Thursday, July 10, 2025
66.0°F

Retired official named acting chief of National Park Service

Matthew Daly | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 7 years, 5 months AGO
by Matthew Daly
| January 24, 2018 5:59 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — A retired park superintendent who gained notoriety after helping Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder cut down trees near his home has been named acting director of the National Park Service.

P. Daniel Smith, a former superintendent of Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia, replaces acting director Michael Reynolds, who clashed with President Donald Trump over photographs showing the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Smith’s promotion Wednesday, two weeks after naming Smith as one of the agency’s deputy directors. Reynolds, whose tenure as acting chief was time-limited by federal rules, was reassigned; his new post is superintendent of Yosemite National Park in California.

On his first full day in office, Trump called Reynolds to dispute widely circulated photos of the inauguration and ordered him to produce additional photographs of the previous day’s crowds on the National Mall.

Reynolds forwarded additional photos to the White House as requested.

Trump has claimed that up to 1.5 million people attended the inauguration at the Capitol and National Mall, but park service photographs refute that.

An inspector general’s report found no wrongdoing by the park service in the dispute with Trump. The June 26 report also found no evidence to substantiate a complaint that park service officials leaked information about Trump’s phone call to Reynolds to the news media.

A park service official acknowledged asking staff to make sure they did not include crowd-size estimates in any reports on the inauguration, but did so in accordance with longstanding agency policy, the report said. The park service stopped providing crowd estimates in the mid-1990s after a dispute over crowd size at the so-called Million Man March.

Smith gained notoriety a decade ago after helping Snyder, the Redskins owner, cut down trees near his home along the Potomac River. An inspector general’s report said Smith pressured officials to approve a 2004 deal that disregarded federal environmental laws. Smith was an assistant to the park service director at the time.

Zinke said in a statement that Smith “has a strong record of leadership in the National Park Service, both in Washington and on the front lines as a superintendent of a park that tells the stories of some of the most consequential moments in American history.”

Zinke said Reynolds “did an incredible job stewarding our parks through 2017,” notably on combating sexual harassment and discrimination in the agency.

As acting director, Smith will lead an agency with more than 20,000 employees, a nearly $3 billion budget and 417 national park units. The parks attract more than 300 million visitors every year who generate over $30 billion in economic benefit across the nation, Interior said.

Trump has not nominated a permanent director to lead the park service, which has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since former parks director Jon Jarvis retired in January 2017.

MORE IMPORTED STORIES

Park service gets new chief as new cash flows from Congress
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 4 years, 11 months ago
Park service gets new chief as new cash flows from Congress
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 4 years, 11 months ago
Native American groups ask NFL to force Redskins name change
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 5 years ago

ARTICLES BY MATTHEW DALY

September 11, 2021 12:03 a.m.

Biden, Dems push Civilian Climate Corps in echo of New Deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inspired by the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are pushing for a modern counterpart: a Civilian Climate Corps that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs building trails, restoring streams and helping prevent catastrophic wildfires.

September 10, 2021 12:06 a.m.

Report: Solar could power 40% of US electricity by 2035

WASHINGTON (AP) — Solar energy has the potential to supply up to 40% of the nation’s electricity within 15 years — a 10-fold increase over current solar output, but one that would require massive changes in U.S. policy and billions of dollars in federal investment to modernize the nation's electric grid, a new federal report says.

September 10, 2021 12:06 a.m.

Biden, Dems push Civilian Climate Corps in echo of New Deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inspired by the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are pushing for a modern counterpart: a Civilian Climate Corps that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs building trails, restoring streams and helping prevent catastrophic wildfires.