A series of billboards with an anti-DOGE message have been popping up alongside Albuquerque interstates and we wanted to know who is behind them.
National Parks cuts alarm New Mexicans
The National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocating for national park funding, estimates that “the Park Service has lost 13% of its staff due to the administration’s pressured buyouts, deferred resignations and early retirements. And that’s on top of the 20% reduction in staffing the agency has experienced since 2010.”
In addition to this year’s reduction in staff, orders from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to review operating hours, trail closures and other access rules have raised alarms that access to national parks and federal public lands could be reduced for its public lands owners, the American people.
President Trump’s budget proposal to Congress proposes over $900 million in cuts to the NPS – 30% of operating funds – in addition to transferring some federal public lands out of the federal system, according to New Mexico’s Senator Martin Heinrich who strongly opposes both plans.
KTSM in El Paso reported in February that at least 12 rangers had been let go from positions at Carlsbad National Park in New Mexico during the first round of federal job cuts.
Billboards target DOGE
The group More Perfect Union is using billboards along routes used to access our national parks to connect those cuts in D.C. to a visitor’s local experience.
“We’re about to experience millions and millions of people who are going to go through the national parks this summer and they’re going to have a degraded experience a worse experience than they’ve ever had. And why is that? Because Donald Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE have been busy firing and laying off thousands of employees,” Faiz Shakir, founder of More Perfect Union, said in a YouTube video last month announcing the campaign.
Shakir is a veteran of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.
More Perfect Union is a nonprofit pro-labor advocacy organization.
The only propaganda on this site is in the comments. Reporting the facts, which includes reporting the subjects ideas and positions, apparently is not enough. If it’s not a Ra Ra for the far right takeover of Washington then, you say, it must be propaganda. If you find nothing here to learn from, stick with outlets that reinforce your small minded and narrow visions.
I appreciate this source for their insightful, local, apolitical journalism.
Thanks for the info. I approve of rationally eliminating waste and fraud, but not in the slash and burn way that Elon and his happy go lucky crew of underage techbros have done it. I’m glad the courts have put the brakes on his more egregious moves. Thanks, More Perfect Union, for the billboards!
Probably because you don’t read or know how to find the email.