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entitled 'Recreation Fees: Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation 
Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283' which was released on May 06, 2004.

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Testimony:

Before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, 
Committee on Resources, House of Representatives:

United States General Accounting Office:

GAO:

For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT:

Thursday, May 6, 2004:

Recreation Fees:

Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283:

Statement of Barry T. Hill, Director 
Natural Resources and Environment:

GAO-04-745T:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-04-745T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on 
National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, Committee on Resources, 
House of Representatives 

Why GAO Did This Study:

In 1996, the Congress authorized an experimental initiative called the 
Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that provides funds to increase 
the quality of visitor experience and enhance resource protection. 
Under the program, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife 
Service, and National Park Serviceall within the Department of the 
Interiorand the Forest Servicewithin the U.S. Department of 
Agricultureare authorized to establish, charge, collect, and use fees 
at a number of sites to, among other things, address a backlog of 
repair and maintenance needs. Also, sites may retain and use the fees 
they collect. The Congress is now considering, through H.R. 3283, 
whether to make the program permanent. Central to the debate is how 
effectively the agencies are using the revenues that they have 
collected.

This testimony focuses on the potential effect of H.R. 3283 on the 
issues GAO raised previously in its work on the Recreational Fee 
Demonstration Program. Specifically, it examines the extent to which 
H.R. 3283 would affect (1) federal agencies deferred maintenance 
programs, (2) the management and distribution of the revenue collected, 
and (3) interagency coordination on fee collection and use.

What GAO Found:

H.R. 3283 would provide agencies with a permanent source of funds to 
better address their maintenance backlog, and by making the program 
permanent, the act would provide agencies incentive to develop a system 
to track their deferred maintenance backlogs. According to the 
Department of the Interiors latest estimates, the deferred maintenance 
backlog for the Interior agencies participating in the fee 
demonstration program ranges from $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion, with 
the Park Service alone accounting for an estimated $4 to $7 billion. 
Likewise, the Forest Service, the other participating agency, estimates 
its total deferred maintenance backlog to be about $8 billion. GAOs 
prior work on the Park Services and Forest Services backlog has 
demonstrated that neither agency has accurate and reliable information 
on its deferred maintenance needs and cannot determine how much of the 
fee demonstration revenues it spends on reducing its deferred 
maintenance needs. Furthermore, some agency officials have hesitated to 
divert resources to develop a process for tracking deferred maintenance 
because the fee demonstration program is temporary.

H.R. 3283 would allow agencies to reduce the percentage of fee revenue 
used on-site down to 60 percent, thus providing the agencies with 
greater flexibility in how they use the revenues. Currently, the 
demonstration program requires federal land management agencies to 
maintain at least 80 percent of the collected fee revenues for use on-
site. This requirement has helped some demonstration sites generate 
revenue in excess of their high-priority needs, but the high-priority 
needs at other sites, which did not collect as much in fee revenues, 
remained unmet. GAO has suggested that the Congress consider modifying 
the current 80-percent on-site spending requirement to provide agencies 
greater flexibility in using fee revenues. 

H.R. 3283 would standardize the types of fees federal land management 
agencies may use and creates a single national pass that provides 
visitors general access to a variety of recreation sites managed by 
different agencies and allows for the regional coordination of fees to 
access multiple nearby sites. GAOs prior reports have demonstrated the 
need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the agencies 
to better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more convenient 
and equitable while reducing visitor confusion about similar or 
multiple fees being charged at nearby or adjacent federal recreation 
sites. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-745T.

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Barry T. Hill at (202) 
512-3841 or hillbt@gao.gov.

