National Park Service: History of Visitor Fees

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MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

VISITOR FEES

IN THE

NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM

A LEGISLATIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY

by

Barry Mackintosh

History Division

National Park Service

Department of the Interior

Washington, D.C.

1983

Yellowstone National Park visitor showing off her park stickers,

indicating that entrance fees were paid at various National Parks. ca. 1922.

National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

Table of Contents

COVER PAGE

PREFACE

I. THE PATTERN IS SET, 1908-1940

The Self-Supporting Ideal

The First Visitor Fees

Fee Reduction Pressures and Practice

The Prohibition of Campground Charges

Fee Opposition, 1932

Broadening the Base, 1935-1940

II. POSTWAR PRESSURES AND THE LAND AND WATER

CONSERVATION FUND ACT, 1947-1967

III. IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED..., 1968-1972

The 1968 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act Amendment

The 1970 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act Amendment

Park Service Response: Camping Charges and Fee Study, 1969-

1970

The 1972 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act Amendment

IV. CONGRESS FUMBLES AND RECOVERS, 1973-1974

The 1973 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act Amendment

(The Fumble)

The 1974 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act Amendment

(The Recovery)

The Eagle's Wings Are Clipped

V. CONFLICTING PRESSURES; CONGRESS PUTS THE LID

ON, 1975-1980

The Seasonal Fee Pates Experiment

The Public Willingness to Pay Study

The NPS Recreation Fee Study, 1977

The Proposed Fee Increase, 1978-1979

Freezing the Entrance Fees, 1979-1980

Visitor Transportation System Fees

"Single Visits" and Handicapped Permits, 1976-1980

Losing Control of the Receipts, 1980

VI. THE ADMINISTRATION STRIKES BACK, 1981-1982

The Recreation Fees and Improvements Act of 1982

The National Park System Fee Dedication and Park Improvement
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Act of 1982

NPS Revenue Management Planning, 1982

The General Accounting Office Study, 1982

VII. SOME CONCLUDING COMMENTS

A NOTE ON THE RESEARCH

APPENDIX: "ANALYSIS OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

RECREATION FEE SYSTEM," 1977

READERS WHO NEED MORE INFORMATION ON THIS

SUBJECT SHOULD CONSULT THE FOLLOWING PROGRAM:

RECREATION FEE DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

Preface

The national parklands are not free. They represent major financial

investments by the Federal Government. The older parks were

established on the public domain or donated lands, but they still required

and continue to need expensive development for visitor access and

accommodation; staffing for general administration, protection, and

interpretation; and maintenance of facilities and other improvements.

Many of the later additions to the National Park System have required,

in addition, large public expenditures for land acquisition.

Throughout the history of the System, there have been differences of

opinion--often sharp--as to how these expenses should be borne. One

side has held that admission to the parks and the use of most park

facilities and services should generally be without specific charge to the

visiting public, which is to say that the full cost of the parks should be

paid by the general taxpayer. The other side has argued that people

actually using the parks should pay, through entrance and user fees,* a

proportionately greater share than the public at large. In recent times few

have contended either that the parks should be entirely supported by

their users or that all park facilities, such as developed campsites, should

be "free"; the issue has narrowed for the most part to whether and where

entrance fees should be levied and how much should be charged for

both park entry and use of developed facilities.

In these difficult economic times, with Federal budget deficits running

well over $100 billion a year, there is more pressure than ever to cut

"non essential" Government expenditures and increase revenues. As

loath as we in the National Park Service are to admit it, the national

parks are a national luxury. Except in certain urban recreation areas,

moreover, park visitation is heavily weighted to the middle and upper

income segments of the public--people who have the money and leisure

to travel, who willingly pay the much greater charges levied at

commercial theme parks and other private attractions, and who would

be unlikely to forego the national parklands if visitor fees there were

raised to levels commensurate with their values. These considerations

have inspired recent proposals under both the last Democratic and

current Republican administrations to increase entrance and user fees, in

effect reducing the extent to which the general taxpayer subsidizes the

park goer. These proposals have met with strong opposition in

Congress, where key members have led the fight to freeze or hold down

direct charges to the visiting public.

At such times of dissension, it is frequently useful to look at how today's

issues have been regarded and handled in years and decades past. If

ready resolution of the current debate is unlikely to be achieved by such

a retrospective examination, at least the matter is put in perspective.

Partisans on both sides may be reminded that similar battles have been

fought before, that public, political, and administrative opinion has
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shifted over tine, and that no side has held a perpetual monopoly on

wisdom. It is not the purpose of a history like this one to arrive at or

even to recommend specific solutions, but rather to provide a broader

context within which program managers can address today's concerns.

This study is the result of a charge to the newly appointed bureau

historian of the National Park Service to prepare a "model" history of a

significant Service program or activity, the goal being to inspire and

guide further such projects by other historians in and outside the bureau.

(A similar charge for a sample history of a park was fulfilled earlier this

year with the author's "Assateague Island National Seashore; An

Administrative History.") Chief Historian Edwin C. Bearss conceived

the assignment as a means of demonstrating the value of the Service's

revitalized administrative history program. Peggy Lipson, then of the

Cultural Resources Management office, deserves full credit for

suggesting park visitor fees as a timely topic for the history. Richard J.

Rambur of the Ranger Activities and Protection Division and Dorothy J.

Whitehead of the Office of Legislation were especially helpful in

answering questions and making pertinent records available.

During the course of the research, Harry A. Butowsky of the History

Division repeatedly characterized the topic as a cure for insomnia, no

doubt seeking to impair the author's morale and determination. He gets

no credit whatsoever for this product, for which he will surely be

grateful.

Barry Mackintosh

December 7, 1982

*In this paper, as in current official parlance, "user fees" are charges for

specific facilities within parks and exclude entrance fees, even though

the latter are charges for the use of parks as a whole.

