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

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