[End of section]

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I am pleased to be here today to discuss H.R. 3283, the Federal Lands 
Recreation Enhancement Act, which proposes, among other things, to 
establish a permanent recreation fee program for certain federal land 
management agencies and standardize certain visitor fees. For many 
years, the Congress has sought to identify programs that would help 
federal land management agencies provide high-quality recreational 
opportunities for visitors while at the same time protecting their 
resources. Accordingly, in 1996, the Congress authorized an 
experimental initiative, called the Recreational Fee Demonstration 
Program. Under this program, four land management agencies--the Bureau 
of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park 
Service within the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service 
within the U.S. Department of Agriculture--are authorized to establish, 
charge, collect, and use fees at a number of sites to, among other 
things, enhance visitor services, address a backlog of needs for repair 
and maintenance, and manage and protect resources. We have issued a 
number of reports and testimonies on the program since its inception, 
identifying issues that need to be addressed to improve the program's 
effectiveness. (Appendix I lists our related reports and testimonies.):

The Congress is now considering, through H.R. 3283, whether it should 
make the program permanent. Central to the debate is how effectively 
the land management agencies use the funds generated from recreation 
fee collection. My testimony today focuses on H.R. 3283's potential 
effect on the issues that we raised in our prior work on the 
Recreational Fee Demonstration Program, specifically the extent to 
which the act would affect (1) federal agencies' deferred maintenance 
programs, (2) the management and distribution of the revenue collected, 
and (3) interagency coordination on fee collection and use.

We did not conduct any follow-up audit work in conjunction with this 
testimony. All of our prior work was conducted in accordance with 
generally accepted government auditing standards.

Results in Brief:

In summary, H.R. 3283 would provide federal land management agencies 
with a permanent source of funds to help reduce their maintenance 
backlogs--one of the authorized uses of the revenues collected under 
the fee demonstration program. According to the Department of the 
Interior's latest estimates, the combined deferred maintenance backlogs 
for the participating agencies ranged from $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion 
of which the Park Service accounted for an estimated $4 to $7 billion. 
Likewise, the Forest Service estimated its total deferred maintenance 
backlog to be about $8 billion, the bulk of which was needed for forest 
roads and bridges. However, as we have previously reported, neither the 
Park Service or Forest Service have accurate and reliable information 
on their deferred maintenance needs and, as a result, they cannot 
determine how much of the fee demonstration revenues is being spent on 
deferred maintenance or the fee program's overall impact on reducing 
their deferred maintenance needs. Some agency officials have hesitated 
to divert resources to develop a process for tracking deferred 
maintenance because the fee demonstration program is temporary. H.R. 
3283 would provide agencies with a permanent source of funds to better 
address their maintenance backlog, and by making the program permanent, 
the act would provide agencies incentive to develop a system to track 
their deferred maintenance backlogs.

H.R. 3283 provides the participating agencies greater flexibility in 
how and where they may apply fee revenues. Currently, the fee 
demonstration program requires federal land management agencies to 
retain at least 80 percent of the collected fee revenues for use on-
site. While this requirement has helped some demonstration sites 
generate revenue in excess of their high-priority needs, the high-
priority needs at other sites, which do not collect as much in fee 
revenues, remained unmet. We have suggested that the Congress consider 
modifying the current 80-percent on-site spending requirement to 
provide agencies greater flexibility in using fee revenues to better 
meet their overall priority needs. However, we noted that agencies 
needed to balance the need for flexibility in transferring revenue 
against the need of keeping sufficient funds on-site to maintain 
incentives at fee-collecting units and to maintain visitor support. 
H.R. 3283 would allow agencies to reduce the percentage of fee revenue 
retained for use on-site down to 60 percent, if the respective 
Secretary determined that the revenues collected at the unit or area 
exceed the reasonable needs of the site. H.R. 3283 would also provide 
agencies with the flexibility to balance the need to provide incentives 
at fee-collecting sites and support of visitors against transferring 
revenues to other sites.

H.R. 3283 contains provisions to improve interagency coordination in 
the collection and use of recreation fees. Previously, we demonstrated 
the need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the 
agencies to better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more 
convenient and equitable while at the same time, reducing visitor 
confusion about similar or multiple fees being charged at nearby or 
adjacent federal recreation sites. For example, visitors entering 
Olympic National Park or the adjacent Olympic National Forest 
previously paid different fees to hike on the same trail. H.R. 3283 
would standardize the types of fees federal land management agencies 
may use, create a single national pass that provides visitors general 
access to a variety of recreation sites managed by different agencies, 
and allow for the regional coordination of fees to access multiple 
nearby sites.

