Remember when park rangers were nice people who would go out of their way to help you if you needed it? Neither do I, but it now appears they are going out of their way to hinder you even if you don’t plan to visit a national park. Moreover, at least some these orders come from “above the department,” meaning the White House.
It is well known that the Park Service is closing access to parks and monuments that cost little or nothing to allow access to. For example, it has posted guards around things like the Lincoln Memorial and Jefferson Memorial to make sure people don’t enter, because otherwise it would have to post guards in the memorials themselves to make sure people don’t do inappropriate things like (gasp!) dance inside one of the memorials.
But the Park Service is also attempting to force the closure of state parks, apparently on the theory that some state parks have received federal funding in the past. At least one state governor has refused to go along with this.
