Public Citizen Sues Over Failure to Release Documents About Yosemite National Park
WASHINGTON, D.C. — After getting no response to a public records request, Public Citizen is suing the Department of the Interior and National Park Service seeking disclosure of agency records that may provide insight on the Trump administration’s controversial management of this iconic national park.
Public Citizen’s Freedom of Information Act records request was prompted by the appointment of a new superintendent at Yosemite National Park in 2025. The request seeks communications between Yosemite National Park Superintendent Raymond McPadden and top Interior officials in Washington D.C.
Since then, the Trump administration has proposed selling off a piece of Yosemite National Park to a private equity firm with a plan to build a luxury real estate development on the park’s outskirts. Budget cuts and crowding issues also plague Yosemite and other national parks.
“As Trump builds monuments to himself in Washington, D.C., the administration’s mismanagement and misuse of national parks like Yosemite is rightly under scrutiny,” said Robert Weissman, Public Citizen Co-President. “We need full disclosure about the political agenda influencing policy affecting our nation’s most extraordinary places.”
Read the complaint here.