November 13, 2025

NPS employees are informed on the prior evening that they are expected to resume normal duty immediately beginning on 11/13. This includes all employees placed on furlough at the dawn of the shutdown. Backpay, guaranteed by a prior 2019 law, will be received by all NPS employees regardless of whether they were excepted or furloughed during the shutdown.

[swipe left to see the rest of the timeline on a mobile device]

November 12, 2025

By a 60-40 Senate vote and then a 222-209 House of Representatives vote, the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government temporarily through 1/30/26 passes. It is subsequently signed into effect by President Trump. This officially ends the longest shutdown of the federal government in United States history, at 43 days.

The National Park Service immediately informs employees are expected back immediately and that normal services will resume the following day.

November 9, 2025

8 Democratic Senators and all but 1 Republican Senator agree to a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government at current levels through 1/30/26.

The key point of the shutdown, whether to extend expiring subsidies to make Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare plans more affordable, ends with no deal on extensions. As part of the deal, no major RIF can be executed for the duration of the CR until 1/30/26.

Backpay for federal employee - already guaranteed under prior federal law - extends to employees let go during the shutdown who will be rehired under this agreement. It is not immediately clear if any of those roughly 4,000 federal workers are NPS employees.

October 23, 2025

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum approved new policies in Alaska aimed at opening large swaths of federal lands in the state to mining, as well as moving forward with a long-sought-after road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. He signed an order to reopen the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas drilling and reinstated seven oil and gas leases in the coastal plain.

October 21, 2025

Judge Susan Illston issues a clarifying order, that the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on RIFs during the government shutdown extends to RIFs that were already in planning prior to September 30th.

This is significant for NPS employees, as it was specifically stated in DOI’s October 20th court filing that the DOI RIFs were already being planned prior to the government shutdown. This grants a temporary reprieve to NPS employees at imminent risk of losing their jobs.

October 20, 2025

Mandated by Judge Susan Illston (US District Court of Northern California), DOI releases a list of competitive areas they intend to conduct RIFs (mass layoffs) in. These areas are a partial list that includes areas that have employees covered by a union, such as AFGE and NFFE.

The court filings show that DOI intends to layoff 2,050 employees, including 272 NPS employees. The layoffs, which predominately take aim at regional and national offices, would eliminate roughly 2% of the remaining NPS workforce.

October 15, 2025

Judge Susan Illston (US District Court of Northern California) issues a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), in essence blocking RIF (layoff) attempts made during the ongoing government shutdown. This decision comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by several federal employee unions on behalf of government employees.

October 1, 2025

The 2024 United States federal budget, which had been extended through the end of the fiscal year via a Continuing Resolution agreed upon in March, lapses on September 30th. Congress fails to approve a budget beyond that date, and the United States government shuts down.

Roughly 900,000 federal employees, including the majority of the remaining NPS workforce, roughly 9,300, are furloughed without pay until the shutdown ends. By law, employees placed on furlough are required to be back paid for the lost wages at the end of the shutdown.

Despite a letter from 43 former park superintendents encouraging Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to close the parks to protect their resources during the shutdown, the secretary orders the parks to remain partially open, with most parks keeping the gates open to public but running with the barest of essential staff.

Certain employees are deemed “exempt” or “excepted” to keep national parks running with a skeleton crew of employees. Exempt employees continue to get paid out of non-budget funds, while excepted employees are continuing to work in an unpaid capacity (with backpay required) during the shutdown.

September 30, 2025

Doug Burgum sends an email out to the entire agency claiming that advances in AI technology allow "each person a 24/7 support staff of researchers, coders, analysts, executive assistants, and more," hinting to the fact that the desire is to replace those researchers, coders, analysts, etc with this technology. The email directs every departmental office and bureau to designate an AI coordinator by October 10th, 2025 to "serve as the point of contact to advance the AI Secretary's Order and Implementation Plan, which will be issued today."

This plan was never issued, likely due to the fact that the government shut down the next day, a fact which was already a certainty by the time the email was sent.

July 8, 2025

The US Supreme Court overrules an injunction from a California District Court that temporarily halted the administration’s plans for a large-scale Reduction-in-Force. The intended layoffs would impact up to 19 agencies and departments, including the NPS. Estimates from the initial attempts at a RIF earlier this year put a further 1,500 employees, roughly 10% of the remaining NPS staff, at risk of losing their jobs imminently.

