White House withdraws Scott Socha nomination to lead National Park Service

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The White House on Monday withdrew President Donald Trump’s nomination of Scott Socha to lead the National Park Service, the administration announced. The move comes while the agency is led by an acting director and after a period in which the Park Service has faced staffing upheaval, according to the Associated Press.

The White House said the nomination was being withdrawn as the National Park Service undergoes changes tied to the Trump administration’s pledge to reduce the size of the federal workforce. The Associated Press said it sent email requests to the White House and the Department of the Interior seeking comment on Socha’s withdrawal.

In a statement, Socha said he was dropping out of consideration for the post for personal reasons. The Associated Press reported that Socha had been nominated earlier this year after being described by a White House spokesperson as “totally qualified” to execute Trump’s plans for the park system.

Socha is president for parks and resorts at Delaware North, a Buffalo, New York-based hospitality company that has service contracts with multiple parks. The Associated Press said conservation groups had questioned whether Socha’s private-sector experience would provide the background they said he would need to oversee hundreds of national parks and monuments, including both major cultural sites and remote locations.

The Park Service is currently overseen by an acting director, agency comptroller Jessica Bowron. The Associated Press reported the agency did not have a Senate-confirmed director during Trump’s first term, and that it was led by a series of acting directors during that period.

The withdrawal lands amid broader changes within the National Park Service since Trump took office, including thousands of employee firings or departures, the Associated Press reported. A spokesman for the National Parks Conservation Association, Emily Douce, said Monday that the next permanent director will need to “undo the damage.”

Douce said it was “very unfortunate” that the parks have gone more than a year without a permanent director as the agency needs “strong, steady leadership the most,” according to the Associated Press. She argued that leadership mattered at a time when policy shifts and operational changes have made the agency’s direction a focal point for conservation advocates.

The Associated Press also said the Republican administration’s proposed next-year budget would reduce staffing to 9,200 employees, down almost 30% from 2025 levels. It reported that the park service’s operating budget would be cut by more than $1 billion to $2.2 billion for fiscal year 2027, which starts in October, and said similar 2026 cuts were blocked by lawmakers in Congress.

Beyond staffing, the Associated Press said the administration has faced blowback for removing or planning removals of national park exhibits about slavery, climate change, and the destruction of Native American culture. It reported that in February a federal judge said an exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington must be restored at Washington’s former home in Philadelphia after the Trump administration took it down.

The Associated Press further reported that administration officials said they are removing “disparaging” messages under an order from Trump last year, a move critics said amounts to whitewashing U.S. history. It also said under Interior Secretary Doug Burgum the Park Service began charging international tourists $100 each to visit sites that include Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, and it described a separate dispute over putting Trump’s image on annual passes for U.S. citizens that environmentalists said was illegal.