For starters this is not a state park hate-post. For that kind of disrespect you would have to read President Trump’s 2026 budget proposal, which boasts cuts to numerous state programs, including slashing $303 million for state, local, and tribal conservation programs. The reason they give for cutting this funding is that “State governments” are “plagued by oversight issues, including allegations of impropriety.”
America’s state parks and their staff are competent, well-intentioned, and promote the same conservationist ethics as national parks and their staff. As a national park ranger, I worked with many state park employees and found them to be dedicated to their work and excellent at it.
America’s state parks are incredible, and you should visit the ones near you more (come on, you know you should).
America’s national parks should not be given to states, but not because state parks and their staff are poorly run. State parks are simply different from national parks. Here’s what I mean.
State parks generally have smaller operating budgets than US national park sites. Often state parks have fewer employees, less infrastructure, and fewer amenities than their national park counterparts. (There are exceptions, but for the most part this is the case.)
Let’s look at Glacier National Park in Montana as an example. The operating budget for Glacier is around $15 million annually (a figure dwarfed by its $554 million yearly benefit to the local economy, by the way).
The entire annual operating budget for the state park system of Montana is around $7.4 million. That means that Montana’s 55 state parks, which oversee 6.7 million acres of land, cost less than half what it takes to run Glacier NP, with its 1 million (extremely popular) acres.
If you were to drop Glacier NP into the laps of Montana’s state parks department, they would suddenly need to triple their budget to be able to operate the park. Trump’s 2026 budget proposal would slash hundreds of national park units (parks with a total operating budget of $900 million) and give them to states. For states to take on these new parks they would need significantly more funding.
But state parks across the US are already struggling to fund their parks. And Trump’s 2026 budget proposes cutting the funding many state parks already receive from the federal government, while simultaneously proposing to hand them many more parks to pay for.
The title “national park” carries weight and esteem that attracts visitors from across the nation and around the world. This is not to say that state parks don’t attract visitors, but the gravitas of national park units is undeniable.
Take the Commonwealth of Virginia, which, by the way, had the first state park system in the US. In 2023, its 42 state parks welcomed 8 million visitors which stimulated an estimated $535.3 million into the state economy.
That’s an excellent boon for the state, but let’s compare it to the state’s national park units. Virginia is home to 22 national park sites overseen by the National Park Service (NPS). In 2023, those NPS sites brought in 23.3 million visitors, supported 21,000 jobs, and benefited the state economy to the tune of $2.3 billion.
Would these same national park units contribute that much if they were a part of the state park system? The answer is unclear, but it remains true that state park systems across the US attract fewer visitors and generate less in economic output than the national park sites in those same states.
Removing the “national park” title from parks across the US could result in fewer jobs and less revenue for the states and territories that house them.
America’s national parks tell our national story and protect our national treasures. For example, the Grand Canyon is a national treasure, not just an Arizona treasure. Giving the Grand Canyon to Arizona would take it (and the legal right to decide what happens to it–more on that later) from other states.
But most of the estimated 350 national park units that would be cut by Trump’s 2026 budget proposal are the smaller ones. Many of these smaller units are historical parks or monuments or memorials or battlefields. They are places that protect our national heritage and culture.
Brown v. Board of Education Historic Park tells an American story, not just a Kansas one. Minidoka National Historic Site, which imprisoned 13,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, memorializes what was an American concentration camp, not an Idaho one. Stonewall National Monument, the origin of major LGBTQIA+ protests and location of the first ever Pride Parade, had and still has an impact that extends far beyond the state of New York.
Sites that have been placed under the care of the NPS have already been vetted and found to be vital to our nation in some way; many of them have been voted into the NPS system by Congress. These parks unite and inspire us as Americans, not just as members of individual states. Remitting them to states diminishes their impact, resulting in the possible loss of our nation’s history.
National parks are the most legally protected lands in the US, and all NPS units (even those not technically designated “national park”) are similarly protected. State laws vary, but federal laws for NPS units are uniform and strict. National park sites–which as we have established have been designated as such because they are vital to our nation–are deserving of that protection.
And giving these national treasures away to states wouldn’t just strip them of greater protections. It would also take away the right of all Americans to decide what happens to them.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), when national public lands are up for changes, the American people are given a comment period during which they may respond to and/or protest those changes. But NEPA is a federal law for federal lands: the same laws do not apply to state parks. Should a state decide to sell off or drill or commercially develop their parks, Americans outside that state would have no legal rights to stop them.
From the way that the current administration is slashing NPS jobs and park operating budgets, it is obvious that they have no understanding of the complexities of running a national park. Even smaller NPS units have decades and sometimes over a century of institutional knowledge and learned experience passed down through generations of park staff that helps them manage the parks and integrate into the communities they serve.
Cutting the entire staff of these parks and then dumping them into state park systems means losing all of that knowledge and experience. It means states will have to start over from scratch without any guidance from their predecessors about how the park runs, the stories it tells, or the relationships previously established with park partners.
Dumping parks onto states this way is cruel. If the Trump administration actually were concerned about states, they would provide them with assistance and additional funding for the transition.
Bonus reason for not giving national parks to states: Americans like them as they are.
America’s national parks are widely (and wildly) popular. Americans like them and like the way they are managed. A poll of Americans conducted by YouGov in 2022 found that 75% of Americans had a favorable opinion of the NPS and 71% thought they were well-managed. These days it’s difficult to find anything that most Americans agree on, and yet we are mostly united about our love for our national parks.
So why is the Trump administration trying to dismantle something most Americans like? Personal and corporate greed, of course.
When states can’t afford to maintain all these expensive parks, they may be forced to sell them. And who will be waiting to buy them? The corporations and individuals who are orchestrating these budget cuts.
This is the real reason to not give national parks to states: because the people suggesting it have no intention of the parks actually going to states. Trump’s 2026 budget proposal is the first step toward privatizing national parks, or, in other words, stealing them from the American people and giving them to the rich to profit from.
Inspired to help America’s National Parks? Read “Five Ways You Can Support National Parks.”