Elfreth Presses Burgum on Federal Workforce Cuts, Partisan National Park Passes & Changes to the Grants Approval Process

WASHINGTON, DC - Yesterday, Congresswoman Sarah Elfreth (MD-03), Vice Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, questioned Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. Elfreth opened by highlighting cuts to the federal workforce and funding at the National Park Service (NPS) by the Trump Administration. She continued by pressing Secretary Burgum on the unprecedented, partisan decision to issue national park passes with President Trump's face and changes to the grant approval process.

"I represent 45,000 federal employees, many of whom work at Interior. It's my understanding that about 20% of Interior's workforce has left since January 2025, and as we're entering peak park season, about 4,000 fewer National Park Service staff than in 2024," said Congresswoman Sarah Elfreth. "At this hearing, we've talked about the $1 billion being spent on the President's ballroom; at the same time, we're seeing a $1 billion cut to NPS. We've talked about the unilateral canceling of renewable energy projects in the midst of an energy crisis. But I want to focus on your testimony today, because you highlighted operational efficiency and effective use of taxpayer dollars."

In January, Elfreth introduced theProhibit Partisan Park Passes Act alongside Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) to prohibit the National Park Service from issuing America the Beautiful Passes - physical or digital - with the image or likeness of any living political figure. Elfreth's first line of questioning pushed the Secretary for answers as to whether the agency would commit to changing its new policy that invalidates park passes with stickers over the President's portrait to ensure public lands remain accessible. The Secretary refused to change policy.

Elfreth's next question focused on the grant approval policy at Interior, which now requires Secretary-level approval of all grants above $50,000. Elfreth highlighted the inefficiencies caused by this change in policy, noting that the Secretary would need to approve one grant every 10 minutes in order to adhere to this policy, and pushed for a commitment to revise the process going forward. This question served as a follow-up to a previous line of questioning she posed during a Natural Resources Legislative Hearing to the Acting Deputy Director for Operations at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates under the Department of the Interior.

CLICK HERE or the image below to view Elfreth's full remarks.

Remarks as Delivered

House Natural Resources Committee Hearing

May 13th, 2026

ELFRETH: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

I represent 45,000 federal employees, many of whom work at Interior, we talked about this last year. It's my understanding that about 20% of Interior's workforce has left since January 2025, and as we're entering peak park season, about 4,000 fewer National Park Service staff than in 2024. We've talked about that at this hearing. We've talked about the $1 billion being spent on the President's ballroom at the same time, we're seeing a $1 billion cut to NPS. We've talked about the unilateral canceling of renewable energy projects in the midst of an energy crisis.

But I want to focus in on your testimony today, because you highlighted operational efficiency and effective use of taxpayer dollars. So I'm going to start with park passes. On January 1st, Interior began issuing America the Beautiful park passes for our national parks with President Trump's image. I have one here today.

The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004 requires Interior to hold an annual competition to select the image for the pass. You did that, and yet the winners were not included on the most popular passes. Those passes feature now the President's face. I'd asked how you came to this conclusion, but I think that's pretty clear, so I'm just going to skip ahead to making sure people who have these passes can actually use them.

It's my understanding Interior now has a policy where you're invalidating park passes that have a sticker covering the President's face. I spent a lot of my career at the Statehouse and now in Washington working on ensuring opening up public access to our public lands. I hope that's something you care about as well. Yet this policy is now invalidating people's ability to access their public lands. Can you tell me about this, and could you possibly commit to this committee today that you will no longer be invalidating those park passes that have stickers on them?

BURGUM: The policy that you referred to, if you happen to have an older or prior year park pass, we'll see that that policy about defacing or modifying your park pass has been in place long before this selection was made, and so it's not a new policy. It's one that existed prior.

ELFRETH: Anywhere on the pass? If I put a smiley face on George Washington's face, it's the same policy?

BURGUM: Yes, and on prior passes. This is not a new policy. This is a policy that existed before that was there for the benefit of the people that work in our parks that have to see whether it's a valid pass.

ELFRETH: I would just suggest that we rethink that policy for the purposes of ensuring people can access their public lands that they've helped pay for.

I'm going to move on to grants. One of the most important things that your Department does is issue grants to tens of thousands of our communities across Republican and Democratic districts. And yet, I understand you have an internal policy where you require Secretary-level approval for any grant over $50,000. Mr. Secretary, based on FY 25 numbers, that's 82% of the 23,000 grants. So about 19,000 grants. We did the math. If you are personally reviewing and approving every grant, you'd have to spend one grant every 10 minutes, every day until the end of the calendar year. Again, these are critical grants for all of our communities.

Can you give me an understanding of where those grants lie? You talked about efficiency, improving operational efficiency, maximizing the effectiveness of taxpayer dollars. This is micromanagement at its worst. I'm hoping you can give me a better answer as to how many grants you're approving and getting out the door to our communities today, and if you can commit to this committee that you're going to have a more efficient process moving forward.

BURGUM: It's just come up so many times today, I think there's confusion across the Committee.

ELFRETH: Please let us know how, if we have that wrong, I've asked Fish and Wildlife when they were last here.

BURGUM: Did you want me to answer, or do you want to just keep talking?

ELFRETH: By all means, Mr. Secretary.

BURGUM: There seems to be some confusion that when an order says the secretarial office, it gets elevated up to the Secretarial's office, which has, there's a lot of people that work in the Secretary's office. It's not me personally on my desk.

ELFRETH: But are you testifying that it's still as efficient as it was in prior administrations? Because it's my understanding, many grants are still being held up, whether it's by you or your office, and so I'm asking about the efficiency of getting those grant dollars out the door.

BURGUM: When we came into office, there was over 36,000 grants and contracts, and there was a record number of those grants and contracts that got blown out the door between the election in November in 2024 and January 20th. Many of those were going out that, in my mind, were poor use of taxpayer dollars, weren't thoroughly reviewed, they were greenlit. And so we put in a policy that said, hey, if we're going to stop blowing billions of dollars out the door at the end of an administration without going through the thorough review, then we should take a look at those. And by putting that policy in place and this team that we had looking at those, we uncovered all kinds of egregious conditions that were happening.

ELFRETH: Mr. Secretary, if my Uncle Yogi were here, he'd say that I asked you where you're going, and you tell me where you've been. So I'm just asking you to tell us the efficiency today moving forward, not what happened in past administrations.

BURGUM: Well, we have saved billions of dollars. There's been a lot of discussion. Billions of dollars that have been saved because we've stopped projects that were going out for grant programs that were not for their intended use.

ELFRETH: Mr. Chair, I don't think I'm gonna get an answer today, but I appreciate the time, and I yield back.

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