As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues dismantling federal institutions, the details of the casualties highlight its goal of eliminating anything that doesn’t make the Trump Administration and its friends money rather than its stated objective of “government savings.” The attack on the National Park Service (NPS), in particular, highlights the Trump Administration’s disdain for “America’s Best Idea”: preserving our country’s history, culture, and environment.

Recently, that attack has switched from letting staff go to terminating leases for office space and visitor centers nationwide. This move is another warning sign that the Trump Administration wants to privatize public lands. As the map below shows, the locations of the lease terminations vary by state and size. But each location plays a specific role in NPS’ mission.

One of the locations is the visitors center within the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. According to an NPS informational page, “The park’s mission is to serve the nation as a global leader in the promulgation of New Orleans jazz by enhancing and instilling a public appreciation and understanding of the origins, early history, development and progression of this uniquely American music art form – jazz.” However, visitors to the center are being redirected to NPS’s French Quarter Visitor Center, which is dedicated to the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.

Jazz is not just a uniquely American art form but also a uniquely Black-created art form. The closure of the visitor center, which also includes a performance venue, has left locals angry and tourists disappointed. Rep. Troy Carter, who serves Louisiana’s 2nd District, which includes New Orleans, called the closure “an attack on culture.” According to DOGE, the projected savings of the closure are $297,208. To give context, that amount is 0.000004 percent of the 2024 federal budget.

Another location is the South Florida Ecosystem Office for Everglades National Park in Homestead, Florida. The facility primarily houses work on wetland restoration initiatives. According to the NPS, researchers at the office set restoration targets, figure out how new projects might affect the environment, and ensure that restoration efforts were actually working through environmental monitoring.

This closure is a loss for an already fragile park. In the early 1900s, the Florida state legislature sought to drain South Florida’s wetlands to accommodate a growing population. This process was achieved by deepening rivers and constructing canals to redirect water from Lake Okeechobee in the north, away from the Everglades. However, altering the natural flow of water resulted in ecological changes in areas that had previously benefited from access to the lake’s freshwater. Native plants suffered from drought, wildfires increased, and wildlife migrated from devastated areas. In 1934, a report by the National Park Service detailing the situation in the Everglades convinced Congress to enact legislation authorizing the establishment of Everglades National Park, which was finally established in 1947.

Since then, the Everglades has been the focus of the world’s largest intergovernmental watershed restoration effort, with numerous projects aiming to restore the quantity, quality, timing, and distribution of freshwater across South Florida. According to DOGE, the projected savings for closing the Homestead office is $0. To give context, this is 0 percent of the federal budget, because it’s a zero.

More locations are set to be shuttered, and there are more stories behind their purposes. The confounding part is that these closures save the federal government little to nothing, even at scale. If the goal is to save taxpayer money, there is plenty of fraud and overspending in the Defense Department that has nothing to do with DEI initiatives. Or DOGE doesn’t have to look much further than the White House: The president’s frequent golf trips and travel to South Florida have increased government aircraft and personnel costs. Additionally, these trips have caused disruptions to local airports due to restrictions that must be put in place to accommodate the president’s travel.

Instead, DOGE is focusing on services and costs that provide taxpayers with educational, cultural, and environmental benefits. It’s almost as if taxpayers’ needs and wants were never considered in the first place.