July 7, 2025

The federal hiring freeze, which has been in place since January 20, 2025, is extended by President Trump another 90 days, until October 15, 2025. All vacant permanent and term (1-4 contract) positions, excluding those for public safety, remain unable to be filled.

July 4, 2025

President Trump’s pet project, the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” is signed into law. Among the 900 page bill are provisions that impact the NPS.

The NPS is expected to lose $267 million in funds for staffing and environmental projects that had come from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act as a result of this bill.

June 13, 2025

Required by Secretary Burgum’s Secretarial Order (SO), “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” all NPS units post a sign with the following text:

“(Park site name) belongs to the American people, and the National Park Service wants your feedback. Please let us know if you have identified (1) any areas that need repair; (2) any services that need improvement; or (3) any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes or other natural features.”

A QR code is provided to access the site and submit feedback.

Check out our guide to possible creative responses to the order at our new “Good Trouble” page.

June 11, 2025

As President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” makes its way through the Senate, the sale of public lands is added to the bill’s current form. If passed, around 3,000,000 acres would be sold off, consisting of Western lands presently managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Roughly 250M acres would be eligible for sale.

The primary reasoning for the land sale is supposedly for the development of affordable housing (5% of proceeds would go to this goal). Upon looking at the map of land up for sale, few acres are near urban/population centers, and housing near major tourist areas has largely become out of touch for the majority of Americans, especially as the short term rental market booms.

It should be noted that NPS units are exempt from sale in this version of the bill.

May 31, 2025

The U.S. Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) rules 2-1 to uphold a lower court ruling preventing large-scale layoffs throughout the federal government, including the NPS. Layoffs are still paused while the legal process plays out.

May 29, 2025

Acting Office of Personnel Management (OPM) director Charles Ezell releases a new Merit Hiring Plan to ostensibly “restore accountability to the federal workforce.” This plan involves requiring a whole team, going all the way up to agency leadership, to approve every single permanent hire to an agency.

Most troubling is the additional requirement of four 200-word essay questions on applications for every position GS-5 and above, which is nearly the entire federal workforce. They are listed here in entirety; the most bold by far is question 3, which asks, “How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

Other questions ask about government efficiency and patriotism; it is hard not to believe that these questions, especially regarding Executive Orders, are designed for anything else than to determine one’s loyalty to the administration.

May 22, 2025

US District Judge Susan Illston grants a preliminary injunction, indefinitely extending the pause on large scale layoffs within the federal government and the NPS.

May 20, 2025

Secretary Burgum releases Secretarial Order 3431, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Tucked away after talking about infrastructure improvements to Independence National Historic Site is that there will be a review of all changes in how history is told in parks, focusing on the signage, monuments, and memorials to ensure they “do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living…and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or…the grandeur of the American landscape.”

Section 6 of the SO requires all NPS (and other land management) sites to post a link to a website and a QR code “encouraging” public participation in reporting signs felt to depict Americans in a negative way.

We argue that history has multiple angles and sides to our collective heritage, and to wash out or remove certain aspects does a disservice to the American people, who come to parks to learn and grow and gain a fuller idea of our story as a nation.

May 16, 2025

The Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to lift a temporary block on reductions in force imposed by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who, earlier that week, determined that Trump’s efforts to radically restructure and dismantle the federal government without any authorization from Congress was unconstitutional.

As part of the temporary restraining order, the judge ordered that the Department of the Interior (and other agencies) submit their plans for reductions in force. OMB Senior advisor Stephen Billy argued that disclosing the RIF plans would irreparably harm the Office of Personnel Management and the budget office. The Department of the Interior, submitted a plan consisting of 64 completely redacted pages.

May 12, 2025

California Senior District Judge Susan Illston halts mass Reduction-in-Force (RIF) plans across the federal government, including the NPS, for 14 days.

The judge orders the President must cooperate with and seek approval from Congress for plans to reshape the federal workforce.

May 4, 2025

Trump posts on his social media that he is directing the federal Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department, and other agencies to "reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz" to the most "ruthless and violent offenders."

Alcatraz, which is located on Alcatraz Island off the coast of San Francisco, was closed in 1963 after it fell into disrepair. It is now managed by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and welcomes approximately 1.2 million visitors a year.

