On August 7, 2026, the Department of the Interior disapproved 140 National Park Service agreements with outside partners at 61 parks, offices, and programs in all seven Park Service regions, as the Washington Post reported earlier this month. While a handful of those agreements have since been appealed or partially appealed, 133 remain disapproved, blocking $25.9 million in funding for parks.
The agreements included funding for projects related to fire preparedness, hazardous tree removal, archaeological surveys, endangered species recovery, as well as for trail crews and seasonal staffing. The parks and programs behind these agreements had already secured the funding for them, which came from congressional appropriations, existing federal programs, and internal decisions. The Interior department review was the final step before the agreements could be signed and the money released. NPS staff told the Washington Post that the Interior department could redirect the money elsewhere, and that they did not know where it would go. Most of these agreements were scheduled for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026. Interior told the Washington Post it had disapproved agreements with groups “actively working against the best interests of the American people and the priorities of this administration.” NPS staff reported they received no explanation beyond a note in the records reading “Disapproved by DOI.”
The disapprovals are one piece of a broader disruption at NPS. The New York Times reported on September 19 that the administration has redirected at least $67 million in park entrance fee revenue to projects in Washington, deployed more than 1,000 Park Service employees to the capital this year, and moved roughly 1,500 projects at more than 200 sites onto a list labeled “low priority.”
Joshua Tree National Park lost 10 agreements, the most of any park unit. The largest single disapproved agreement was for $3,489,627 and would have surveyed cultural resources exposed by the decreasing water levels at Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
The Center for Western Priorities mapped every disapproved agreement using National Park Service records. Explore it below: