1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Congress appropriated $150 million for America's 250th anniversary. $100 million of it was rerouted — by OMB Director Russell Vought — away from the congressionally designated America250 commission and into "Freedom 250," a political vehicle installed inside the National Park Foundation by Trump campaign operatives. That foundation is now selling private presidential access for up to $5 million a pop to corporations like ExxonMobil, Palantir, and Oracle, none of whom disclosed contributions in lobbying filings. I want to know what you are doing to claw that money back and hold Vought accountable for defying Congress's explicit spending direction. This isn't happening in a vacuum. The NPS has lost more than a quarter of its permanent workforce since January, and anyone who's been to Yosemite or any major park recently has seen what understaffing looks like firsthand. The FY2027 budget proposes cutting NPS operations by $736 million while funding a $10 billion presidential vanity construction program in Washington paid for with park entrance fees, against a $23 billion maintenance backlog. Department of the Interior has stonewalled FOIA requests and ignored formal demands for accounting. Congress created the National Park Foundation in 1967 with a single mandate, and that mandate has been hijacked. What specific steps are you taking to restore congressional authority over these funds and protect the parks from further gutting?