Burgum’s Interior Department Blocks Tens of Millions in National Park Funds After Installing Right-Wing Operative

Maintenance Backlog Grows as Burgum and His Cronies Divert Park Funds to Trump’s D.C. Vanity Projects Instead

HELENA, MT – Embattled Secretary Doug Burgum’s Interior Department has blocked more than 130 already-funded national park projects worth at least $25 million, jeopardizing wildfire preparedness, historic building repairs, and even sled dog care at parks already stretched thin by massive staffing and funding cuts. The political blockade under Burgum has left at least 1,400 grants worth $360 million stuck in limbo, and comes as he made the unprecedented move to install a new right-wing political operative as the grants chief, who has a track record of falsely smearing civil society groups and nonprofits.

“Doug Burgum is starving Americans’ beloved national parks into submission by delaying and denying critical, already-allocated funding under cooked-up political purity tests. He’s doing all of this while siphoning off park entrance fees for Trump’s D.C. vanity projects, handing the department’s grants office to a right-wing political crusader, and letting political staff moonlight as Trump’s construction gofers,” said Jayson O’Neill, spokesperson for Save Our Parks. “Burgum wasn’t satisfied with simply DOGE-ing our National Parks Service — he wants America’s parks and public lands to fail-by design.”

Burgum’s decision to award the agency’s grants position to a right-wing political operative has raised serious concerns about political influence dictating, delaying, and potentially denying grant funding allocations across Interior and the National Parks Service. Interior quietly appointed Kristen Eastlick, a former Senior Vice President for the right-wing group Capital Research Center, as the agency’s head of grants in an unprecedented move over the summer.  Capital Research Center targets unions, advocacy groups, and conservation and environmental nonprofits. Eastlick appeared on the group’s blog, representing the Capital Research Center, as recently as May of 2026.

And instead of doing anything to clear out the estimated $24.3 billion backlog of repairs and maintenance at America’s National Parks, Burgum’s Interior deputy chief of staff Greg Wischer has spent his time ferrying updates to Trump about the on-going and costly Reflecting Pool debacle and other tacky vanity projects.

“Political interference that diverts, delays, and denies funding has real consequences for parks across the nation: Fire fighting and mitigation funding might not come through, already scheduled visitor safety projects get canceled or further delayed, trails fall into disrepair, bathrooms get closed permanently, and the multi-million-dollar park maintenance backlog continues to grow. Yet, Burgum and his political staffers continue to divert millions in needed park funding toward D.C. pet projects for a president more interested in his own vanity than America’s beloved parks,” said Save Our Parks Spokesperson Jayson O’Neill.

Additional Background:

• Burgum’s National Park Fee Scheme Raises Only A Quarter of What He Promised

• Doug Burgum Raids National Park Fees for Donald Trump's Political Events and Vanity Projects

• National Park Check-In: Doug Burgum is Leaving America’s Parks Understaffed and Underfunded

• Doug Burgum Is Raiding America’s National Parks to Fund Trump’s White House Makeover

• Systematic Destruction of Parks & Public Lands Under Trump And Burgum

To speak with Save Our Parks spokesperson Jayson O’Neill, email jayson@focalpointstrategygroup.com. 

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