Critics fear Trump and his allies are turning national parks into sources of private profit: report

Liberals and progressives don’t agree with President Donald Trump on much, but they do agree with him that the United States’ infrastructure is in bad shape — and that includes national parks.

David Bernhardt, secretary of the U.S. Interior Department in the Trump Administration, discussed the state of national parks during a recent meeting of senior officials for the National Park Service (NPS); according to Bernhardt, they are “literally crumbling.” But exactly what steps will be taken to address the problem remains to be seen.

Yahoo News’ Alexander Nazaryan reports that Bernhardt, during the NPS meeting, said he was “begging Congress” for funds. Bernhardt, however, has agreed with Trump’s call for budget cuts for the NPS. And the Interior Department, under Bernhardt, has favored raising entry fees to national parks and has “leased hundreds of thousands of acres to energy companies,” Nazaryan writes.

View the complete September 3 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.