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

I. THE PATTERN IS SET, 1908-1940

The Self-Supporting Ideal

Proposed government programs and activities have frequently been sold

as "self-supporting" by their promoters. Especially was this so in the

pre-New Deal era, when government was not routinely looked to for

involvement and assistance in most aspects of society, and when tax

revenues were far more limited and confined to far narrower purposes

than they are today.

Thus it was that Ferdinand V. Hayden and other Yellowstone proponents

assured members of Congress that the first national park, established in

1872, would require no appropriated funds. Concessioner rents were

envisioned to provide all the income necessary for Yellowstone's

administration. Nathaniel P. Langford, the park's first superintendent,

generally agreed. He advocated leasing to concessioners the major

points of interest and granting leases for toll roads; the lessees would

provide protection for the park. Langford did see the need for an initial

appropriation to mark boundaries and institute protective measures, and

in 1878 the park began to receive Federal funds. [1]

The ideal of self-supporting parks continued to receive rhetorical

homage and was actually achieved at various times in particular areas.

Yosemite made a profit, primarily from concessions, in 1907, for

example; and Yellowstone's receipts exceeded expenditures in 1915 and

1916, the first years when automobiles were admitted there. During the

1914 season, 1,594 $5 auto permits were issued at Mount Rainier, and

the superintendent there saw greater income forthcoming: "It is

confidently predicted that park revenues will be sufficient to meet the

expenses of an economical administration of park affairs as soon as the

present road is permanently improved and safety and comfort assured to

automobile users." In the 1917 annual report of the National Park

Service, Acting Director Horace M. Albright was equally optimistic: "I

believe the time will soon come when Yellowstone, Yosemite, Mount

Rainier, Sequoia, and General Grant National Parks and probably one or

two more members of the system will yield sufficient revenue to cover

costs of administration and maintenance of improvements." [2]

NEXT> The First Visitor Fees

1John Ise, Our National Park Policy; A Critical History (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), pp. 20, 29.

2Ibid., pp. 620-22; Report of the Superintendent of the Mount Rainier

National Park, in U.S. Department of the Interior, Reports of the

Department of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1914

(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915), I, 779; Annual Report
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of the Director of the National Park Service, Oct. 13, 1917, in Reports

of the Department of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30,

1917 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1918), I, 806.

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

II. POSTWAR PRESSURES AND THE LAND AND

WATER CONSERVATION FUND ACT 1947-1967

In 1947 Secretary of the Interior Julius A. Krug reported that park

revenues from all sources totaled only about one-ninth of appropriations

for the National Park System. The ratio of income to expenditures

increased to one-third the following year, marked by higher postwar fee

collection and a significant appropriations cut. [1] But the parks needed

more rather than less money to upgrade and expand deteriorating prewar

facilities to meet the growing public demand.

The Independent Offices Appropriation Act of 1952, approved August

31, 1951, contained an across-the-board provision with direct

application to fee collection in the parks:

It is the sense of the Congress that any work,

service,...benefit,...use,...or similar thing of value or utility

performed, furnished, provided, granted, prepared, or issued

by any Federal agency...to or for any person...shall be selfsustaining to the full extent possible, and the head of each

Federal agency is authorized by regulation...to prescribe

therefor such fee, charge, or price, if any, as he shall

determine...to be fair and equitable taking into consideration

direct and indirect cost to the Government, value to the

recipient, public policy or interest served, and other

pertinent facts, and any amount so determined...shall be

collected and paid into the Treasury as miscellaneous

receipts... [2]

Because he did not cite it, NPS Assistant Director Thomas J. Allen may

have been unaware of this provision when he proposed charging a

camping fee in Yosemite Valley the following year. Allen advocated the

fee not for revenue, but as a regulatory tool to discourage Californians

from monopolizing the campsites year after year. The issue was brought

before the Secretary's Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites,

Buildings, and Monuments in November 1952. Horace M. Albright,

then a board member, had been sympathetic to campground charges

when he was director 20 years earlier and put through a resolution to the

desired end: "Resolved, that the Advisory Board recommends that the

provision of law prohibiting the collection of fees for the use of

campgrounds in the national parks and national monuments be repealed

as an aid to better regulation and protection." [3] A dozen more years

would pass before the board's recommendation would become a reality,

however.

Instead, congressional pressure was applied for higher automobile fees

(now generally accepted as "entrance fees"). Director Conrad L. Wirth

had appeared before the Interior subcommittee of the House

Appropriations Committee in January 1952 to seek more NPS staffing
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for fee collection. A committee staff investigator thereafter looked into

the Service's fee activity and called attention to the fact that at

Yosemite, for example, there had been no increase since 1931. At the

time of the next subcommittee hearing in February 1953, the

subcommittee chairman, Representative Ben F. Jensen of Iowa,

criticized Interior's dilatory action on a general fee increase proposal, on

hold in the Secretary's office since the preceding June. "All members of

this subcommittee have gone through the parks," said Jensen, "and we

do not feel justified in making the necessary improvements without the

collection of more revenue." Wirth hastened to agree that fees should be

raised and promised immediate action. [4]

The higher fees were put into effect in mid-1953. Parks with camping

now sold 15-day permits and seasonal or annual permits at a higher

price; Yellowstone and Yosemite, for example, charged $3 for a car and

trailer for 15 days, $6 for a year. Although nothing was done about a

campground fee, a two-week time limit was instituted in most areas that

summer. [5]

A toll for the Blue Ridge Parkway, planned since the late, was

announced in 1955. It and the prospect of a fee for Great Smoky

Mountains National Park aroused strong opposition in Virginia and

North Carolina, which had donated the lands with the understanding that

they would be open freely. In addition, many mountain residents used

the parkway for daily travel. Although the proposed toll was only $1 for

15 days and $2 for a year, it was deferred at the request of the House

appropriations subcommittee. A second attempt to institute a Blue Ridge

Parkway fee in 1958 was likewise shelved. [6]