Background:

For the past several years, concerns about the cost of operating and 
maintaining federal recreation sites within the federal land management 
agencies have led the Congress to provide a significant new source of 
funds. This additional source of funding--the Recreational Fee 
Demonstration Program--was authorized in 1996. The fee demonstration 
program authorized the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife 
Service, National Park Service, and the Forest Service to experiment 
with new ways to administer existing fee revenues and to establish new 
recreation entrance and user fees. The current authorization for the 
program expires December 31, 2005.

Previously, all sites collecting entrance and user fees deposited the 
revenue into a special U.S. Treasury account to be used for certain 
purposes, including resource protection and maintenance activities, and 
funds in this account only became available through congressional 
appropriations. The fee demonstration program currently allows agencies 
to maintain fee revenues in special U.S. Treasury accounts for use 
without further appropriation: 80 percent of the fees are maintained in 
an account for use at the site and the remaining 20 percent are 
maintained in another account for use on an agency-wide basis. As a 
result, these revenues have yielded substantial benefits for local 
recreation sites by funding significant on-the-ground improvements.

From the inception of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program, the 
four participating agencies have collected over $1 billion in 
recreation fees from the public. The Department of the Interior and the 
Department of Agriculture's most recent budget requests indicate that 
the agencies expect to collect $138 million and $46 million, 
respectively, from the fee demonstration program in fiscal year 2005.

H.R. 3283 Provides a Permanent Source of Revenue That Could Be Used to 
Address Participating Agencies' Maintenance Backlogs:

H.R. 3283, as proposed, would provide a permanent source of revenue for 
federal land management agencies to use to, among other things, help 
address the backlog in repair and maintenance of federal facilities and 
infrastructure. One of the principal uses of the revenues generated 
under the existing Recreational Fee Demonstration Program is for 
participating agencies to reduce their respective maintenance backlogs.

The Department of the Interior owns, builds, purchases, and contracts 
services for such assets as visitor centers, roads, bridges, dams, and 
reservoirs, many of which are deteriorating and in need of repair or 
maintenance. We have identified Interior's land management agencies 
inability to reduce their maintenance backlogs as a major management 
challenge.[Footnote 1] According to the Department of the Interior's 
latest estimates, the deferred maintenance backlog for its 
participating agencies ranged from about $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion. 
Table 1 shows the Department's estimate of deferred maintenance for its 
agencies participating in the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program.

Table 1: Estimated Deferred Maintenance for Participating Interior 
Agencies, as of February 2002 (dollars in billions):

Bureau: National Park Service; 
Low estimate: $4.08; 
High estimate: $6.80.

Bureau: Fish and Wildlife Service; 
Low estimate: 0.84; 
High estimate: 1.14.

Bureau: Bureau of Land Management; 
Low estimate: 0.19; 
High estimate: 0.33.

Bureau: Bureau of Reclamation[A]; 
Low estimate: 0.03; 
High estimate: 0.03.

Total; 
Low estimate: $5.14; 
High estimate: $8.30.

Source: Department of the Interior:

[A] Agency will be allowed to participate in the program under H.R. 
3283.

[End of table]

Of the current participating agencies within Interior, the National 
Park Service has the largest estimated maintenance backlog--ranging 
from $4 to nearly $7 billion. As we have previously reported, the Park 
Service's problems with maintaining its facilities have steadily 
worsened in part because the agency lacks accurate data on the 
facilities that need to be maintained or on their condition. As a 
result, the Park Service cannot effectively determine its maintenance 
needs, the amount of funding needed to address them, or what progress, 
if any, it has made in closing the maintenance gap. Although the Park 
Service has used some of the revenues generated from the fee 
demonstration program to address its high-priority maintenance needs, 
without accurate and reliable data, it cannot demonstrate the effect of 
fee demonstration revenues in improving the maintenance of its 
facilities.

