Finally, A PAC For National Parks

Launched Monday, Parks PAC is the first-ever political action committee created solely for the purpose of defending national parks. It hopes to help flip the House this November by spending on competitive races where incumbents have voted to defund the National Park Service, and reduce its staffing.

“To quote Fannie Lou Hamer, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Parks PAC founder Ron Sundergill tells me.

He spent 20 years at the National Parks Conservation Association, helping advocate for park funding and taking legal action to defend park interests. But, as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, NPCA is prevented from participating in the electoral process, and Ron says that with national parks increasingly coming under threats from the political system, we’re in desperate need of a political solution.

“Over the years, there’s been bipartisan consensus that our national parks need to be supported, and then Trump came along and totally flipped that narrative,” Ron explains. “The administration is taking radical actions, and there’s just a total lack of oversight from Congress.”

That’s what Parks PAC is designed to change. The organization plans to target 20 competitive districts in the mid-terms, and flip the House of Representatives to Democratic control.

“If we can do that, we can hold Trump and leadership at the Department of the Interior accountable,” Ron says.

Unlike a 501(c)(3), a political action committee is a private group that raises money from donors to support or oppose a cause, politician, or specific measure. They can buy ads and put out messaging around those topics, but are subject to strict caps or prohibitions on actual campaign donations, and cannot coordinate their work with campaigns themselves. If you would like to donate to Parks PAC, you can do so at this link.

Ron explains that the PAC will specifically target swing districts near national parks, where pain from DOGE cuts to staff, last year’s longest-ever government shutdown in which parks were left open but understaffed, censorship, and budget cuts are being felt most acutely.

“Those particular districts are ripe for change, and in almost all cases, the incumbents have not voted to support the parks,” Ron continues. “We’re going to make that very clear to voters through social media, by buying billboards, and whatever else it takes.”

Ron says that while Parks PAC is not a partisan organization, in all cases this cycle they’ll be trying to unseat Republican incumbents.

“We wish that this was not the case, but we’ve got a President who is doing some really awful things to our parks, and the current leadership in Congress is doing nothing to hold him accountable,” he explains.

In just the last 18 months, the administration has fired 1,000 full-time staff in national parks, broken the seasonal hiring process, attempted to fire thousands more employees, publicly pursued a plan to sell-off lesser-known park units while privatizing operations at the more famous ones, diverted park funds to pay for Trump’s White House renovations, caused $12 billion in damage to physical park assets, proposed a budget that would slash the park service’s budget by one-third, and censored topics like race, science and history, which the park service was established to help teach.

“Parks PAC was launched to address this urgent need, and in the short term, the most effective way to check that power is to deny Trump a compliant House and Senate,” the organization says. “Our core values are stewardship, accountability, equal access, historic accuracy, and science-based policy. Voters across the political spectrum share these values. National Parks are among the most popular things the federal government does, and that support has never been organized into electoral consequence. Parks PAC channels that broad-based support into political action that delivers real results.”

By making voters aware of politicians’ voting records on national parks, Ron says that in addition to achieving oversight in the next Congress, he hopes to create a new reality in which those same politicians become more accountable to their voters on park issues.

“If politicians see that their votes on national park issues are going to bring electoral consequences, then I think it may encourage politicians to vote the right way,” explains Ron. “I’m hopeful we can get back to a balance where Democrats, Republicans and independents alike support America’s best idea.”

Top photo: NPS

A journalist with more than two decades of experience working around the world, Wes Siler is here to cut through the outrage and disinformation to bring you the factual, insightful, actionable reporting you need to understand what’s going on. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports this reporting, and buys personal access to Wes, who will help you save money on gear, plan outdoor adventures, and prepare for real life, and who promises he’s less salty in real life than he sometimes comes across as on the Internet.