Doug Burgum’s Costly Fail-by-Design Summer: American Families Paying the Price Because Of Trump’s Failing Interior Secretary
Memorandum: Doug Burgum’s Costly Fail-by-Design Summer: American Families Paying the Price Because Of Trump’s Failing Interior Secretary
To: Interested Parties
From: Save Our Parks
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2026
Contact: Jayson O’Neill, Save Our Parks Spokesperson
Americans are loading up the car for Memorial Day weekend, and thanks to mismanagement by Doug Burgum, Interior Secretary and Chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council, they’re kicking off summer with near record high gas prices. Currently, gasoline prices are hovering around $4.50 a gallon nationally and 42% higher than this time last year, while parks and public lands are struggling by design because they are dangerously understaffed and underfunded. In 2024, more than 300 million visitors to national parks spent almost $30 billion in gateway communities, supporting the small towns and businesses that depend on summer tourism to survive. Burgum’s fail-by-design plan puts all of that at risk, and he, much like his out-of-touch boss, couldn’t care less.
In fact, Burgum is downright pleased that Americans are paying more for less. During a House hearing last week, Burgum declared he was thrilled about current gas prices, calling them “exciting.” Rep. Jared Huffman told Burgum that Americans aren’t celebrating the massive spike in gas prices that Burgum is so excited about. He’s right. The working families fueling up to visit a park, like Yellowstone, the Smokies, or the Blue Ridge Parkway, are not celebrating, with just 21% of Americans supporting this administration's failing performance on gas prices.
The shop owners, guides and outfitters, innkeepers, and restaurant workers in gateway communities are not celebrating either. Only Burgum and his Big Oil allies are celebrating, because they’re the ones collecting wartime windfall right out of Americans’ pockets. And it’s not just higher gas prices families are paying for under Burgum’s and the administration’s failing energy policies.
While Burgum cheerleads for high fuel and energy costs, he has spent the past year systematically gutting the workforce that keeps visitors safe and national parks functional. Internal documents show Burgum’s Interior Department had roughly 4,200 seasonal employees on board as of early April, dramatically down from the same period two years ago. Last year, Burgum promised Congress the National Park Service alone would hire 7,700 seasonal staff. The agency peaked at around 5,150, and this year the department is already tracking behind even that diminished pace, with processing backlogs so severe that seasonal hires with offers in hand are being pushed to June. In short, it’s a complete ‘sh*tshow’ under Burgum, and it’s putting people, employees, and communities at risk.
For families headed to their favorite park this Memorial Day weekend, that means entering at your own risk. Rangers are already being pulled off trails to collect entrance fees, meaning campground check-ins will go unstaffed, backcountry permits will go unmanaged, and long lines at the entrance gate will be the least of your worries. When a trail emergency happens, when a kid gets lost, when a wildfire sparks near an overcrowded campground, the response capacity simply won’t be there. With wildfires already burning in national parks amid record drought, a depleted seasonal workforce can easily snowball into a full-blown public safety crisis.
None of this is an accident. It’s all part of Burgum’s fail-by-design plan for America’s public lands and parks.
Understaff, underfund, mismanage, and gut protections for parks and public lands to make them struggle and more appealing for transfer, sell offs, and privatization.
Censor, remove, and alter historical, cultural, and scientific materials about Americans’ outdoor heritage to downplay their importance.
Kill renewable energy projects that would actually lower bills at taxpayers’ expense, let fossil fuel prices run wild, then use the manufactured crisis to justify more drilling in and around parks and on public lands.
Install deeply conflicted, unqualified, and anti-public land cronies to do their own, Burgum’s, and the administration’s dirty work.
Burgum once told every American who loves our parks and public lands that they were “financially illiterate” for valuing them. This Memorial Day, Americans will feel that contempt at the pump, at the gate, and on the trail. And after Burgum called it “exciting” to see his Big Oil pals pocket the profits while American families pick up the tab, the contempt should be squarely focused on Trump’s failing Interior Secretary.
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