The November 5 election was a disaster for public lands and conservation. Clearly the American voters were focused on widespread economic insecurity and voted their pocketbooks. Other issues like climate change, threats to our government and to people of color, were swept aside. The serious character deficiencies of Donald Trump seemed unimportant to voters frustrated with inflation and weary of the Biden administration. The new Trump administration will pose real threats to places like the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico.
Consequently, we find ourselves with an administration and congress in the hands of people who have turned environmental protection, formerly a bipartisan cause, into a part of the culture wars. The blueprint for the Trump administration, written by the Heritage Foundation, makes clear that they view climate change as a leftist construct that must be rejected by the federal government. They also reject efforts to protect habitat and wildlife. This anti science agenda is largely driven by a singular focus on oil development on public lands by the incoming Trump administration, but it is wider than that.
Though there is no oil and gas in the Valles Caldera, thanks to its volcanic nature, there are other plans by Trump’s people to threaten the National Park Service and the staff at the Caldera itself.
Threats
First Trump will try to convert many or all federal employees into “at will” workers, and strip them of federal civil service protections that have been in place for decades. As it stands, the federal workforce is meant to be a professional, non-partisan force. Trump’s obsession with the “deep state” caused him to try to rid the federal government of people who were disloyal to his agenda in his first term. Scientists involved in the pandemic or air pollution drew his wrath when they disagreed with ideologues advising Trump.
Trump hired Elon Musk and a man named Vivack Ramiswami, a businessman from the health care industry, to decide how to cut the budget of the federal government. The federal government is 4% of the federal budget though programs it administers are far more. Musk will use his values to decide what is important in the federal government and attack programs that don’t fit with his personal values. Does Musk understand public lands or the importance of life on earth and watersheds etc? We’ll soon find out.
This conflict, between science based policy and ideology led Trump’s people to institute a rule called “Schedule F,” which would convert at least 50,000 federal employees from career servants to political appointees who the president could fire at will. Other far right think tanks have urged Trump to convert all federal employees to at-will positions where they would have no protection from immediate firing by the administration. This change in the civil service status of many federal employees is unpopular across party lines and will face litigation.
By its nature, the National Park Service is in the business of conservation and protection of the 80 million acres under its charge. The agency has focused on the clear threat climate change poses to NPS lands. Since the 1930, the NPS has protected wildlife habitat and watersheds a part of its core mission under the NPS Organic Act.
To the Trump ideologues, this mission is anathema to Trump’s “America First“ agenda. The schedule F effort will naturally cause many NPS employees to be fired and replaced with people suitable to Trump’s Interior appointees. How far down into the agency firing will occur is unknown. Would park superintendents be fired and replaced with anti-NPS ideologues? Time will tell. Even if only some of the regional and Washington office staff were fired, the chilling effect on everyone down to the ranger level would be clear. Scrubbing mention of climate change from NPS education programs will probably occur. NPS employees (and those of other agencies) will be told not to tell the truth about the most important issue of our time.
The other pending threat to the Valles Caldera and other parks would be budget cuts. The anti-government fervor of the first Trump term led to proposals for deep cuts for all land management agencies. Already the National Park Service is operating on a grossly inadequate budget. The agency has a major staff shortage in field personnel like law enforcement officers and the infrastructure at the parks is crumbling. The Biden administration sent money to the parks under the Inflation Reduction Act. Trump has promised to repeal the IRA. We can expect more cuts from the Trump administration based on ideology and anti-government fervor shared by the billionaires and conspiracy theorists he has appointed to run our federal agencies.
For Environmentalists and our allies, our work will not change. We don’t know if the Trump people will micromanage the parks or just hobble their operations. We will continue our work to rid the VCNP of damaging cattle grazing and we will advocate for endangered species and watershed protection along with public access. We will also advocate for the park staff and the rule of law.
New Mexico’s congressional delegation is on board with our efforts. Yet since they are democrats, they will have little say in a Washington beholden to Donald Trump. Our hope is that Trump’s efforts to attack the federal agencies, degrade the environment, and repeal national monuments will be unpopular with the public and will force a political reckoning in the 2026 election.
Fasten your seatbelts friends. This is not going to be pretty. Let us advance a vision for the future even as we resist destruction and negativity.
