The Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee questioned Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on the President’s fiscal year 2026 budget blueprint, focusing on proposed cuts to the National Park Service and a departmental idea to transfer some smaller National Park Service sites to state or local management.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chair of the subcommittee, opened the hearing by asking the secretary for regular communication and staff-level briefings and by highlighting Alaska’s economic ties to DOI-managed resources. Murkowski said she was concerned that a "skinny budget" that “proposes to cut 1,200,000,000.0 or 35% from park service" would undercut parks’ economic and recreational roles.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, the subcommittee’s ranking member, pressed Burgum on how the administration values parks and whether the department intends to “strip down the national park system and hand out the parts.” Merkley said the proposal would “offload vast numbers of national park sites onto the states, fracturing our treasured system.”

Burgum characterized the budget as a tool to increase “people actually working on the front lines” by cutting overhead and reinvesting savings into field operations and deferred maintenance. He told the committee: “I want more people in the parks. Whether driving a snowplow in the wintertime or . . . doing trail work . . . I want more of that,” and said the administration will send lists and plans “when we have the plan.”

On the proposed transfers of park sites, Burgum was explicit about the legal limit: when asked whether statute changes would be required to transfer most of the 370 non–’capital-P’ park sites, he replied, “Yes.” He also said the administration intended to treat "the 63 parks" — the large, statutory national parks often referred to as the system’s crown jewels — as excluded from any transfer plan.

Committee members pressed for more details and earlier notice about which units might be affected. Merkley repeatedly sought a specific list and asked whether transfers could be done by executive action; Burgum said the idea was in formation and that most transfers would be “a case by case, state by state” approach and that changes to law would be required for many sites.

The subcommittee called for written follow-ups; Burgum committed to provide lists and answers on several open items, including Great American Outdoors Act project lists and spending-plan questions. Senators warned that absent detailed plans and clear statutory authority, any wholesale move to shift site management risks legal challenges and could interrupt ongoing maintenance and conservation work.