A cadre of Massachusetts lawmakers has asked the U.S. Interior Department to provide more clarity on a wave of planned layoffs that could result in the loss of National Park Service jobs in the Bay State.

The letter, led by U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., was shared exclusively with MassLive. It asks the agency to “protect the employees working to preserve our national treasures for generations to come.”

The Interior Department said this week that it had pressed pause on plans to lay off more than 2,000 employees, with the federal government in the throes of the longest shutdown in the nation’s history.

That disclosure, in a court filing, was taken as a signal that the agency intended to comply with a federal judge’s order barring the Trump administration from engaging in mass firings during the shutdown, The New York Times reported.

The administration had signaled a past willingness to disregard orders that interfered with its agenda, the newspaper noted.

Currently on the block are 63 positions at the National Park Service’s Northeast Regional Office, headquartered in Philadelphia, which oversees park service sites in Massachusetts.

The Friday letter sent by Markey, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and the nine members of the state’s all-Democrat U.S. House delegation, notes that the regional office, which covers 83 parks in New England alone, is already “understaffed and overtaxed.”

Since President Donald Trump took office for the second time in January, the Park Service has lost a quarter of its permanent staff, and 45% of its seasonal positions were left vacant last summer, the lawmakers observed.

“The National Parks of Boston had a combined 50 vacancies for full-time employees across its three park units as of July 2025, and one-third of the positions at the Cape Cod National Seashore are currently vacant,” they wrote to U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

The planned staff reductions at the office, which sprawls across 13 states, would bring it “to the breaking point,” Markey and his colleagues wrote.

And if those “reductions in force” are carried out, they’d have an impact on planned celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday next year, Markey and his colleagues told Burgum.

Earlier this week, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey’s office announced a full slate of programming in the Bay State in 2026 tied to the celebration.

Markey and his colleagues also expressed particular concern about the impact any planned job cuts could have on the Olmstead Center for Landscape Preservation in Brookline and the Historic Architecture, Conservation and Engineering Center in Lowell.

Both sites “provide critical planning and historic restoration and renovation at many parks in the state and the Northeast,” the lawmakers wrote.

The letter also asked Burgum’s office to respond by Nov. 21 to a list of 11 detailed questions seeking clarity on matters ranging from the justification for the cuts to whether more reductions are planned for Massachusetts.

“In 2024, 8.8 million visitors to Massachusetts national parks spent $950 million in the state, contributing a total of $1.4 billion to the Massachusetts economy,” the lawmakers wrote, adding that “Massachusetts deserves a fully supported and staffed [Park Service], especially as we celebrate America’s 250th birthday next year.”

MassLive has reached out to the U.S. Interior Department for comment for this story.