Federal corrections experts and historians caution that any plans to reopen Alcatraz will be expensive and inefficient. 

Closing Alcatraz as a National Park Service site would forego approximately $60 million in revenue each year while the prison’s low capacity for prisoners and the high costs of operating it (the reason it was closed in the first place) seem to be on the losing side of the “Art of the Deal”.

This is another one of Trump’s plans to create more “efficiencies” which are actually financially reckless, inefficient, and clearly just for optics.

May 4, 2025

Some 1600 National Park Service (NPS) employees were “consolidated” into the Department of Interior (DOI), with only a few days notice. While some employees were given notice through their supervisors, others found out through rumors and texts from coworkers. Others had to inform their own supervisors.

This “optimization”, as described in SO 3429, folds functional areas including IT, Communications, Human Resources, Finance, Grants, and more into the DOI, instead of bureaus like NPS and BLM.

One of the only emails sent to consolidated employees states, “[t]his unification is part of a broader effort to consolidate several Departmental functional areas, allowing us to optimize resources and improve service delivery.” In reality this is a transparent effort to centralize more functions under direct DOGE control. Removing park and region and agency expertise will reduce effectiveness. See our press release for more

To date, very little information has been given to affected employees aside from “continue to carry out regular duties…until you hear more about what the consolidation means for you” and, of course, to keep up appearances for the public.

May 2, 2025

President Trump releases a proposed federal budget for 2026. He states his wish to slash over $1 billion from the $3.57 billion current operating budget for the National Park Service. These proposed cuts would cripple the NPS’ ability to continue to operate all 433 sites under its jurisdiction.

The administration wishes just that; in his same proposal, President Trump writes that he wishes to turn over most park units, those with designations other than “National Park”, to the states to operate. This is an unprecedented attack on our public lands; never before has such drastic action been requested by a president.

It should be noted that the proposed budget is not finalized in any respect. Budget proposals are essentially a presidential “wish list”; the budget is approved and passed by Congress.

April 24, 2025

NPS workforce receives an email from an Associate Director requiring that every NPS employee review their personnel records for accuracy and submit an updated resume to prepare for reduction-in-force. The deadline for this request is three business days. The only employees exempt from this requirement are those who took the buyout options (VERA, VSIP, or the Deferred Resignation Program).

In addition to previous positions, resumes are required to include degrees, certifications, training, and “any other information that can be used for qualification purposes for positions as part of the workforce optimization efforts.”

Many employees find that their data shows incorrect information, and the site set up to review the data and upload resumes experiences multiple glitches.

April 24, 2025

When the internal website to verify personnel records (see previous timeline entry) was pushed to employees, users noted that personally identifiable information, including performance review scores for the past three years, disability status, grade, and pay information, was easily (and sometimes accidentally) accessed by any NPS employee.

This failure to protect private information is another example of the consequences of moving too quickly in attempt to meet unreasonable demands. The data breach was immediately reported to supervisory staff and the access to everyone’s private data was removed after several hours.

April 18, 2025

In a late night secretarial order, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced he was giving up oversight of DOI and handing full control of the department’s organization and staffing to Tyler Hassen, a DOGE operative. Conveniently, Hassen is also a former oil executive for Basin Energy in Texas.

The order states in part, “…the Department will be unifying and consolidating many of its functions…this will include human resources, information technology, financial management, training and development, international affairs…”

While they claim this consolidation will create a more efficient system, in actuality, it will eliminate large amounts of agency specific knowledge, making it less efficient and less effective.

This order gives full and complete control over NPS, BLM, USFWS and other Interior bureaus to Hassen, without requiring him to report to Burgum. This means Elon Musk is now effectively in charge of America’s public lands.

April 18, 2025

The Office of Personnel Management proposes a rule to reclassify tens of thousands of career civil servants as "at-will" employees. This rule, which renames Schedule F employees as Schedule Policy/Career, would make it easier to fire federal workers.

This is another attempt by Trump and his allies to strip civil service protections from federal workers.

The White House claims this rule would address "unaccountable, policy-determining federal employees who put their own interests ahead of the American people's."

However, the Fact Sheet put out by The White House states “[t]his rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles”.

The motives behind this rule are further clarified in a social media post by Trump:

"If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job."

April 17, 2025

With the initial hiring freeze due to expire, President Trump, via executive order, extends the hiring freeze until July 15, 2025.

