Most national parks to close if government shuts down

If Congress cannot reach an agreement to fund the government, most national parks will close, the Biden administration said Friday. 

“In the event of a lapse in annual government appropriations, National Park Service (NPS) sites will be closed,” the Interior Department said in a press release.

“This means that the majority of national parks will be closed completely to public access,” it said.

The release said areas that are physically accessible to the public, such as the National Mall in Washington, D.C., will have “significantly reduced visitor services.”

Two states have said they will try to keep at least some of their national parks open. 

Utah said this week that it found “short-term funding options” to keep the parks open with limited operations. Its plans are subject to approval by the federal government. 

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) said her state would use lottery money to keep the Grand Canyon open. 

The NPS’s contingency plan notes that parks may enter into arrangements with third-parties such as states for donations to fund a park’s operation with approval of the park’s director. 

Asked whether it would take advantage of funds provided by Utah or Arizona, a Park Service spokesperson said in an email, “we are in touch to discuss possibilities, but I don’t have an update to provide at this time.” 

The federal government will shut down if lawmakers do not pass at least a stopgap funding measure by midnight Sunday. 

Chances of a shutdown appeared to grow higher Friday after Republicans torpedoed their own leadership’s short-term spending measure. A bipartisan measure to keep the government open has been moving forward in the Senate, but it is not clear it will be considered in the GOP House.

The parks closure announcement drew some political pushback. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the top Republican on the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, accused the Biden administration of trying “to make a government shutdown as painful as possible.”

“Secretary Haaland is choosing to put politics ahead of people. The Biden administration has the ability to keep our nation’s parks open and accessible,” he said in a written statement. 

“Instead, they’re deliberately trying to make a government shutdown as painful as possible for American families and visitors alike,” he added.

During the shutdown that took place during its tenure, the Trump administration gave more than 100 national parks the OK to use a total of $250 million to stay open. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, later said that this move had violated the law.

—Updated at 4:53 p.m.