The Park Service has acknowledged the problems associated with not 
having an accurate and reliable estimate of its maintenance needs and 
promised to develop an asset management process that, when operable, 
should provide a systematic method for documenting deferred maintenance 
needs and tracking progress in reducing the amount of deferred 
maintenance. Furthermore, the new process should enable the agency to 
develop (1) a reliable inventory of its assets, (2) a process for 
reporting on the condition of each asset, and (3) a system-wide 
methodology for estimating its deferred maintenance costs. In 2002, we 
identified some areas that the agency needed to address in order to 
improve the performance of the process, including the need to develop 
cost and schedules for completing the implementation of the process, 
better coordinating the tracking of the process among Park Service 
headquarters units to avoid duplication of effort within the agency, 
and better definition of its approach to determine the condition of its 
assets and how much the assessments will cost.[Footnote 2] In our last 
testimony on this issue before this Subcommittee in September 2003, we 
stated that the complete implementation of the new process would not 
occur until fiscal year 2006, but that the agency had completed, or 
nearly completed, a number of substantial and important steps to 
improve the process.[Footnote 3]

The two other Interior agencies participating in the program--the Fish 
and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management also report 
deferred maintenance backlogs of about $1 billion and $330,000, 
respectively. We do not have any information at this time on the 
effectiveness of the program in reducing these backlogs.

The Forest Service also has an estimated $8 billion maintenance backlog 
most of which is needed to maintain forest roads and bridges. In 
September 2003, we reported that the Forest Service (like the Park 
Service) had no effective means for measuring how much of the fee 
demonstration revenues it had spent on deferred maintenance or the 
impact that the fee program had had on reducing its deferred 
maintenance needs.[Footnote 4] Although the Forest Service has 
recognized the significance of its deferred maintenance problem, it 
does not have a systematic method for compiling the information needed 
to provide a reliable estimate of its deferred maintenance needs. 
Furthermore, the agency has not developed a process to track deferred 
maintenance expenditures from fee demonstration revenues. As a result, 
even if the agency knew how much fee revenue it spent on deferred 
maintenance, it could not determine the extent to which these revenues 
had reduced its overall deferred maintenance needs. Forest Service 
officials provided several reasons why the agency had not developed a 
process to track deferred maintenance expenditures from the 
demonstration revenues. First, they said that the agency chose to use 
its fee demonstration revenue to improve and enhance on-site visitor 
services rather than to develop and implement a system for tracking 
deferred maintenance spending. Second, the agency was not required to 
measure the impact of fee revenues on deferred maintenance. Finally, 
because the fee demonstration program was temporary, agency officials 
had concerns about developing a process for tracking deferred 
maintenance, not knowing if the program would subsequently be made 
permanent.

H.R. 3283 would provide participating agencies with a permanent source 
of funds to supplement existing appropriations and to better address 
maintenance backlogs. Furthermore, by making the program permanent, 
H.R. 3283 could provide participating agencies like the Forest Service 
with an incentive to develop a system to track their deferred 
maintenance backlogs.

H.R. 3283 Provides Agencies Additional Flexibility in Distributing 
Collected Fee Revenues:

The existing fee demonstration program requires federal land management 
agencies to maintain at least 80 percent of the fee revenues for use 
on-site. In a 1998 report, we suggested that, in order to provide 
greater opportunities to address high priority needs of the agencies, 
the Congress consider modifying the current requirement to grant 
agencies greater flexibility in using fee revenues.[Footnote 5] H.R. 
3283 provides the agencies with flexibility to reduce the percentage of 
revenues spent on-site down to 60 percent.

We also reported that the requirement that at least 80 percent of the 
revenues be maintained for use at the collection site may inadvertently 
create funding imbalances between sites and that some heavily visited 
sites may reach a point where they have more revenues than they need 
for their projects, while other sites would still fall short.[Footnote 
6] In 1999, we testified that some demonstration sites were generating 
so much revenue as to raise questions about their long-term ability to 
spend these revenues on high-priority items.[Footnote 7] In contrast, 
we warned that sites outside the demonstration program, as well as 
demonstration sites that did not collect as much in fee revenues, may 
have high-priority needs that remained unmet. As a result, some of the 
agencies' highest-priority needs might not be addressed. Our testimony 
indicated that, at many sites in the demonstration program, the 
increased fee revenues amounted to 20 percent or more of the sites' 
annual operating budgets, allowing such sites to address past unmet 
needs in maintenance, resource protection, and visitor services. While 
these sites could address their needs within a few years, the 80-
percent requirement could, over time, preclude the agencies from 
redistributing fee revenues to meet more pressing needs at other sites. 
Our November 2001 report confirmed that such imbalances had begun to 
occur.[Footnote 8] Officials from the land management agencies 
acknowledged that some heavily visited sites with large fee revenues 
may eventually collect more revenue than they need to address their 
priorities, while other lower-revenue generating sites may have limited 
or no fee revenues to meet their needs.