Despite the 1953 fee increase, the park deficit widened during the

decade of the 1950s. In 1956 park receipts were about one-tenth of

appropriations. That year marked the inauguration of MISSION 66, a

ten-year program of major expenditures to improve facilities throughout

the National Park System. Simultaneously, the System continued to

expand with new areas whose fees were low or nonexistent. By 1959

receipts had declined to one-fourteenth the level of appropriations. [7]

In Our National Park Policy; A Critical History, commissioned by

Resources for the Future, Inc. (chaired by Horace Albright) at the end of

the decade, John Ise was critical of the trend:

The deficit has been growing, and as Mission 66 gets into

full swing it seems likely to grow further. Does this seem

fair, equitable, and wise, or should the visitors to the parks

pay a larger proportion of the expenses--more than about 6

per cent in 1959? Is it equitable to assess against the people

of the entire country more than nine-tenths of the cost of

the parks that relatively few ever see?

Urging a general increase in entrance fees to reduce the general

taxpayer's subsidy of the park visitor, Ise suggested that few would be

kept from the parks by higher charges. Most of those unwilling to pay

more, he believed, were insufficiently motivated to benefit much from

their visits anyway and would serve the National Park System better by
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their absence: "there are too many people in some of the parks, too

many particularly who do not really care much for what they see." [8]

As Ise's book was en route to its publication in 1961, Laurence S.

Rockefeller, a director of Resources for the Future, was chairing the

Government's Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission

(ORRRC). ORRRC's report to the President and Congress, Outdoor

Recreation for America, appeared in January 1962 and called for "user

fees" for specific recreational facilities--such as campgrounds--within

Federal areas:

Fees should be charged for those activities which involve

exclusive use of facilities or which require the construction

of specialized facilities by the government. Fee rates should

be calculated to recover a reasonable portion of the cost of

administering, operating, and maintaining such facilities...

It is urged that uniformity in user fees be established among

agencies on the same level of government and among

different levels of government. This fee structure will serve

to stimulate provision of similar services by private

operators, who will not be faced with competition from free

government facilities. [9]

The ORRRC report, which proposed a significant increase in public

support for outdoor recreation and Federal assistance from several

sources, inspired congressional legislation that year to establish a Land

Conservation Fund. The bills introduced contained authority for all

recreation-providing Federal agencies to set entrance and user fees.

Testifying before the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee,

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall estimated that the $3 annual

auto permit proposed in the legislation for admission to all Federal

recreation areas would yield 20 to 45 million dollars a year toward the

acquisition of new recreational lands by the Federal Government and the

states. [10]

The legislation was reintroduced in the new 88th Congress in 1963, with

some modification in its other proposed funding sources and with the

broader objective of a Land and Water Conservation Fund. At the

Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee hearings on the measure

that March, broad support was expressed for the interagency entrance

fee concept and for user fees. "I firmly believe that it is equitable for

recreationists to pay a reasonable fee for the recreational use of Federal

lands and waters...," Secretary Udall testified. "Also, the application of

user fees for recreation on Federal lands would be a great stimulus to

recreational investment by private enterprise." The Izaak Walton

League, among the many organizations backing the bill, presented a

statement of its policy on fees:

There should be established systems of charges for

recreational use of public lands and waters, such systems to

differentiate between fees charged for simple enjoyment of

the outdoor environment and those charged for the use of

developed facilities or for special services. Revenues from
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these charges should be utilized to expand opportunities for

outdoor recreation, to develop recreational facilities, and to

assure proper management... [11]

But some were less enthusiastic about the proposed charges. Spokesmen

from western states, including Senator Frank Church of Idaho and

Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, saw the entrance fees as falling

most heavily on their constituents because of the extensive national

forest lands and other Federal acreage there. In response to complaints

about the bill's lack of specifics as to how the fee system would work,

Secretary Udall was forced to admit that the details had not been worked

out. Prodded by the subcommittee chairman, Senator Clinton P.

Anderson of New Mexico, he later reported that Interior envisioned a

conservation car sticker for three to five dollars good for general entry to

all Federal areas and supplementary user fees for specially developed

sites and facilities. [12]

The National Parks Subcommittee of the House Interior and Insular

Affairs Committee held its hearings on the corresponding House bills in

May. There was much discussion of how and for what uses fees would

be collected in national forests, and certain easterners joined in

opposition to the fee authorization. Representative James H. Quillen,

whose Tennessee district included part of Great Smoky Mountains

National Park, was especially adamant on the subject:

It is my sincere opinion that the placing of any type of

entrance admission or any other kind of fee would do

violence and damage to this great system of parks and

forests and lands, and would impose a burden upon the

people of this great country, which is wholly unjustified. I

not only oppose such a fee, but I resent the fact that it is

even being considered. It looks to me as if this

administration has in mind to tax, tax, tax, while I firmly

believe that we have too many taxes already, and certainly

we do not want to destroy the nature's beauty by imposing a

fee before the people can see these beautiful sights which

were intended to always be free.

