1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

Stop Trump and Doug Burgum from gutting America’s national parks! We call on Congress to immediately halt Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum from stripping protections, expanding hunting in sensitive park areas, and bleeding the National Park Service of staff and capacity. Trump’s Interior Department, led by Burgum, has moved to remove or weaken hunting restrictions in dozens of park units, rolling back long‑standing safeguards for wildlife and ecosystems. At the same time, the Park Service has purged a massive share of its permanent workforce since 2025, leaving parks understaffed and vulnerable just as protections are being peeled away. These are not neutral “reforms.” They are deliberate choices that put ideology and industry access ahead of science, conservation, and basic ecological stewardship. Doug Burgum is not a passive bureaucrat caught in a bad system. As Secretary of the Interior, he is the chief architect and enforcer of these policies. His record as a former tech CEO, Microsoft executive, and governor means he understands how power and institutions work — and he is using that knowledge to dismantle protections that generations of Americans fought for. When protections vanish and staff positions disappear, that is a political project, not an accident. Congress created the framework that protects our national parks and public lands. It now has a responsibility to stop this coordinated erosion of safeguards and capacity. Failure to act is complicity. We demand that Congress: • Freeze and review all Interior actions that remove or weaken park‑specific protections for wildlife, habitat, or visitor safety. • Restore critical staffing and funding to the National Park Service to reverse recent losses. • Hold immediate oversight hearings into Doug Burgum’s implementation of Trump’s public lands agenda. • Bar any effort to privatize, sell, or transfer national park lands without explicit, public congressional authorization. National parks are a public trust, not a playground for political loyalists or extractive industries. Trump and Burgum are treating them as expendable assets. Congress must step in — now — to defend the laws, the lands, and the people who care for them.