The Pros And Cons Of The National Park Service

In August of 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill called the Organic Act of 1916 which, among other things, created the National Park Service, or the NPS. The primary duty of the NPS was and still remains to regulate and maintain the usage of federal lands designated as National Parks, National Monuments, and Reservations. With the NPS just having celebrated its 100th Anniversary in 2016, there has been a recent rejuvenation in the debate for its future­­should its budget and land be expanded or be reduced? While there are many relevant arguments to be considered on both sides of the fight, the only direction that America’s parks can go in is to an overall reduction in its size. In fact, one of the current objectives of Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke is to visit federal lands and decide which to reduce and

The present budget of the NPS, provided by a combination of visitor fees and donations along with the congressionally dedicated budget totals nearly $3 billion per year. This value is calculated by Linda Bilmes, a lecturer of public policy at Harvard University, and by John Loomis a professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University. The pair also estimates that America’s National Parks are worth nearly $92 billion (Bilmes and Loomis). This means that by their numbers, the parks only receive 3% of their worth in funding; however, this number was also obtained by a survey of a mere 700 households. This type of statistic can only be taken with a grain of salt, for the sampling pool is much too small given the stature of its subject and, more importantly, a common American cannot comprehend such gargantuan figures. To someone who makes a mere $50,000 annually, what’s the difference between $3 and $92 billion, especially on the scale of $3.8 trillion for the entirety of the US