Adrian Hedden
Artesia Daily Press
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez’s two-day tour of Carlsbad, as he rallies against the federal government’s funding bill signed by President Donald Trump July 4, continued among the peaks of the Guadalupe Mountains and 700 feet underground at Carlsbad Caverns.
Trump’s critics in the Democratic Party derided the administration for recent alterations to public lands policies, opening more lands to development such as oil and gas production, increasing entry fees to national parks for non-U.S. citizens and cutting funding – and in some cases jobs – for the National Park Service.
The funding bill, known by supporters as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” could cut up to $267 million in funds for park service staffing and maintenance projects, according to a July report from the National Parks Conservation Association.
“When parks don’t have the necessary staff, you can’t protect the resource,” Vasquez said. “They’re doing everything they can, and they’ve been able to keep the park open. That’s not true of every park, and it’s not sustainable.”
Carlsbad Caverns in particular lost 14 employees in February, as part of thousands of layoffs announced earlier this year by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget signaled that month in a memorandum that more terminations could take place at federal agencies, calling on departments to plan to eliminate positions across their workforces.
“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public,” the memo read. “Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens.”
Such cuts meant Carlsbad Caverns currently has 52 positions filled out of 96, leading to the recent suspension of guided tours of the famed underground caverns.
That’s a problem for Carlsbad Caverns’ mission of not only allowing public access to the unique cave system, consisting of about 150 known caves beneath the Chihuahuan Desert, but also educating visitors about what they are looking at, said Deputy Park Superintendent Ephriam Dickson.
“The challenge for us is we, as the Park Service, are supposed to connect people with the resources,” he said. “When people do experience it, they might say ‘Wow, that’s cool.’ But they don’t necessarily know why it’s cool.”
Vasquez said during his Aug. 8 tour of the Caverns that public lands should be preserved for future generations. He serves as co-chair of the U.S. House Public Lands Caucus, and said recent attempts by Republicans to sell public lands would face “backlash” from politicians on both sides of the aisle.
“It belongs to all Americans. Places like this are a perfect example of why we need to protect our public lands,” Vasquez said during an interview at the Carlsbad Caverns Visitors Center, following an underground tour.
A proposed addition to the funding bill, to open about 3.3 million acres of public land for sale in 10 states including New Mexico, was shot down by Congress before the bill was passed.
But concerns lingered for the future of New Mexico’s public land, Vasquez said.
Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Park, about 15 miles down the road just over the border in Texas, are separated by about 6 miles of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Dickson worried the land could be looked at for sale to private industry.
Instead, he suggested the land be provided to the Park Service, potentially linking the two parks as one.
“If those highly valuable lands come up for sale, one option instead of selling them would be that it goes to the Park Service,” he said. “Then, we can manage the entire ecosystem.”
Oil and gas leasing
The Department of the Interior, the parent agency of the park service and Bureau of Land Management, which oversees leases of public land, announced July 24 it brought in $58 million in revenue from a land auction to the oil and gas industry in southeast New Mexico.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who before the sale announced a rollback of increases to royalty rates paid by operators to the government as a percentage of their profits, said policies such as the hike enacted under former-President Joe Biden were harmful to industry, thus the U.S. economy.
The funding bill “reset” the royalty rate from the increased 16.67% rate under the Biden administration back to the previous 12.5% fee, read a news release from the Interior Department.
“By reversing burdensome Biden-era royalty hikes, we are unleashing the full potential of our public lands, lowering energy costs for hardworking Americans and strengthening our national and economic security,” Burgum said in a statement.
But Vasquez countered that oil and gas companies were making “record profits” as the industry boomed in the Permian Basin – centered in southeast New Mexico – and could afford to pay a rate equivalent to the “value of the land.”
Those are funds that could also support staffing, infrastructure and maintenance of other areas of the Interior Department’s purview, such as the National Park Service, Vasquez said.
“If we want to build revenue for parks like this, that should be on the table,” he said.
He also argued that public land should be allocated to industry only through the leasing process, which he said includes multiple public input opportunities and ensures the land is maintained for future public use.
“That process exists for a reason, and there is public participation,” Vasquez said. “We will continue to oppose any sale of public land.”
Managing Editor Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.
