Interior official slams former parks board

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A U.S. Interior Department official on Wednesday blasted the resignation of most members of a board that advises it on national parks, suggesting the move was politically motivated and their work was flawed.

Todd Willens, associate deputy secretary of the department, brought up investigations that uncovered sexual harassment at national parks such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and an internal investigative report of a guidebook written by former National Park Service leader Jonathan Jarvis.

“We welcome their resignations and would expect nothing less than quitting from members who found it convenient to turn a blind eye to women being sexually harassed at national parks and praise a man as ‘inspiring’ who had been blasted by the inspector general for ethics and management failures,” Willens said.

Nine members of the 12-member National Park System Advisory Board, including chairman Tony Knowles, a Democratic former Alaska governor, resigned Monday in a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, saying their requests to meet were ignored.

The Washington Post, first to report the resignations, said a 10th member stepped down Wednesday.

It’s the latest hit to committees that advise the Trump administration.

Half the expert members of a board that advises the Environmental Protection Agency on the integrity of its science were not reappointed last May. At the same time, the Interior Department said it launched a wide-ranging review of more than 200 boards and advisory committees, including some that had not met in years.

The congressionally authorized National Park System Advisory Board must meet twice per year by law but has not been called into session by the Interior Department since President Donald Trump took office.

“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,” Knowles wrote in the letter.