Across Utah’s “Mighty 5,” the state has stepped in to keep parks operating during Washington’s latest shutdown. It’s a reminder that when partisan gridlock closes the government, it’s often the parks — and the people who love them — that pay the price. While imperfect, President Donald Trump’s decision to use entrance fees to sustain basic park operations points in the right direction. But if we truly want to insulate our parks from political dysfunction, we should go a step further.
By expanding park revenue through user fees and giving park superintendents greater flexibility to deploy those fees, we can free our parks altogether of the acrimonious congressional appropriations process and shield them from government shutdown drama entirely.
Shutdowns expose a deeper flaw in how we fund and manage our national parks. For decades, our parks have been tethered to the whims of congressional appropriations — a process marked by brinkmanship, stopgap funding and last-minute deals. The result is an unpredictable, unstable system that leaves park rangers, visitors and vital maintenance work at the mercy of partisan politics.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Every year, millions of people willingly pay fees to experience our parks. Those revenues are steady and apolitical. If park managers had greater authority to retain and spend the fees they collect, they could keep parks open, clean and functioning during shutdowns and better maintain them year round.
America’s national parks are straining under the weight of their own success. Visitation has soared, but funding and flexibility haven’t kept pace. The result is a $22 billion maintenance backlog, aging infrastructure and managers constrained by red tape that dictates how and where visitor fees can be spent. Likewise, international visitors, who account for millions of annual park visits, pay the same entry fees as domestic tourists, leaving untapped potential to fund needed repairs and improvements.
It’s a system that leaves superintendents waiting for Washington instead of addressing urgent needs on the ground.
Beyond simply keeping parks open during a shutdown, we can make their funding model more resilient by getting creative with how we use and collect visitor fees. Modest surcharges for international visitors, for instance, could generate dedicated revenue for park maintenance and improvements without deterring travel. Research shows such fees would have minimal impact on visitation but could nearly double current revenues.
Parks could also experiment with pricing models that better reflect local conditions — charging more during peak seasons or for large groups, offering discounts for off-peak or shorter visits, and testing new fee structures at heavily trafficked parks like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon before expanding elsewhere.
At the same time, park superintendents should have far greater flexibility to decide how those revenues are used. Today, rigid federal rules dictate that more than half of all user fees must go toward deferred maintenance, even when local needs might be more pressing. Removing those one-size-fits-all mandates would let superintendents direct funds where they’re most needed, whether that’s fixing a heavily used trail, hiring seasonal rangers or upgrading restrooms.
Giving local managers real authority would mean more responsive stewardship, better visitor experiences and parks that can take care of themselves.
Shutdowns come and go, but our national parks are meant to endure. If we want to safeguard them for the next generation, we must get politics out of our parks once and for all. Empowering park managers to fund and care for their lands through creative, reliable revenue streams is the best way to ensure these special places remain open, accessible and resilient — no matter what happens in Washington.