Representative Roy A. Taylor of North Carolina, recalling that his state

had donated lands for Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the

Blue Ridge Parkway, declared, "Our national parks and recreational

areas are part of our national heritage and should be available without

charge to all citizens." [13]

Despite these objections, the House committee reported out a new bill

that November providing for an interagency annual vehicle entrance

permit costing up to $7. The amount was selected for being just over the

existing $6 annual entrance fee at Yellowstone and Yosemite. The

committee report estimated entrance and user fee receipts averaging

about $65 million a year over the first ten years if the interagency permit

were priced at only $5. Six committee members maintained opposition

to both entrance and user fees: "Since the Northwest Ordinance of

1787," they stated in the report, "our land laws have historically

recognized the principle that the American people own the public
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domain and shall enjoy it without taxation." [14]

When the reported bill finally reached the House floor in July 1964,

Representative John P. Saylor of Pennsylvania, a committee supporter,

minimized the cost of the interagency permit. "Although the bill

provides for up to a $7 annual fee, the administrative thinking is that the

price of such voluntary annual sticker will be in the neighborhood of $3

to $5," he said. "This is the equivalent of the price of one tank full of

gasoline." There was concern about admission fees being imposed for

access to undeveloped areas, and several members remained

unreconciled to the entire idea. "I do not believe the people of the

United States want fees to be charged...to go onto land that they already

own," said Representative Jack Westland of Washington. But

Representative Morris K. Udall of Arizona spoke for the majority

ultimately voting for passage: "I cannot believe that the American

people are going to blame those in Congress who suggest that those who

use the facilities provided by the taxpayers' money should pay a little bit

more than those who do not, when we are trying to acquire the parks we

need in the East, West, North, and South." [15]

The House-passed bill, H.R. 3846, was referred to the Senate Interior

and Insular Affairs Committee, which amended it in several particulars.

Authority for charging fees for the use of Federal wilderness areas and

waters was removed (although fees could be levied for boat launch

ramps and moorings). The committee reported the amended bill with a

strong endorsement of the general fee concept:

[T]he principle of charging fees for recreation use of

Federal areas is neither new nor inequitable. It is in

complete accord with the American tradition for full and

fair payment for value received...

For more than a decade and a half, the Government has had

a policy that where the use of Federal resources conveys

special benefits to identifiable recipients above and beyond

those which accrue to the general public, such recipients

should pay a reasonable charge for the service or product

received or for the resource used.

The budget messages of Presidents since 1947 have

supported this policy.

The Congress endorsed this basic concept when, in 1951, it

enacted title V of the Independent Offices Appropriation

Act of 1952 (5 U.S.C. 140), wherein it was stated that

services which are rendered to special beneficiaries by

Federal agencies should be self-sustaining to the fullest

extent possible...

Federal recreation areas have been acquired or developed

for the most part from funds appropriated out of the general

tax revenues to the U.S. Treasury. People who use these

areas receive special benefits which do not accrue to the

public at large. In fairness to the general taxpayer, who
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carries the major burden of support for these areas, the

recipient of these special benefits--the people who use the

areas for recreation purposes--should pay a modest fee for

the resources used.

The payment of fees by persons who obtain special

recreational benefits from the use of Federal lands is

analogous to the payment of fees by persons who obtain

special benefits from grazing livestock or cutting timber on

Federal lands. There is ample evidence of the recreation

users' willingness to pay for both privately and publicly

provided recreation opportunities. Organizations

representing recreationists have, without exception,

endorsed H.R. 3846 and have supported its enactment with

unusual urgency. [16]

The Senate passed the bill on August 12, with only Senator Allen J.

Ellender of Louisiana voting against it. [17] The House and Senate

subsequently agreed to a conference report reconciling their differences,

and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the final version on September

3.

Public Law 88-578, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965

[18] (so designated for its effective date of January 1, 1965), directed to

be covered into a separate Treasury account "all proceeds from entrance,

admission, and other recreation user fees or charges collected or

received by the National Park Service" and other specified bureaus

(although existing revenue sharing agreements with states and localities

were not to be affected). Also to be credited to the fund were revenues

from the sale of surplus Federal property (which had been estimated to

bring in about $50 million a year) and Federal taxes on motorboat fuels

(supposed to yield some $30 million annually). [19] The President was

authorized to designate areas "administered primarily for scenic,

scientific, historical, cultural, or recreational purposes" where fees

would be charged, with certain specified exclusions: private

noncommercial vehicles could not be charged for nation al parkway

travel, for example, and fees could not be levied on secondary roads into

Great Smoky Mountains National Park unless they were applied on

main highways through the park (a practical impossibility). In

accordance with the Senate amendments, no fee could be charged for the

use of waters, and no entrance fee could be collected at areas without

recreation facilities or services provided at Federal expense, precluding

charges for wilderness.

The act provided for four classes of visitor fees:

(i) An annual fee of not more than $7 payable by a person

entering an area so designated by private noncommercial

automobile which...shall excuse the person paying the same

and anyone who accompanies him in such automobile from

payment of any other fee for admission to that area and

other areas...except areas which are designated by the

President as not being within the coverage of the fee, during

the year for which the fee has been paid.
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(ii) Fees for a single visit or a series of visits during a

specified period of less than a year to an area so designated

payable by persons who choose not to pay an annual fee...or

who enter such an area by means other than private

noncommercial automobile.

(iii) Fees payable for admission to areas not within the

coverage of a fee paid under clause (i)....

(iv) Fees for the use within an area of sites, facilities,

equipment, or services provided by the United States.

All fees were to be "fair and equitable, taking into consideration direct

and indirect cost to the Government, benefits, to the recipient, public

policy or interest served, and other pertinent factors." The fiscal 1929

and 1930 appropriations act provisions restricting NPS campground

charges were repealed, as were "all other provisions of law that prohibit

the collection of entrance, admission, or other recreation user fees or

charges authorized by this Act or that restrict the expenditure of funds if

such fees or charges are collected...." In other miscellaneous provisions,

no free passes were to be given members of Congress or other

Government officials, and no money from fees or the other Land and

Water Conservation Fund revenue sources was to be used for publicity

purposes.

