Attorneys General Oppose Surge Pricing Approach For National Park Admission

Quoting from John Muir, attorneys general from 10 states and the District of Columbia have told acting National Park Service Director Mike Reynolds they oppose a proposal to use surge pricing for admission to 17 national parks, saying there has been no rational explanation for such a move and Congress should shoulder the responsibility for addressing the backlog, not the public.

"As John Muir once put it in The Yosemite, 'everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike,'” they wrote in a letter (attached below) to the director. "The Service’s proposed fee increases, which double or even triple existing entrance fees, threaten to put many Americans to the choice of beauty or bread and to distance them from the places in which so many experience the natural wonder of our great and unique nation."

The proposal, by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, would more than double entrance fees at the 17 parks for nearly half the year and raise an estimated $70 million to help whittle away at the National Park System's estimated $11.3 billion maintenance backlog. The proposed $70 fee for a week, if finalized, would apply to Yellowstone, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Denali, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Olympic, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Acadia, Mount Rainier, Joshua Tree, Shenandoah, and Zion national parks.

Secretary Zinke has called complaints over his proposal "baloney." Public comment on the matter is being taken through December 22.

Interior officials have not clearly explained how they came up with the $70 fee, nor how it would affect the maintenance backlog. Under the proposal, 80 percent of each $70 fee would remain in the park where it was collected, and the remaining 20 percent would be available for use elsewhere in the park system. But assuming $14 million -- 20 percent of the estimated $70 million -- is spent elsewhere in the system on maintenance, it would have little, if any, effect on the overall backlog. 

According to 2016 figures from the National Park Service, parks facing maintenance backlogs include:

* Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, which had a maintenance backlog of $46.9 million;

* Death Valley National Park, $140.1 million;

* Mojave National Preserve, $113.8 million;

* Everglades National Park, $78.2 million;

* Mammoth Cave National Park, $94.5 million;

* Boston National Historic Park, $106.6 million;

* Gateway National Recreation Area, over $811 million when you consider both the New Jersey and New York sides of the NRA.

"As a legal matter, the Service has not offered a reasoned explanation for its proposed fee increases and its actions are inconsistent with the laws that govern our national park system," the attorneys general wrote in the letter sent Wednesday. "The Service’s purported rationale for the proposed fee increase is to provide funding for the park system’s $11.3 billion deferred maintenance backlog. However, this proposal may well exacerbate the shortfall by lowering visitation rates and revenues for the parks. Even taking the Service’s revenue projection at face value, it is negated several times over by the proposed $296.6 million reduction in the Service’s budget for fiscal year 2018.

"While we acknowledge and appreciate the ongoing, critical funding needs faced by the Service, addressing these needs should not come at the expense of making national parks less accessible to many Americans or affecting communities that rely on these parks as important economic engines. Given the size of the deferred maintenance backlog, the most prudent step for the Administration to take would be to seek additional funding from Congress."

The letter was signed by attorneys general from California, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, and Massachusetts.