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UPDATED: Brace For A Big Jump In National Park Entrance Fees

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Editor's note: This updates with reaction from National Parks Conservation Association and U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke moved Tuesday to find a way to boost funding to address the National Park Service's maintenance backlog, proposing to substantially increase park entrance fees during the "high season" for vacations. It's a move that seemingly would do little to address the backlog, estimated at roughly $12 billion, while hitting families with school students hardest.

“Secretary Zinke would rather take money directly out of the pockets of hardworking Americans instead of coming up with a serious budget proposal for the National Park System,” said Rep. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat. “More than doubling the vehicle entrance fee at Grand Canyon, as this proposal would do, or any other park is not a sustainable funding strategy. We should be encouraging more people to get outdoors and enjoy our great natural wonders instead of discouraging them by raising park entrance fees. Whether it’s healthcare, tax cuts, or now access to our national parks, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress just don’t seem to care about everyday American families.”

Under the fee proposal laid out in a press release, "entrance fees would be established at 17 national parks. The peak season for each park would be defined as its busiest contiguous five-month period of visitation."

During the peak season, the release explained, a seven-day-long "entrance fee would be $70 per private, non-commercial vehicle, $50 per motorcycle, and $30 per person on bike or foot. A park-specific annual pass for any of the 17 parks would be available for $75."

Parks to be affected by these rates, if approved, are "Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Denali, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Olympic, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion national parks with peak season starting on May 1, 2018; in Acadia, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and Shenandoah National Parks with peak season starting on June 1, 2018; and in Joshua Tree National Park as soon as practicable in 2018."

“We should not increase fees to such a degree as to make these places – protected for all Americans to experience – unaffordable for some families to visit," said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association. "The solution to our parks’ repair needs cannot and should not be largely shouldered by its visitors.

“The administration just proposed a major cut to the National Park Service budget even as parks struggle with billions of dollars in needed repairs," she added. "If the administration wants to support national parks, it needs to walk the walk and work with Congress to address the maintenance backlog."

If implemented, Interior officials said, the higher fees could be expected to raise $70 million a year. Eighty percent of the revenues raised would remain in the parks where they are collected, with the remainder to be distributed elsewhere in the National Park System.

Not mentioned in the release was how the proposed entrance fees were calculated, or how significant of an impact the additional revenues would have on the maintenance backlog.

“I think the proposal speaks for itself. I don’t think we’re going to speculate on what is a good amount of money, or what is enough," said Park Service spokesman Jeff Olson.

Public comment on the proposal will be open from October 24 to November 23. You can find details on the proposal and leave your comments at this site.

The proposal comes in the wake of the Trump administration's desire to cut the National Park Service budget by roughly $400 million and its staff by about 1,200. It also comes as Interior is raising hundreds of millions of dollars from off-shore oil and gas lease auctions, a source of revenues Mr. Zinke earlier this year said could be used to address the park system's maintenance woes.

But the Interior secretary almost from the start of his tenure at Interior has said entrance fees need to be adjusted upward.

"About half the parks don't charge. Which is interesting," he said during a media call in May. "We have a tier system (for entrance fees). A number of parks chose not even to follow the tier system. So, we're concentrating on where are revenues, and shore it up."

The tiered approach to fees, if enacted, likely would hit hardest families whose vacations are governed largely by school schedules, as school vacations typically coincide with the high seasons outlined by the release. 

This past summer senior citizens, not the appropriations system, were looked to by Congress to raise more money for the Park Service. On August 27 the price for a lifetime senior pass to the parks, which had been just $10 for years, jumped to $80. Park Service officials could not say Tuesday how much revenues were generated by that increase.

Yet to come is a proposal to adjust entrance and permit fees for commercial tour operators. "The proposal would increase entrance fees for commercial operators and standardize commercial use authorization (CUA) requirements for road-based commercial tours, including application and management fees," the Park Service release said. "All CUA fees stay within the collecting park and would fund rehabilitation projects for buildings, facilities, parking lots, roads, and wayside exhibits that would enhance the visitor experience. The fees will also cover the administrative costs of receiving, reviewing, and processing CUA applications and required reports."

Unlike entrance fees for park visitors, any proposed increases in CUAs would take effect following an 18-month implementation window, the Park Service said.

Comments

hold to your wallet and keep your back to the wall

But God forbid you engage in a civil discussion with well stated arguments and facts your can substantiate. 