To address this imbalance, we suggested that the Congress consider 
modifying the current requirement that 80 percent of fee revenue be 
maintained for use by the sites generating the revenues to allow for 
greater flexibility in using fee revenues. H.R. 3283 would still 
generally require agencies to maintain at least 80 percent of fee 
revenues for use on-site. However, if the Secretary of the Interior 
determined that the revenues collected at a site exceeded the 
reasonable needs of the unit for which expenditures may be made for 
that fiscal year, under H.R. 3283 the Secretary could then reduce the 
percentage of on-site expenditures to 60 percent and transfer the 
remainder to meet other priority needs across the agency.

The need for flexibility in transferring revenue must also be balanced 
against the necessity of keeping sufficient funds on-site to maintain 
incentives at fee-collecting units and to maintain the support of the 
visitors. Such a balance is of particular concern to the Forest 
Service, which has identified that visitors generally support the 
program so long as the fees are used on-site and they can see 
improvements to the site where they pay fees. Accordingly, under the 
existing fee demonstration program, the Forest Service has committed to 
retaining 90 to 100 percent of the fees on-site. As such, H.R. 3283 
would not likely change the Forest Service's use of collected fees. 
However, it would provide the Forest Service, as well as the other 
agencies, with the flexibility to balance the need to provide 
incentives at fee collecting sites and support of visitors against 
transferring revenues to other sites.

H.R. 3283 Should Help Reduce Visitor Confusion by Creating a National 
Pass and Requiring Participating Agencies to Coordinate Fee Collection 
on a Regional Level:

The legislative history of the fee demonstration program places an 
emphasis on participating agency collaboration to minimize or eliminate 
confusion for visitors where multiple fees could be charged to visit 
recreation sites in the same area. Our prior work has pointed to the 
need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the agencies 
to better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more convenient 
and equitable while at the same time, reducing visitor confusion about 
similar or multiple fees being charged at nearby or adjacent federal 
recreation sites.[Footnote 9] For example, sites do not consistently 
accept agency and interagency passes, resulting in visitor confusion 
and, in some cases, overlapping or duplicative fees for the same or 
similar activities. H.R. 3283 would allow for improved service to 
visitors by coordinating federal agency fee-collection activities. 
First, the act would standardize the types of fees that the federal 
land management agencies use. Second, it would create a single national 
pass that would provide visitors access to recreation sites managed by 
different agencies. Third, it would allow for the coordination of fees 
on a regional level for access to multiple nearby sites.

H.R. 3283 Standardizes Recreation Fees:

In November 2001, we reported that agencies had not pursued 
opportunities to coordinate their fees better among their own sites, 
with other agencies, or with other nearby, nonfederal recreational 
sites.[Footnote 10] As a result, visitors often had to pay fees that 
were sometimes overlapping, duplicative, or confusing. Limited fee 
coordination by the four agencies has permitted confusing fee 
situations to persist. At some sites, an entrance fee may be charged 
for one activity whereas a user fee may be charged for essentially the 
same activity at a nearby site. For example, visitors who entered 
either Olympic National Park or the Olympic National Forest in 
Washington state for day hiking are engaged in the same recreational 
activity--obtaining general access to federal lands--but were charged 
distinct entrance and user fees. For a 1-day hike in Olympic National 
Park, users paid a $10 per-vehicle entry fee (good for 1 week), whereas 
hikers using trailheads in Olympic National Forest were charged a daily 
user fee of $5 per vehicle for trailhead parking. Also, holders of the 
interagency Golden Eagle Passport--a $65 nationwide pass that provides 
access to all federal recreation sites that charge entrance fees--could 
use the pass to enter Olympic National Park, but had to pay the Forest 
Service's trailhead parking fee because the fee for the pass covers 
only entrance fees and not a user fees. However, the two agencies now 
allow holders of the Golden Eagle Passport to use it for trailhead 
parking at Olympic National Forest.

