Park Service advisers resign, cite inactivity

Three-quarters of the members of a federally chartered board advising the National Park Service abruptly quit Monday night out of frustration that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had refused to meet with them or convene a single meeting last year.

The resignation of nine out of 12 National Park System Advisory Board members leaves the federal government without a functioning body to designate national historic or natural landmarks. It also underscores the extent to which federal advisory bodies have become marginalized under President Donald Trump’s administration. In May, Zinke suspended all outside committees while his staff reviewed their composition and work.

On Wednesday, the department’s Associate Deputy Secretary Todd Willens lashed out at the former members of the advisory board, saying they ignored sexual harassment at national parks and praised a former parks official who had been criticized for ethics and management failures.

Departing board Chairman Tony Knowles, a former Alaska governor, wrote in a letter to the secretary that he and eight other members “have stood by waiting for the chance to meet and continue the partnership … as prescribed by law.” All of the signatories had terms set to expire in May.

“We understand the complexity of transition but our requests to engage have been ignored and the matters on which we wanted to brief the new Department team are clearly not part of its agenda,” Knowles wrote. “I wish the National Park System and Service well and will always be dedicated to their success.”

Willens argued Wednesday that it’s “patently false” to say the department hasn’t engaged with the board.

In an email earlier this month inquiring about the status of the more than 200 boards that had come under review, Interior Department spokesman Heather Swift said, “Boards have restarted.” She did not provide any further details and did not respond to an inquiry Tuesday.

Some advisory bodies apparently are operating. But others are still frozen because the department has yet to approve their updated charters, as is legally required under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Two of the Bureau of Land Management’s 38 resource advisory councils — Rocky Mountain and Southwest Colorado — had to postpone meetings scheduled for today because their charters were out of date.

“It’s concerning that our advisory council has been unable to meet for over a year,” said Scott Braden, a member of the Rocky Mountain RAC who is a wilderness and public lands advocate at Conservation Colorado. “Secretary Zinke has said that local input is important for BLM to consider, and yet these councils, which provide just such input, have been sidelined.”

Braden added that the council planned to discuss a new management plan for Bureau of Land Management land in eastern Colorado, how to implement fee increases in the region and the problem of homelessness on public lands.

Zinke has disbanded an advisory body in at least two instances: the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council and the Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science. He replaced the first one with the Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation Council, which just started soliciting nominations Jan. 9. It will place a heavier emphasis on sport shooting while promoting the hunting and fishing community’s access to public lands.

The National Park System Advisory Board, which was established in 1935, has typically included social and natural science academics as well as former elected officials from both parties. In recent years, it has advised Interior on how to address climate change, among other issues, and how to encourage younger visitors to frequent the parks.

The board is required to meet twice a year but has not convened since Trump took office last January, Knowles said Tuesday. Members, most of whom have worked together for seven years, were surprised to not be consulted on Interior’s recent decisions to increase visitor fees and to reverse a ban on plastic water bottles in the park system.

“We were frozen out,” said Knowles, who emphasized that the group recognized that Zinke would select new members this year but wanted “the momentum to continue” from what the board accomplished in 2016 during the park system’s centennial year.

Gretchen Long, a board member from Wilson, Wyo., said in an email that the nine board members resigned given the administration’s seeming attitude that the group’s work “could be so summarily dismissed…. And we worry greatly that the new initiatives incorporated in the [National Park System] are now being rescinded.”

The three board members who did not resign include Harvard University public finance professor Linda Bilmes, University of Maryland marine science professor Rita Colwell and Carolyn Hessler Radelet, the chief executive of Project Concern International. Terms for the first two end in May, while Radelet’s term does not expire until 2021.