Almost every member of the National Parks Service’s advisory council resigned after repeatedly complaining Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his office ignored them.
Nine of the 12 National Park System Advisory Board officials announced their abrupt decision in a letter to Zinke on Monday night, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Post.
They accused Zinke, a former Montana congressman, of not holding a single meeting last year, which the Interior Department vehemently denied Wednesday.
“We understand the complexity of transition but our requests to engage have been ignored and the matters on which we wanted to brief the new Department team are clearly not part of its agenda,” wrote Tony Knowles, the board’s chair and former governor of Alaska.
He and eight other board members — whose terms had either expired or were set to in May — tendered their resignation.
At least three quarters of the dozen board members “have stood by waiting for the chance to meet and continue the partnership … as prescribed by law,” wrote Knowles, who was a member of the body since 2010.
The 83-year-old NPS council is usually comprised of nature experts, conservationists and a bipartisan group of former elected officials.
The dozen members typically advise the NPS director on matters such as designating national natural or historic landmarks and programs under the system.
Knowles told CNN the NPS panel is supposed to meet twice a year, but hasn’t even once in the 12 months President Trump has been in office.
“Here we were just being basically stonewalled. … They had no interest in learning our agenda, and what we had to brief them on,” he told the network. “The board said we need to make a statement. We can’t make a statement to the secretary, then we need to make a public statement.”
But the Interior Department fired back at Knowles’ missive, noting that the terms of two members had already expired.
“Their hollow and dishonest political stunt should be a clear indicator of the intention of this group,” Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said in a statement.
Interior officials had been working to renew the board’s charter, which expired in December, and to set up a new meeting, Swift continued.
Her rebuke of the board also noted Interior secretaries rarely attend the meetings, which happen at the end of the year.
“The Department is happy to report that we have a number of individuals who have expressed interest in joining the board and we will now fast-track filling these new vacancies with people who are actually dedicated to working with the Department to better our national parks,” Swift continued. “We expect to have a full board meeting soon.”
It’s the lasted advisory council issue at the Department of Interior, where the consulting bodies haven’t received charter approval, which they’re required to under law.
The Rocky Mountain and Southwest Colorado resource advisory councils recently had to call off meetings because the charters hadn’t been renewed, the Washington Post noted.
“It’s concerning that our advisory council has been unable to meet for over a year,” Scott Braden, member of the Rocky Mountain Council who works with advocacy Conservation Colorado, told the newspaper. “Secretary Zinke has said that local input is important for BLM to consider, and yet these councils, which provide just such input, have been sidelined.”
Others, including the Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science and another conservation panel, were dissolved, the Washington Post reported.