Park Service backtracks, won’t use entrance fees to pay for shutdown operations

The National Park Service (NPS) will retroactively pull from congressionally appropriated funds to pay for the park maintenance and other operations the Trump administration authorized during the partial government shutdown, according to an internal NPS memo obtained by The Hill Wednesday. Dan Smith, NPS’s deputy director and its top official, told staff in an emailed memo that the agency will reverse its earlier, controversial decision to use park visitor entrance fees to pay for maintenance and staffing needs under the shutdown. Instead, he said the NPS will use money from the spending bill Congress approved to end the shutdown to pay for those costs...MORE