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The National Park Service: DOI or independent status?

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Abstract

Over the course of the last two decades there has been a recurring theme among proponents of the National Park Service mission that politics has undermined the day-to-day goals of the Service. With the increased politization of the Park Service, two recent proposals have called for removal of the NPS from the Department of the Interior and call for it to become an independent body along the lines of other government entities such as the Smithsonian Institution. This article reviews these proposals and suggests that in the long run removal from the Department of the Interior will not solve the problems of the NPS and may well accelerate them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, 89154, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

    Dennis L. Soden

  2. Department of Political Science, Boise State University, 83725, Boise, Idaho, USA

    John Freemuth

Authors
  1. Dennis L. Soden
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  2. John Freemuth
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Soden, D.L., Freemuth, J. The National Park Service: DOI or independent status?. Environmental Management 15, 15–25 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02393835

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