As a first step in implementing the Land and Water Conservation Fund

Act, President Johnson issued Executive Order 11200 on February 26,

1965. To the several criteria in the act for designating fee areas it added

administrative and economic practicality. Its primary purpose was to

place the responsibility for a uniform Federal fee system in the hands of

the Secretary of the Interior, which in practice meant the Bureau of

Outdoor Recreation (BOR).

BOR coordinated preparation of the necessary regulations, which were

published in Title 43 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 18. The

fee system got underway rather haphazardly late in the 1965 season, and

the regulations were revised for greater effectiveness in 1966. In

addition to the universal entrance permit dubbed the "Golden Eagle,"

whose cost was set at the maximum $7 authorization, 30-day temporary

permits and day-use permits for single areas were established on a

uniform basis. In 1967 user fee criteria were added to the regulations.

Sites, facilities, equipment, and services were to be charged for

according to (a) the direct and indirect Federal cost of maintenance; (b)

the quality and variety of recreational opportunities offered; (c) the

charges for comparable government and private facilities elsewhere; (d)

the impact of the charge on the potential development of other facilities;

and (e) the contributions of state and local governments and private

sources to development and maintenance.

On paper, all was now in place for a rational, remunerative Federal

system of visitor fees. In practice, the system bore little relationship to

the rosy predictions made of it. The task of developing a workable

recreational fee program had only begun.
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End of Chapter 2

1John Ise, Our National Park Policy; A Critical History (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), p. 622.

265 Stat. 290.

3Advisory Board Minutes, 27th Meeting, Nov. 17-18, 1952, in Advisory

Boards and Commissions office, National Park Service, Washington,

D.C.

4U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, Interior

Department Appropriations for 1953, Hearings, 82d Congress, 2d

Session, 1952, pp. 246-47; same for 1954, 83d Congress, 1st Session,

1953, pp. 208-10.

5Ise, Our National Park Policy, p. 622; Interior Appropriations Hearings,

1954, p. 210.

6Ise, Our National Park Policy, p. 626; U.S., Congress, House,

Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Land and Water

Conservation Fund, Hearings on H.R. 3846, H.R. 3864, et al., 88th

Congress, 1st Session, May 27-28, 1963, pp. 60, 64-65.

7Ise, Our National Park Policy, pp. 623-24.

8Ibid., pp. 624-25, 635-36.

9U.S., Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, Outdoor

Recreation for America; A Report to the President and to the Congress

by the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission

(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1962), pp. 168-69.

10U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,

Land Conservation Fund, Hearings on H.R. 11172 et al., 87th Congress,

2d Session, July 11-12 and Aug. 8, 1962, pp. 31-32.

11U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,

Land and Water Conservation Fund, Hearings on S. 859, 88th Congress,

1st Session, Mar. 7-8, 1963, pp. 13, 119.

12Ibid., pp. 30-34, 46.

13House Land and Water Conservation Fund Hearings, 1963, pp. 12-13,

68-69, 80-84.

14House Report 900, 88th Congress, Nov. 14, 1963.

16Senate Report 1364, 88th Congress, Aug. 10, 1964.

17Several years before, Senator Ellender had visited Vicksburg Nation al
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Military Park, where a 25 cent admission fee was charged at the visitor

center. He loudly proclaimed the fee a "gyp" and said it should be

discontinued. It was. (Interview with Edwin C. Bearss, Sept. 2, 1982.)

1878 Stat. 897.

19Senate Report 1364.

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

III. IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED... 1968-

1972

The 1968 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act Amendment

The Land and Water Conservation Fund was supposed to realize an

average $65 million a year over the first ten years from visitor fees,

assuming the Golden Eagle permit were priced at only $5. With the

permit actually priced 40 percent higher, revenues should have been

significantly greater. Instead, they were less-much less, with no prospect

of rising anywhere near the forecasted figure.

In 1967 the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation hired a consulting firm,

Arthur D. Little, Inc., to study the problem and come forth with

recommendations. The Little report, submitted that December,

advocated greater emphasis on advance sales of the Golden Eagle and

greater availability of the permit at commercial outlets and post offices,

with a major advertising campaign to promote its sale. It proposed a

complicated system of permits for single areas and single day visits

costing insignificantly less than $7, the object being to encourage

general purchase of the Golden Eagle in advance. Heavy enforcement,

including "impounding of vehicles improperly present in Federal

recreation areas," would further compliance. If its recommendations

were adopted, the Little report suggested that annual fee income could

be raised from an estimated $12 million in 1969 to $33 million--still far

short of what was predicted at the outset of the program. [1]

In February 1968 the House and Senate Interior committees held

hearings on bills amending the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act.

Their primary objective was to bring new revenue into the shaky fund;

Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leasing receipts were earmarked for

this purpose. During the legislative process there was much discussion

of the inadequacies of the visitor fee system that had originally been

envisioned as the fund's major revenue source. Of the several fee

collecting bureaus, only the National Park Service had produced enough

money to justify its participation; the Corps of Engineers was least

supportive of the major recreation area managers.

"I just do not believe it is equitable for the National Park Service...to

have to use its moneys that it collects, and believes in collecting them,

to help finance operations by the Corps of Engineers," said

Representative Wayne N. Aspinall of Colorado, chairman of the House

Interior Committee, at the House hearing. He opposed pooling the fee

revenues, proposing instead that each agency's receipts be kept in a

separate account for its exclusive benefit. Spencer M. Smith of the

Citizens Committee on Natural Resources dissented, fearing that such an

arrangement would exacerbate interagency competition. Representative

Roy A. Taylor, now chairman of the Parks and Recreation

Subcommittee, reiterated his general opposition to entrance fees while
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complaining, with Representative James A. McClure of Idaho, that the

universal $7 permit was too great a bargain from a revenue standpoint.

