Hundreds of millions of dollars in National Park Service funding is sitting in limbo at the Department of Interior, awaiting a political review that longtime agency staff say has put a stranglehold on the agency’s work.
The park service is currently experiencing a backlog of 1,400 active grants pending approval as of early June, according to information from an internal database provided to NOTUS.
Those awards are worth $362 million and include projects such as deploying nonprofit youth programs to clear trails, sending groups to prevent washouts in parks during persistent rain and surveying wildlife. Interior employees and grant recipients cautioned that prescribed burns and fuels reduction ahead of wildfire season could also get stuck in the backlog. An NPS grants employee said there were fewer than 10 active grants backlogged in the system two years ago.