The growing number of permanent positions sitting unfilled will remain vacant, with park resources stretched ever thinner as the workforce shrinks, via retirements, buyouts, and illegally fired workers who, for various reasons, were not able to return to their post.

Notably, the Executive Order refers to the freeze continuing until a new “merit-based” hiring process is approved. The only exemptions currently are law enforcement and public safety-related positions.

“I hereby extend through July 15, 2025, the freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees within the executive branch, as initially directed in the Presidential Memorandum of January 20, 2025 (Hiring Freeze).”

April 14, 2025 (Approximate)

Federal agencies are in the planning phases of implementing large-scale job cuts via the Reduction in Force (RIF) process.

The first step in a RIF is identifying positions and areas that may be affected followed by considering other strategies, like voluntary early retirement authority (VERA) and voluntary separation incentive payment (VSIP), to find employees who choose to voluntarily leave before a RIF takes place.

While we don’t have specifics as to what positions will be cut and when, we expect further information around this date and will make updates as we know more.

April 7, 2025

NPS Director, Jessica Bowron, sends out an internal directive instructing park superintendents to get creative with staffing in order to focus on visitor experience. This comes right after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered the National Park Service to ensure parks are properly staffed "to support the operating hours and needs of each park unit."

Staffing suggestions include: borrowing staff from other parks, reassigning existing staff, reaching out to state parks, and using volunteers and partner organizations. All the while insisting park rangers act as if everything is normal.

"As in other years, we are working hard to ensure we make this another great year for visitors. National park employees are dedicated problem solvers used to working around obstacles and will continue to work hard to provide memorable experiences this summer”.

-Rachel Pawlitz, NPS chief of public affairs

April 4-9, 2025

NPS employees receive a second “deferred resignation “ email. This offer (previously nicknamed the “fork” in reference to Elon’s “Fork in the Road” email) entices employees to leave federal service with early retirement and a “buy-out” program. Employees had only from April 4th to April 9th to decide whether they wanted to opt in to the early retirement. Positions vacated by individuals who took this offer have not been backfilled, and will not be backfilled due to the hiring freeze.

One difference between this “fork” and the first is that certain job series and positions are barred from participation in the buy-out, which equates to five months of pay without work. Employees who are not eligible to take the buy-out include employees who deal with permitting, employees with on-site duties at park units, and law enforcement.

April 3, 2025

Secretary Doug Burgum releases secretarial order 3426 which orders that the National Park Service ensure that “any closures or reductions to operating hours, seasons, or any visitor services (including trails and campgrounds), in whole or in part, must be reviewed by the NPS Director…”

This order effectively removes the power of each individual park’s superintendent to exercise judgment regarding staff shortages or other contingencies that make it unsafe or impracticable to keep an area of the park open. Furthermore, it creates inefficiencies and possible dangerous situations as higher-ups will be required to review all decisions from all parks, causing major delays.

This comes as parks are gearing up for the busy summer season and have already been forced to close popular trails and campgrounds due to low staffing. Worse, further losses to staffing are expected as wide-spread layoffs are being prepared in the National Park Service as part of their Reduction-in-Force plan.

These efforts are a blatant attempt to act as if it’s “business as usual” in the NPS. To be clear, drastic staffing cuts and interruptions to seasonal hiring, thanks to DOGE interference, has major affects on the parks and will affect your visit.

March 31, 2025

DOGE operatives sought and received what they termed “full” or “system” access to the DOI’s payroll, human resources, and credentialing systems. This gave them access to payroll records and controls associated with more than 276,000 federal workers.

This raises inherent security and privacy issues as this type of access could allow them to overwrite code to look at the W2s and other personal information of, or even to change pay rates or stop payments to, federal workers - with no oversight. NY Times

March 27, 2025

An executive order seeking to end collective bargaining for any agencies dealing with “national security,” is released. Although this order is stated as affecting certain specific agencies, a majority of federal agencies are impacted, including the Department of the Interior.

Multiple federal unions took legal action against the order, calling the move illegal.