At the corresponding Senate hearings, Senators A. S. Mike Monroney

and Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma were especially negative about fees for

Corps of Engineers reservoir access and facilities. [2]

Asked to comment on the proposed abolition of the interagency fee

system after the hearings, the National Park Service straddled the issue:

We prefer the present provision of law with respect to fees.

In particular we believe that a single sticker admitting the

public to recreation areas without regard to administrative

jurisdiction is desirable and in the best interest of the public.

However, we would not object to the amendment in

question inasmuch as a [Service] fee system could still be

instituted... It would be our intent that fees ear marked

under this provision be used to finance State and Federal

planning assistance and for National Park System and

wilderness planning which relate directly to the

improvement and enhancement of outdoor recreation. [3]

The Interior Department, to which the Service's comment was

addressed, took a less equivocal stand in officially responding to

Chairman Aspinall on the House committee's proposed amendments:

This Department strongly believes that the present language

of the land and water conservation fund, which encourages

uniform inter-agency approach, as exemplified by the

"Golden Eagle" program, be allowed to continue for at least

2 more years until it has had a 5-year trial period, and that it

then be reassessed...

This administration is philosophically committed to

reasonable user charges for Government services as

evidenced by the President's memorandum to heads of

departments and agencies of May 17, 1966, entitled "User

Charges for Government Service"...

If the uniform system were to be deauthorized, Interior requested

language requiring all agencies to charge recreation fees whenever

economically feasible:

Unless this is done, the private sector would be seriously

discouraged from providing recreational facilities such as

private camp, picnic, trailer, and similar facilities if they

must compete with free Federal facilities. It is most

important in our opinion that the Federal fees be set at a rate

that does not disadvantage the private operator or States and

local public agencies which charge for recreation areas

under their jurisdiction. [4]

In a simultaneous communication to Aspinall, the Bureau of the Budget

conceded that visitor fee revenues had fallen short of expectations and

that experience had shown the impracticality of collecting at some areas.

"Because of both these factors," it wrote, "we are asking the Federal
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agencies, under the leadership of the Department of the Interior, to

reevaluate the present fee system with the objective of devising a

revised system" that would be internally consistent, widely applicable,

and more profitable. The Budget Bureau supported Interior's request for

a two-year extension of the present system while this review was in

process. [5]

Within Interior, the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife had

expressed concern that the proposed separate bureau accounts for fee

receipts would be prejudicial to regular appropriations, despite a

disclaimer of such an effect in the House committee's bill. (The Park

Service, whose much greater receipts could enable it to profit far more

from this arrangement, was evidently willing to take this chance.) The

Budget Bureau came out against the separate account provision: "[It]

would seem to have little practical value and would substantially further

complicate administration of the Fund." [6]

On March 29 the Senate committee reported its bill, which left the

existing fee system intact. Its report restated its commitment to the

concept of visitor fees, while accepting the need for a subsequent review

of the system then in effect:

[T]he committee recognizes the fact that, in practice, the fee

system under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act

has called forth public opposition and been the subject of

controversy in some areas. It has been asserted that the costs

of collection exceed the amount of revenues derived from

them.

This assertion appears to be open to question, particularly

since personnel engaged in collection of fees usually also

perform other functions at Federal outdoor recreation

facilities. In addition, outdoor recreation officials report that

the public tends to take far better care of areas where fees

are charged than where admission and use is free.

In view of the disagreements as to the facts and the

controversy as to the policy, the committee believes the

entire fee system under the act should be the subject of

comprehensive legislative review. This bill, which is in the

nature of emergency legislation to provide aid to the States

and Federal agencies to save their outdoor recreation

programs, is not the proper legislative vehicle for such

consideration, the committee believes.

Therefore, the fee system will be given the full and careful

study required in separate legislation. [7]

The bill reported by the House committee a month later provided for

repeal of the interagency fee system effective April 1, 1969. The House

committee's report reviewed the situation as it had developed and

justified the position taken:

When the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act was
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passed in 1964, it was expected that receipts from the sale

of annual automobile permits and from admission and user

fees would total nearly $60 million by the fourth year of

operation of the fund.... Current indications are that they

will do well to reach $101⁄2 million, or 18 percent of this

amount, in spite of the fact that the automobile permit (the

so-called Golden Passport) is such a tremendous bargain

that there have been complaints that some of its users spend

weeks and even months in the areas to which it applies for

a price of only $7 and are, therefore, not carrying a

reasonable share of the costs involved.

Nearly 75 percent of the admission and user fees that are

received are collected by the Department of the Interior and

20 percent by the Department of Agriculture.... In fact, twothirds of all the fees collected come through the National

Park Service alone.

This is a great disappointment to members of the

committee, for it means two things -- (1) that the only real

effort that is being put into carrying out the intent of the

Land and Water Conservation Fund Act is that of the

National Park Service, notwithstanding the great

recreational opportunities that are provided by installations

of the Corps of Engineers and other Federal agencies, and

(2) that a large segment of the American public is oblivious

to the fact that it costs money to supply outdoor recreation

facilities that every individual can enjoy and would rather

see them supported entirely from public sources of revenue

than contribute a small fraction of their cost. Add to this

that some agencies estimate that they expend as much

collecting the fees in certain areas as they take in, and it is

clear that something is radically wrong.

Notwithstanding all this, however, the committee has

regretfully concluded that the attempt to find a uniform

Government-wide fee system should be abandoned

beginning April 1, 1969; that responsibility for fixing and

collecting fees should be returned to the individual agencies

and departments...; and that the fees collected by each

agency should be earmarked for appropriation for its own

use. It is the intent of the committee that appropriations

from this source shall be without prejudice to

appropriations from other sources--in other words, that the

agencies collecting fees shall not be punished by having

their regular appropriations cut back and those which fail to

collect fees shall not be rewarded by having their regular

appropriations increased to make up for their failure to

collect. [8]

On the House floor, Representative Aspinall chastised those who had

undermined the existing fee system and spoke positively of the

incentive to individual agencies provided by his committee's

amendment:
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I regret that it seems to be appropriate to abandon the

existing fee program, but unfortunately those who

enthusiastically support expansive and expensive outdoor

recreation projects are apparently unwilling to make any

significant effort to make this aspect of the program

function as it should. The existing fee program has not

worked well to date and I have no reason to believe that the

future will be much brighter. I believe that, under the fee

system recommended by the committee, the collecting

agency would be encouraged to develop the most effective

program possible if the fees collected are returned to it as a

supplement to its regular appropriations.

