This year, the Parks Service will get about $1.2 billion from Capitol Hill. Included in that sum is money for park maintenance, visitor services and employees' salaries. It also includes about $350 million for park expansion - legislators often earmark this money for their pet projects. For example, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations committee, pushed $2.5 million for the restoration of a railroad station in a town of eight people through the Senate. Putting so much money into a project that so few people will be able to enjoy negates the service's purpose - to provide natural preserves that many people can utilize.
Byrd is not the only legislator using his or her power to influence the Parks Service's projects. Many legislators supposedly bent on cutting the federal budget have initiated projects to build visitors' centers and national war monuments in their home constituencies at taxpayers' expense. Often, Parks Service officials have certain areas they would like to develop but are unable to because legislators allocate money for their own pet projects. While the Parks Service should receive a healthy appropriation from the government, it should be allowed to make its own internal budgeting decisions and guide its own expansion and development. After all, service officials are in their positions for a reason.
Furthermore, the projects can cause a serious financial problem for the Parks Service. Officials have to provide for the maintenance of present parks - an area for which legislators are not as interested in providing money. For instance, a park in Delaware recently got $8.3 million for new land acquisition and expansion - more than Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Glacier national parks combined received for new buildings and trails. In creating numerous new parks and centers, the legislators put an additional burden on Parks Service officials to stretch the maintenance funds - if Congress plans to continue expansion at this rate, they must provide funding to keep the parks operational.
Legislators' use of the Parks Service as a method to better their political names with their constituents makes for bad politics. Political campaigning should be kept out of public programs. Congressional leaders should not force the formation of new parks that the National Park Service's budget may not be able to handle. Instead, Congress should support the Parks Service financially and allow it to create new national parks when it sees fit while providing for the upkeep and expansion of present ones.