So where was all the outrage last year when it seemed there were nonstop fee increases announced? Some are outraged the current administration is considering scaling back or eliminating some of the units added under the prior administration. I guess if your house had a leaky roof and you couldn't afford to repair it you would borrow money and build a new addition instead of fixing the leaky roof.


Wild Places--
 
What is the increased cost of protecting Bear's Ears or Grand Staircase Escalante as National Monuments?  To a very good approximation: $0.  They were BLM lands before designation.  They are National Monuments managed by BLM, not NPS, since designation.  They don't appear in the NPS budget, and I don't see that BLM is spending any more money on them now than before.  Even the 6 new NPS units (Birmingham Civil Rights, Castle Mtn, Freedom Riders, Katahdin Woods & Waters, Reconstruction Era, & Stonewall) are getting $180K/year each, so $1.08M for the 6.  I'm for preserving those components of our shared culture for future generations. [Plus, Katahdin Woods & Waters came with an endowment for operations, so its $180K comes in as increased miscellaneous revenue elsewhere in the budget.]
 
To use your leaky roof analogy, the roof leaks, but the plot of land with your well on it is up for sale, for less than 1% of the cost of the leaky roof ($700M/yr to break even, more to reduce the backlog).  You can buy & protect the well, or you can let it be sold and developed and fix 1% of your leaky roof (or, to be precise, prevent 1/700th of your roof from decaying further).  I would opt for a slightly leakier roof and running water, not slightly less leaky roof and no running water.  Perhaps if the cost of the adjacent land was much larger than the cost of repairing the roof, or certainly if I knew I could buy the land with the well later, I would make the opposite decision, but that is not the case facing the NPS today.
 
The "nonstop fee increases" starting 2 years ago are actually implementing the 2007-2008 standardization of entrance fees across parks within each of 4 tiers.  The Obama administration (and more: DOI & NPS) put a hold on those fee increases because of the recession.  I might knock Jarvis and the Obama administration for not lifting that freeze several years sooner than they did, especially with sequestration cutting park appropriated funding.
 
That standardization of park-specific fees, the Congressional bump from $10 to $80 for lifetime senior passes, and the increase in commercial tour fees are all called for in the 2015 2016 GAO & DOI IG reports (which also point out the standard fees proposed in 2007 but not yet implemented).  You'll see more increases over the next year or 2 in park-specific entrance fees because many parks didn't jump all at once, but went from $5 to $10, and will go from $10 to their standard $15 in the next year.  None of that is driven by the new administration.
 
However, the Trump administration is proposing both a ~$400M cut to NPS funding, and a peak-season doubling of entrance fees at the 17 featured parks.  The $400M cut exceeds the increased revenue from _all_ of these fee increases, by a substantial amount.  My "outrage" is that such cuts are being proposed, and then the much smaller increases in fee income are being sold to innumerate folks as steps toward fixing or reducing the deferred maintenance backlog.  And, at the same time, other (business) users of public lands are not having their user fees (grazing fees, mineral and oil royalties) examined & raised.  In fact, loopholes letting them pay even less than required by law by by selling at low prices from one subsidiary to another are deliberately being reopened. 


Thank you d-2.


I've tried to point out many times that when people complain about "paying taxes to support our parks," the amount each of us actually pays is TINY.

If the NPS budget is 1/10th of 1% of the Federal budget, you need to simply multiply the amount of federal income tax you paid last year by 0.001 to find out just what you paid to support the parks.

For most of us, I'm sure it amounts to only a couple of dollars since I don't imagine many of us are in the top tax brackets.  (Although with all the loopholes that allow millionaires' effective tax rates to be lower than the rest of us, we might really be paying more than the most privileged among us.  But that's another story.)


Although with all the loopholes that allow millionaires' effective tax rates to be lower than the rest of us, we might really be paying more than the most privileged among us.  But that's another story.)

Yeah, that is why the top 20% pay 95% of all the federal income taxes - all those loopholes. 


My outrage is consistent and well documented here, along with many others who have predicted this kind of fee overreach because so many kept their heads in the sand from drinking too much NPS kool aid.


Actually Lee, the percentage of your taxes used for the parks is probably considerably less than 0.001. The federal budget includes not only personal income taxes but corporate income taxes, tarifs, fines, licenses and fees. Not to mention that we tend to annual deficits, averaging close to a trillion dolars/year over the past 10 years or so. My guess is that the amount of our taxes that goes to the NPS is measured in pennies, possibly even a fraction of a cent.

But your point is well taken. Individuals are not really paying much for the parks through their taxes (I think that was your point). I'm all for entrance and user fees in the parks. This increase may be steep but it's still a bargain. 


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