Similarly, confusing and inconsistent fee situations also occur at 
similar types of sites within the same agency. For example, visitors to 
some Park Service national historic sites, such as the San Juan 
National Historic Site in Puerto Rico, pay a user fee and have access 
to all amenities at the sites, such as historic buildings. However, 
other Park Service historic sites, such as the Roosevelt/Vanderbilt 
Complex in New York State, charge no user fees, but tours of the 
primary residences require the payment of entrance fees. Visitors in 
possession of an annual pass that cover entrance fees, such as the 
National Parks Pass, may be further confused that their annual entrance 
pass is sufficient for admission to a user fee site, such as the San 
Juan National Historic Site, but not sufficient to allow them to enter 
certain buildings on the Roosevelt/Vanderbilt Complex, which charge 
entrance fees.

H.R. 3283 would streamline the recreational fee program by providing a 
standard fee structure across federal land management agencies using a 
3-tiered fee structure: a basic recreation fee, an expanded recreation 
fee, and a special recreation permit fee. H.R. 3283 establishes several 
areas where a basic recreation fee may be charged.[Footnote 11] For 
example, the basic recreation fee offers access to, among other areas, 
National Park System units, National Conservation Areas, and National 
Recreation Areas. Expanded recreation fees are charged either in 
addition to the basic recreation fee or by itself when the visitor uses 
additional facilities or services, such as a developed campground or an 
equipment rental. A special recreation permit is charged when the 
visitor participates in an activity such as a commercial tour, 
competitive event, or an outfitting or guiding activity.

H.R. 3283 Would Create a National Pass:

In November 2001 we reported another example of an interagency issue 
that needed to be addressed--the inconsistency and confusion 
surrounding the acceptance and use of the $65 Golden Eagle 
Passport.[Footnote 12] The annual pass provides visitors with unlimited 
access to federal recreation sites that charge an entrance fee. 
However, many sites do not charge entrance fees to gain access to a 
site and instead charge a user fee. For example, Yellowstone National 
Park, Acadia National Park, and the Eisenhower National Historic Site 
charge entrance fees. But sites like Wind Cave National Park charge 
user fees for general access. If user fees are charged in lieu of 
entrance fees, the Golden Eagle Passport is generally not accepted even 
though, to the visitor with a Golden Eagle Passport, there is no 
practical difference.

Further exacerbating the public's confusion over payment of use or 
entrance fees was the implementation of the Park Service's single-
agency National Parks Pass in April 2000. This $50 pass admits the 
holder, spouse, children, and parents to all National Park Service 
sites that charge an entrance fee for a full year. However, the Parks 
Pass does not admit the cardholder to the Park Service sites that 
charge a user fee, nor is it accepted for admittance to other sites in 
the Forest Service and in the Department of the Interior, including the 
Fish and Wildlife Service sites.

H.R. 3283 would eliminate the current national passes and replace them 
with one federal lands pass--called the "America the Beautiful--the 
National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass"--for use at any site 
of a federal land management agency that charges a basic recreation 
fee. The act also calls for the Secretaries of Agriculture and the 
Interior to jointly establish the National Parks and Federal Recreation 
Lands Pass and to jointly issue guidelines on the administration of the 
pass. In addition, it requires that the Secretaries develop guidelines 
for establishing or changing fees and that these guidelines, among 
other things, would require federal land management agencies to 
coordinate with each other to the extent practicable when establishing 
or changing fees.