March 27, 2025

Elon Musk and DOGE staff member Steve Davis claim, without basis, that an $830,000,000 contract awarded for surveys about national parks was cancelled by DOGE as part of their efforts to “improve efficiency”. The NPS discretionary budget is about $3.5B. A contract that would have consumed almost a quarter of the entire NPS budget is, to say the least, highly implausible.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum repeats these claims at a cabinet meeting. No contract was ever found and never even appeared on the DOGE website. CBS News

March 20, 2025

NPS reported they would rehire 400 of the terminated employees and the remaining 600 would be placed on administrative leave indefinitely. NPS later revised their statement to say they would rehire all 1000 employees. They were also awarded back pay for the time during which they were illegally fired.

The names of these illegally fired park rangers reappeared in NPS payroll systems, but it is still unclear how many were reinstated, are on administrative leave, or did not return for other reasons.

March 13, 2025

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, presided over by Judge William H. Alsup, granted a Preliminary Injunction broadening a temporary restraining order against the OPM and its Acting Director, Charles Ezell. They found that the termination of probationary federal employees was illegal because OPM had no authority to order it. 

The judge also forbade OPM from giving any guidance to federal agencies on which employees should be terminated.

March 11, 2025 (Approximated)

NPS employees notice the Severance Pay Eligibility section of their employee benefits statements have been changed without any notice or explanation.

Previously, this section indicated whether or not the employee was eligible for severance pay. At some point between the end of February and March 31, this eligibility is no longer indicated on the statement. In its place is a link to Fact Sheet: Severance Pay which is a web page created by OPM that can be edited at any time.

Analysis of the “fact sheet”, before and after the DOGE takeover, has been analyzed and compared.

March 10, 2025

NPS Departments are directed by the Trump Administration to prepare proposals for how to reduce the NPS payroll by 30%. It is stated that this 30% reduction would include the probationary employees that were illegally fired previously.

As of now, these plans have never been released and it is unclear how the 30% would be calculated now that illegally fired employees have now been re-hired.

March 5, 2025

Newly-released NPS data showed that visitation records were broken in 2024, with NPS sites experiencing over 331.8 million visits, surpassing the 2016 record of 330.9 million visits.

Contrary to standard procedure, NPS employees are instructed NOT to “issue a press release or other proactive communications, including social media posts.”

This was a blatant attempt to minimize record visitation numbers while staff at all levels are being cut from the ranks.

“Visitation data from 2024 will go live on NPS.gov on March 5, 2025. There is no external communications rollout for 2024 visitation data”

March 4, 2025

440 federal properties are listed to be sold by the General Services Administration. This included the Robert F. Kennedy Building (Department of Justice) and the J. Edgar Hoover Building (FBI). One day later, the list of properties is quietly removed from the GSA’s website.

March 3, 2025

Members of the House Natural Resources Committee confirmed that the Trump Administration planned to close over 2 MILLION square feet of building space used by the Department of Interior across the country, including at least 33 National Park Service buildings.

The building on the chopping block include museums and visitor centers such as the NPS lease for the Cadillac Hotel in Seattle, which serves as the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

February 26, 2025

OPM publishes a memo directed to heads of executive departments and agencies entitled “Guidance on Agency RIF and Reorganization Plans Requested by Implementing The President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative.”

This memo states that “Agency Heads shall promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs)” with agency plans due to OPM no later than March 13, 2025.

February 25, 2025

All government payment cards (similar to credit cards), are frozen leaving parks & regional offices unable to purchase essential supplies. This includes items such as toilet paper, paper towels, first aid supplies, gas for ranger vehicles, cleaning supplies, snowplow repair parts, and even payments for park cell phones and utility bills.

Eventually, DOI decided to allow 1-3 individuals within each of the 12 NPS regions, to hold payment cards with a higher, but still limited, amount of $50,000. Those individuals were tasked with fielding and reviewing every purchase request in their region. 4 out of every 5 parks did not have a single employee on site with purchasing power.

After a month of inefficient purchasing procedures, DOI released a few more cards, with almost all parks now up to one card each. This still means inefficiency and long delays when ordering supplies.

February 25, 2025

The Department of the Interior quietly removes, and makes void, all current Employee Performance and Appraisal Plans (EPAPs) for 2025. This information was only disseminated within the Department of Interior’s OneINTERIOR All Employee Digest, seemingly hidden among other small print news items. All performance plans, had already been removed from the system.

DOI performance plans not only document past performance, but also communicate future expectations. They function as a mutually agreed upon agreement between the employee and the employer, signed by both at the beginning of each year. Lack of these documents creates confusion regarding position expectations and performance metrics.