The House and Senate passed their respective bills, which were finally

reconciled by a conference committee report agreed to on July 2.

Another Oklahoman, Representative Ed Edmondson, spoke out against

any entrance fees before the final vote, but the compromise accorded

essentially with the House committee version allowing each agency to

set its own fees. The repeal date for the interagency system was

extended to April 1, 1970: "This will give the administration an extra

year in which to satisfy its critics, if it can do so, that the Governmentwide system of user and admission fees can be made to work," said

Aspinall in speaking for the compromise. [10]

The resulting Public Law 90-401, approved by President Johnson July

15, 1968, rescued the Land and Water Conservation Fund by authorizing

the addition of sufficient revenues from Outer Continental Shelf oil and

gas leasing to bring the fund to a total of $200 million annually. More

relevant to the present study is its language on visitor fees. Although it

repealed the authority for the universal fee system in the original Land

and Water Conservation Fund Act, by setting the effective date more

than a year and a half ahead it left open the door for reconsideration. In

lieu of the repealed authority, the act provided clear support and at least

theoretical incentive for fee collection by individual agencies:

It is not the intent of the Congress by this repealer to

indicate that Federal agencies which have under their

administrative jurisdiction areas or facilities used or useful

for outdoor recreation or which furnish services related to

outdoor recreation shall not exercise any authority they may

have, including authority under section 501 of the Act of

August 31, 1951..., or any authority they may hereafter be

given to make reasonable charges for admission to such

areas, for the use of such facilities, or for the furnishing of

such services. Except as otherwise provided by law or as

may be required by lawful contracts..., all fees so charged

shall be covered into a special account under the Land and

Water Conservation Fund and shall be available for

appropriation, without prejudice to appropriations from

other sources for the same purposes, for any authorized

outdoor recreation function of the agency by which the fees

were collected. [11]

For one agency, the Corps of Engineers, this provision quickly became
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a dead letter. Thanks to Representative Edmondson, the Flood Control

Act of 1968 was enacted on August 31 with a Section 210 prohibiting

entrance fees at all Corps recreation areas as of April 1, 1970. [12] On

the basis of the act's legislative history and a subsequent resolution by

the House Public Works Committee, the Corps discontinued user fees

immediately and entrance fees that October, much to the chagrin of

those still hoping for continuation of the interagency system.

NEXT> The 1970 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act

Amendment

1"Marketing Study and Recommendations Concerning Federal

Recreation Area Permit and Fee System," Report to Bureau of Outdoor

Recreation, December 1967.

2U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,

Land and Water Conservation Fund Act Amendments, Hearings on H.R.

8578 et al., 90th Congress, 2d Session, Feb. 6, 7, 21 and Mar. 4, 1968,

pp. 162-63, 168, 175, 183-84; U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on

Interior and Insular Affairs, Land and Water Conservation Fund Act

Amendments, Hearings on S. 1401 et al., 90th Congress, 2d Session,

Feb. 5, 6, and 21, 1968, pp. 16-31.

3Memorandum, Assistant to the Director Frank E. Harrison to

Legislative Counsel, Office of the Solicitor, Mar. 21, 1968, in

Legislative History, P.L. 90-401, Interior Law Library.

4Letter, Assistant Secretary Harry R. Anderson to Aspinall, Mar. 26,

1968, in House Report 1313, 90th Congress, Apr. 24, 1968.

5Letter, Assistant Director Wilfred H. Rommel to Aspinall, Mar. 26,

1968, in House Report 1313.

6Memorandum, Acting, BSFW, to Legislative Counsel, Mar. 22, 1968,

in Legislative History, P.L. 90-401; Rommel to Aspinall, Mar. 26, 1968.

7Senate Report 1071, 90th Congress.

8House Report 1313.

9Congressional Record, May 23, 1968, p. H4190.

10Ibid., July 2, 1968, p. H5898.

1182 Stat. 354.

1282 Stat. 746.

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

IV. CONGRESS FUMBLES AND RECOVERS,

1973-1974

The 1973 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act Amendment

(The Fumble)

With all the thought and effort that went into the making of Public Law

92-347, the 1972 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act amendment,

one might assume that all would have been quiet on the fee front for

some time thereafter. Such was not the case. The Corps of Engineers,

always a reluctant participant in the interagency fee system, again

proved troublesome to the partnership.

Whether by ineptitude or design, the Corps responded to the latest legal

authority for user fees and Office of Management and Budget pressure

to maximize income by imposing onerous charges for simple boat

ramps, rest rooms, parking lots, and other facilities seemingly precluded

from user fees by the 1972 conference committee report. The response

was a House bill the following year in the 93rd Congress, in the nature

of an amendment to Section 210 of the 1968 Flood Control Act, that

would prohibit user fees in Corps areas for common day use facilities

and for campgrounds without flush toilets, showers, and certain other

amenities.