H.R. 3283 Would Provide Interagency Coordination on the Regional Level:

H.R. 3283 would also provide local site managers the opportunity to 
coordinate and develop regional passes to reduce visitor confusion over 
access to adjacent sites managed by different agencies. When 
authorizing the demonstration program, the Congress called upon the 
agencies to coordinate multiple or overlapping fees. We reported in 
1999 that the agencies were not taking advantage of this 
flexibility.[Footnote 13] For example, the Park Service and the Fish 
and Wildlife Service manage sites that share a common border on the 
same island in Maryland and Virginia--Assateague Island National 
Seashore and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. When the agencies 
selected the two sites for the demonstration program, they decided to 
charge separate entrance fees. However, as we reported in 2001, the 
managers at these sites developed a reciprocal fee arrangement whereby 
each site accepted the fee paid at the other site to better accommodate 
the visitors.[Footnote 14] Resolving situations in which inconsistent 
and overlapping fees are charged for similar recreation activities 
would offer visitors a rational and consistent fee program. We stated 
that further coordination among the agencies participating in the fee 
demonstration program could reduce the confusion for visitors. We 
reported that demonstration sites may be reluctant to coordinate on 
fees partly because the program's incentives are geared towards 
increasing their revenues. Because joint fee arrangements may 
potentially reduce revenues to specific sites, there may be a 
disincentive among these sites to coordinate. Nonetheless, we believe 
that the increase in service to the public might be worth a small 
reduction in revenues.

Accordingly, we recommended that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the 
Interior direct the heads of the participating agencies to improve 
their service to visitors by better coordinating their fee collection 
activities under the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. In 
response, in 2002, the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture 
formed the Interagency Recreational Fee Leadership Council to 
facilitate coordination and consistency among the agencies on 
recreation fee policies. We also recommended that the agencies approach 
such an analysis systematically, first by identifying other federal 
recreation areas close to each other and then, for each situation, 
determining whether a coordinated approach, such as a reciprocal fee 
arrangement, would better serve the visiting public. The agencies 
implemented this recommendation to a limited extent as evidenced by the 
reciprocal fee arrangement between Assateague Island National Seashore 
and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.

H.R. 3283 offers federal agencies the opportunity to develop regional 
passes to offer access to sites managed by different federal, state and 
local agencies. As we have reported in the past, for all four agencies 
to make improvements in interagency communication, coordination, and 
consistency for the program to become user-friendly, an effective 
mechanism is needed to ensure that interagency coordination occurs or 
to resolve interagency issues or disputes when they arise.[Footnote 15]

Conclusions:

Essentially, the fee demonstration program raises revenue for the 
participating sites to use for maintaining and improving the quality of 
visitor services and protecting the resources at federal recreation 
sites. The program has been successful in raising a significant amount 
of revenue. However, the agencies could enhance the quality of visitor 
services more by providing better overall management of the program. 
Several of the provisions in H.R. 3283 address many of the quality of 
service issues we have identified through our prior work and if the 
provisions are properly implemented these services should improve.

While the fee demonstration program provides funds to increase the 
quality of the visitor experience and enhance the protection of 
resources by, among other things, addressing a backlog of needs for 
repair and maintenance, and to manage and protect resources, the 
program's short and long-term success lies in the flexibility it 
provides agencies to spend revenues and the removal of any undesirable 
inequities that occur to ensure that the agencies' highest priority 
needs are met. However, any changes to the program's requirements 
should be balanced in such a way that fee-collecting sites would 
continue to have an incentive to collect fees and visitors who pay them 
will continue to support the program.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to 
respond to any questions that you or Members of the Subcommittee may 
have.

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:

For further information about this testimony, please contact me at 
(202) 512-3841. Doreen Feldman, Roy Judy, Jonathan McMurray, Patrick 
Sigl, Paul Staley, Amy Webbink, and Arvin Wu made key contributions to 
this statement.

[End of section]

Related GAO Products:

The following is a listing of related GAO products on recreation fees, 
deferred maintenance, and other related issues.

Recreation Fees:

Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue 
from the Fee Demonstration Program. GAO-03-1161T. Washington, D.C.: 
September 17, 2003.

Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue 
from the Fee Demonstration Program. GAO-03-470. Washington, D.C.: April 
25, 2003.

Recreation Fees: Management Improvements Can Help the Demonstration 
Program Enhance Visitor Services. GAO-02-10. Washington, D.C.: 
November 26, 2001.

