Despite budget crunches, poor air quality, maintenance backlogs and other problems, the public is not likely to hear any bad news from staff of the National Park Service (NPS). Park superintendents have received orders from the Bush Administration to follow a set of feel-good "talking points" during any interaction with the media, according to internal e-mails obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and released yesterday.
"This is an unusually aggressive effort to avoid further embarrassment on park-related issues during an election year," PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.
The shackles are particularly constraining on the touchy topic of the NPS budget. While the fiscal year 2004 NPS budget was bumped up modestly from 2003, much of the funding has been diverted from standard park operations to security efforts and responses to disasters such as fires, meaning a significant shortage of park funds for the coming summer tourist season.
"Park superintendents have been growing more and more concerned that they have inadequate funds to hire the rangers and naturalists who handle the influx of tourists during the summer season," said Ruch. "They're anticipating fewer days of open parks, closed park entrances, and a growing backlog of repair and maintenance problems."
Superintendents are now required to refer to budget cuts as "service-level adjustments," and are advised to avoid the topic when possible. "[I]f you feel you must inform the public through a press release on this years [sic] hours or days of operation for example ... [do not] directly indicate that 'this is a cut' in comparison to last year's operation," ordered an internal memo last February.[1]
Budget issues are not the only area where commentary is being tightly controlled. All NPS superintendents received talking points on the subject of air quality in national parks on April 14, one day before eight of the nation's largest national parks were declared to be in violation of new standards for ozone pollution.
The Bush Administration's punishment for the crime of candor has already been made clear through the fate of Teresa Chambers, chief of the U.S. Park Police. She was put on paid administrative leave last December after she commented to The Washington Post that the diversion of staff to homeland-security duties had led to gaps in other areas of service, creating, by extension, possible public-safety problems in parks and on parkways.[2]
Chambers is forbidden to talk to the media without permission, on threat of losing her job. A protest against Chambers' suspension is gaining momentum through honestchief.com.
"Everybody knows these talking points are guidelines to avoid what's known as 'the Chambers treatment,'" said Bill Wade, director of the Coalition of Concerned National Park Retirees, a group of more than 220 retired park service officials. "If you tell the truth, you'll be quarantined and lose your job."
"It's killing employee morale," said Ruch. "We get regular emails along the lines of, 'Help, I'm in hell,' or 'Thank God I've only got a couple more years of this [before I can retire].'"
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This story was jointly produced by BushGreenwatch and Grist Magazine. For more on this story, visit Grist Magazine.
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SOURCES:
[1] NPS internal memo, Feb. 20, 2004.
[2] "Park Police Duties Exceed Staffing," Washington Post, Dec. 2, 2003.
