President Trump wants foreign tourists to pay a surcharge to see Yellowstone's Old Faithful or visit any other of the 400 or so national parks. Trump signed an executive order Thursday requiring the Interior Department to come up with a plan for the increase, the Wall Street Journal reports. "The national parks will be about America first," Trump said Thursday night at a rally in Iowa. His order also calls for giving US residents "preferential treatment" over foreign visitors on any "recreational access rules, including permitting or lottery rules" at the parks.
The president said the new revenue would "fund improvements and enhanced experiences across the park system," per CBS News. The department estimated in May that a surcharge would generate more than $90 million a year and that it would lead to a drop in international tourists of about 2%. In overall tourism, that would be a decline of 0.3%. Slightly more than 100 of the parks in the system now collect an entrance fee. The Interior Department has proposed the largest budget cut in the park system's history, more than $1 billion. In addition, Trump's bill that passed Congress on Thursday repeals more than $260 million allocated for park staffing, said the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.
An analysis based on department data shows the park service has lost 24% of its permanent staff since January and that just more than 50% of seasonal employees have been hired, per the Journal. Park visitors have noticed, per CNN. "I've been visiting national parks for 30 years and never has the presence of rangers been so absent," a visitor to Zion National Park in Utah wrote in feedback to the National Park Service. "Hire back park staff. We need them," the visitor wrote.
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