Recreational Fee Demonstration Program Survey. GAO-02-88SP. 
Washington, D.C.: November 1, 2001.

National Park Service: Recreational Fee Demonstration Program Spending 
Priorities. GAO/RCED-00-37R. Washington, D.C.: November 18, 1999.

Recreation Fees: Demonstration Has Increased Revenues, but Impact on 
Park Service Backlog Is Uncertain. GAO/T-RCED-99-101. Washington, 
D.C.: March 3, 1999.

Recreation Fees: Demonstration Program Successful in Raising Revenues 
but Could Be Improved. GAO/T-RCED-99-77. Washington, D.C.: February 4, 
1999.

Recreation Fees: Demonstration Fee Program Successful in Raising 
Revenues but Could Be Improved. GAO/RCED-99-7. Washington, D.C.: 
November 20, 1998.

Deferred Maintenance:

National Park Service: Efforts Underway to Address Its Maintenance 
Backlog. GAO-03-1177T. Washington, D.C.: September 27, 2003.

National Park Service: Status of Agency Efforts to Address Its 
Maintenance Backlog. GAO-03-992T. Washington, D.C.: July 8, 2003.

National Park Service: Status of Efforts to Develop Better Deferred 
Maintenance Data. GAO-02-568R. Washington, D.C.: April 12, 2002.

National Park Service: Efforts to Identify and Manage the Maintenance 
Backlog. GAO/RCED-98-143. Washington, D.C.: May 14, 1998.

National Park Service: Maintenance Backlog Issues. GAO/T-RCED-98-61. 
Washington, D.C.: February 4, 1998.

Deferred Maintenance Reporting: Challenges to Implementation. GAO/
AIMD-98-42. Washington, D.C.: January 30, 1998.

Other Related Products:

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, Department of the 
Interior. GAO-03-104. Washington, D.C.: January 2003.

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, Department of the 
Interior. GAO-01-249. Washington, D.C.: January 2001.

Park Service: Managing for Results Could Strengthen Accountability. 
GAO/RCED-97-125. Washington, D.C.: April 10, 1997.

FOOTNOTES

[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and 
Program Risks: Department of the Interior, GAO-03-104 (Washington, 
D.C.: January 2003); U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management 
Challenges and Program Risks: Department of the Interior, GAO-01-249 
(Washington, D.C.: January 2001).

[2] U.S. General Accounting Office, National Park Service: Status of 
Efforts to Develop Better Deferred Maintenance Data, GAO-02-568R 
(Washington, D.C.: Apr.12, 2002).

[3] U.S. General Accounting Office, National Park Service: Efforts 
Underway to Address Its Maintenance Backlog, GAO-03-1177T (Washington, 
D.C.: Sept. 27, 2003).

[4] U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Information on 
Forest Service Management of Revenue from the Fee Demonstration 
Program, GAO-03-1161T (Washington, D.C.: September 17, 2003).

[5] U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Demonstration Fee 
Program Successful in Raising Revenues but Could Be Improved, GAO/RCED-
99-7 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 20, 1998).

[6] U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Management 
Improvements Can Help the Demonstration Program Enhance Visitor 
Services, GAO-02-10 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 26, 2001).

[7] U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Demonstration 
Program Successful in Raising Revenues but Could Be Improved, GAO/T-
RCED-99-77 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 4, 1999).

[8] GAO-02-10.

[9] GAO-02-10.

[10] GAO-02-10.

[11] The listed areas are National Park System Units, National 
Conservation Areas, National Recreation Areas, National Monuments, 
National Volcanic Monuments, National Scenic Areas and areas of 
substantial investment by a federal land management agency that are 
managed for recreation purposes or that contain at least one major 
visitor attraction and have had substantial investments made in their 
facilities or services in restoring resource degradation in areas of 
concentrated public use including a visitor or interpretive center, a 
trailhead facility or a developed parking lot, or in requiring the 
presence of personnel of a federal land management agency. 

[12] GAO-02-10.

[13] GAO/T-RCED-99-77.

[14] GAO-02-10.

[15] GAO-02-10.