shutdown to keep hundreds of parks and monuments accessible, even if unstaffed. At Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, puzzled visitors found themselves in a park open but void of rangers, with visitor centers locked, The Washington Post reported Saturday. At the nation's oldest national park, Yellowstone, park-goers were greeted with signs explaining that visitors could enter the park at their own risk...more