February 22, 2025

On February 22, after Trump pushed him to be “more aggressive,” Musk posted on his social media platform: “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

An email sent by OPM followed, giving workers until 11:59 p.m. on February 24 to list five things they accomplished in the previous week.

The "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation” was never communicated in emails received from the new government-wide HR email address or through any official channel.

February 21, 2025

Elon Musk, “senior adviser to the president” and a leader of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) attends the 2025 CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) where he is gifted a chain saw by President of Argentina, Javier Milei. Musk proceeded to brandish it onstage, yelling, “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!”

February 19, 2025

Internal guidance is released to NPS employees regarding what should be communicated to the public, stakeholders and partners. These statements are crafted to cover up the staff & budget cuts and behind-the-scenes harassment of federal employees and to give a forward facing appearance of business-as-usual in the parks.

The topline messaging emphasizes we are “enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.”

This messaging was encouraged to be “mixed and matched” with options such as:

“NPS is working closely with the Office of Personnel Management to ensure we are prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people” and “we’re committed to keeping access to national parks seamless, so that everyone can enjoy the beauty and wonder of these treasured landscapes.”

February 14, 2025

The Trump administration, through DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), led by Elon Musk, initiated significant workforce reductions across various federal agencies. On February 14, approximately 1,000 NPS employees were illegally terminated.

Many of the terminated employees were on probationary status, a classification for federal employees during their first year of employment or first year in a new position. These employees were targeted because this status allows for easier dismissal without extensive procedural requirements.

The administration justified these terminations by generic language citing poor performance, even in cases where employees had documented universally highly positive evaluations.

Per termination notices: "…you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills and abilities do not meet the department's current needs."

February 13, 2025

In response to Donald Trump’s executive order titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government," OPM instructed federal agencies to remove gender identity and LGBTQ+ issues from their communications.

On February 13, the NPS began altering web pages. Terms such as "transgender" and "queer," were removed and "LGBTQ+" was changed to "LGB," effectively erasing mentions of transgender contributions to LGBTQ+ history. Entire pages referencing queer history were removed.

Some of these federal webpages have since been restored following public outcry and legal intervention, but the Stonewall National Monument webpage remains heavily altered.

See these removed pages and histories at Rangers Uncensored.

January 28, 2025

The “Fork in the Road” email was sent from OPM to approximately 2,000 federal employees. This email offered a deferred resignation program, which allowed employees to resign by February 6, 2025, in exchange for continued pay and benefits through September 30, 2025.

“If you choose to remain in your current position…we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency”

January 23, 2025

All federal employees receive notice that DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) programs are canceled. Employees are directed to report any colleagues attempting to get around the ban:

“We are aware of efforts of some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language…failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.”

-Walter Cruickshank, Acting Secretary of the Interior

January 23, 2025

Employees receive test emails from OPM (Office of Personnel Management) instructing them to reply, as they are testing a way to email all federal employees at once. This is not normal.

OPM employees will later claim an unknown person came into the office and plugged in an external server without permission, referring to it as a “hostile government takeover”.

January 23, 2025

NPS abandons job offer commitments. Any individual who had been hired to a permanent or term position within the National Park Service but has not received an Official Offer Letter at the end of onboarding OR has an EOD (start date) later than 2/8/2025 has their offer rescinded.

Many of these individuals had already packed up and moved to new areas for duty and had signed housing agreements. No recourse is provided except supervisors filing for an exemption to the hiring freeze; all exemption requests we believe to have been denied by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

“Please be advised that the National Park Service is unable to fill the (job title) position at (park site) at (location) at this time. As such, your job offer has been rescinded at management request.”

January 20, 2025

A presidential memorandum instituting a federal hiring freeze across the executive branch was issued. This freeze prohibited filling vacant federal civilian positions and creating new ones.

“As part of this freeze, no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law.”

January 20, 2025

Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.

Renaming of National Landmarks: On inauguration day, President Trump signed Executive Order 14172 entitled "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," directing the renaming of two national landmarks. This order mandated the reinstatement of the name "Mount McKinley" for Denali and the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America."

Also included in this Executive Order is the following: “The Secretary of Interior may solicit public and intergovernmental input regarding additional patriots to honor, particularly in light of America's semiquincentennial celebration, and shall recommend action to me, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy.”