Trump may keep national parks, monuments open without staff if government shuts down: report

The Trump administration is reportedly weighing a plan to keep national parks open in the event of a government shutdown.

With lawmakers facing a midnight Friday deadline for passing a spending measure to keep the government running, the administration is working to develop plans for keeping national parks and monuments open without rangers or staff present, according to The Washington Post. 

“We fully expect the government to remain open. However, in the event of a shutdown, National Parks and other public lands will remain as accessible as possible while still following all applicable laws and procedures,” Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, told the Post.

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“Visitors who come to our nation’s capital will find war memorials and open-air parks open to the public,” she said.

The proposal for keeping the parks open in the event of a shutdown came from White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, according to the Post. In an interview on Fox Business on Wednesday, Mulvaney said that monuments and parks would be open if the government were to shut down.

“Not that anybody would want to go to the monuments today in Washington, D.C., because it’s miserably cold here,” he said. “But if they wanted to do it, under a government shutdown, those would be open.”

During the last government shutdown in 2013, the closures of national parks and monuments sparked a public outcry, with much blame placed on Republicans, who controlled Congress at the time.