Sad state of our National Parks-II

To be political normally means to use something to an advantage, such as shutting down facilities. That's not currently happening, and has not recently.
Moving huge amounts of land into the NPS and then not increasing funding to support their care was not intended to be political, but it was equally damaging in that it just stretched limited funds even further.

Better to start using some potential income streams to specifically help the systems, but even then, a Politician will reduce funds coming from the federal general fund by the amount coming from the side funding method.
Getting rid of the scum suckers in DC and new people in place is the fix.

It doesnt matter the party, they have all continued to damage the parks and the systems in place meant to care for them.

No Senator or Congressperson will turn down an opportunity to get a little cherrypicked project for their state or district, even if it does harm a National Park. And any who have been in place for more than a year or two have done it.

User fees that actually cover operational cost, granting drilling or mining in some areas to fund protecting others, and giving the agencies, not the Congress the power to manage the funds will be the biggest help.

Not meant to be controversially......Our elected politicians, both parties, are not taking care of these problems. They devote all their efforts to getting re-elected.

Yosemite Sam1 wrote:
distorted priorities or even hostility towards the environment (area around Sequoia National Park are set to be opened for oil explorations).

That is so depressing it's hard to put it into words.

This is completely political, and those problems have been going on for many years. If that diversion occurred it is hardly the cause of the trouble. What needs to happen is that the parks need to deal with maintenance issues and put new land acquisition on hold until that is dealt with. They also need to slash regulations that make fixing problems stupidly expensive.