President Trump on Monday donated his first-quarter earnings as leader of the free world to the cash-strapped National Park Service—a total of $78,333. The check was presented to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who said, “I’m thrilled,” and noted that the wad would go toward maintaining historic battlefield sites under the NPS domain.
“If I call five guys about Trump Tower, [and tell them] I want $2 billion… I’d have a check on my desk in 10 minutes,” Trump once told a reporter. He also said, along the campaign trail, that he did not need taxpayers to compensate him. (Probably because he has those five dudes on speed-dial.) And his recent gesture to the park service makes good on that point. It also makes him a target for skeptics, who are saying this all smells like a publicity stunt, considering how much the park service would lose when Trump’s budget goes into effect.
It’s no secret that NPS is sitting on an expensive backlog of deferred maintenance projects. And so far Trump has proposed a cut of $1.5 billion, or 12 percent, from the Interior Department, which oversees the park service.
Highlights from NPS’ back-burnered maintenance list include:
Everglades National Park (EVER, FLA) $78,218,848
Olympic National Park (OLYM, WA) $139,821,329
Yellowstone National Park (YELL, WY) $603,560,726
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (GLCA, UT) $84,085,996
Statue of Liberty National Monument (STLI, NY) $160,641,367
Acadia National Park (ACAD, ME) $68,250,049
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.