The bill, H.R. 6717, was referred to and favorably reported by the

Public Works Committee, which had primary jurisdiction over Corps

affairs. On the House floor Representatives Roy Taylor and John Saylor

of the Interior Committee opposed its passage; they observed that few if

any Federal campgrounds would qualify for fee collection under its

restrictions and argued that the Corps should conform to the same user

fee standards as other Federal agencies rather than being specially

treated. But the bill passed on May 22, 1973, by a vote of 307 to 90. [1]

H.R. 6717 was next referred to and favorably reported by the Senate

Public Works Committee. The Senate Interior Committee then obtained

it. Another bill had already passed the Senate, of similar purpose but

differing in two significant respects: it was less restrictive on camping

charges, excluding only "lightly developed or back-country

campgrounds"; and it amended the Land and Water Conservation Fund

Act rather than the Flood Control Act, making it apply equally to all

recreation-providing agencies. The Interior Committee reported H.R.

6717 amended by substitution of the other bill's language. [2]

In its report, the Interior Committee also noted problems with the

"single visit" permit after the 1972 act had eliminated the "series of

visits" permit alternative. Agencies were construing a single visit to

mean a daily visit and were charging people for each day they remained.

On the Senate floor on July 17, Senator Alan Bible, the parks

subcommittee chairman, added an amendment defining a single visit as
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"that length of time a visitor remains within the exterior boundary of a

designated fee area beginning from the day he first enters the area until

he leaves, except that on the same day [the] admission fee is paid, the

visitor may leave and re enter without the payment of an additional

admission fee to the same area." [3]

Senator Dewey F. Bartlett of Oklahoma then rose with another

amendment striking the user fee prohibition on "lightly developed or

back-country campgrounds" and substituting language similar to that in

the House-passed version of H.R. 6717, which originally applied only

to the Corps of Engineers but now applied across the board:

[I]n no event shall there be a charge for the day use or

recreational use of those facilities or combination of those

facilities or areas which virtually all visitors might

reasonably be expected to utilize, such as, but not limited

to, picnic areas, boat ramps where no mechanical or

hydraulic equipment is provided, drinking water, wayside

exhibits, roads, trails, overlook sites, visitors' centers, scenic

drives, and toilet facilities. No fee may be charged for

access to or use of any campground not having the

following--flush restrooms, showers reasonably available,

access and circulatory, sanitary disposal stations reasonably

available, visitor protection control, designated tent or

trailer spaces, refuse containers and potable water.

"My amendment...spells out in detail when fees may be charged for the

use of campgrounds for overnight camping..., " said Bartlett. "I have

discussed the amendment with General Morse [John W. Morris], of the

Corps of Engineers. He said that he would favor having the whole

matter very clearly spelled out, as this does, and that this was acceptable

to him" [4]

Possibly unaware of its implications, Senator Bible concurred: "I

believe it is a good amendment, and I think it should be adopted." It

was, and the Senate passed the bill with both floor amendments. The

House subsequently agreed to the Senate version without debate, and

President Nixon made it Public Law 93-81 on August 1. [5]

Asleep at the switch, House and Senate Interior Committee members

supportive of user fees had allowed derailment of the greatest source of

such fee revenue--campground charges. In the National Park System,

not all campgrounds where fees were levied had flush restrooms, and

virtually none had showers. (In some areas concessioners provided

showers nearby, but because separate fees were charged for them they

could not be counted as campground facilities justifying Governmentimposed fees.) The Park Service and the other agencies in similar

circumstances were thus forced to drop their campground charges in the

middle of the 1973 season. [6]

In addition to their revenue production, the campground fees had also

become valuable for visitor control purposes. With this tool removed,

same campers stayed longer than they otherwise would have, rangers

found time limits difficult to enforce, and visitor complaints ensued. The
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campground reservation system instituted by the Park Service that year

was also adversely affected. Because the camping fee could no longer

be collected at the time of reservation, there was no refund incentive for

advance cancellation, leading to numerous "no-shows." [7]

NEXT> The 1974 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act

Amendment (The Recovery)

1House Report 93-212, May 16, 1973; 119 Congressional Record

16515-20.

2Senate Report 93-250, June 25, 1973; S. 1381, passed Senate May 16,

1973; Senate Report 93-312, July 12, 1973.

3Senate Report 93-312; 119 Congressional Record 24378.

4119 Congressional Record 24379.

5Ibid., pp. 24379, 24920-21; 87 Stat. 178.

6At that time there were 7 campgrounds in the Park System charging $4

per site per night, 38 charging $3, 36 charging $2, 41 charging $1, and

311 at which no charge was levied.

7 7U. S., Congress, House, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,

Amendments to the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, Hearings

on S. 2844 et al., 93d Congress, 2d Session, Apr. 8-9, 1974, p. 59.

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

V. CONFLICTING PRESSURES; CONGRESS

PUTS THE LID ON 1975-1980

The Seasonal Fee Rates Experiment

At Yosemite, one of the most heavily visited units of the National Park

System, the campgrounds are chronically crowded with waiting lines

during the peak summer season. For a brief time in the mid-1970s, the

park reduced the fee at certain campgrounds from $4 to $2 during the

months of November through March, the object being to shift some of

the summer use to the off-season.

No such shift occurred, suggesting that few if any of the summer

campers were so hard-pressed by the $4 fee as to find the winter

discount an incentive to change their vacation plans. Because per capita

operating costs were higher in the winter, the reduced seasonal rate was

discontinued. The experiment was not repeated elsewhere. [1]

The Public Willingness to Pay Study, 1976

In 1976 the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (BOR) commissioned

Economic Research Associates to conduct a study of the public's

willingness to pay user charges for recreation facilities. "Increased

emphasis has...been placed by the Office of Management and Budget on

developing more definitive economic criteria for allocation of resources,

as well as encouraging greater self-sufficiency of recreation areas and

facilities/services through the application of user fees," the study report

noted in justifying its purpose.

The contracted firm surveyed 800 households representing varying ages,

incomes, educational levels, and geographic areas. Its report revealed

that a majority of all demographic groups favored the user fee concept

as opposed to total reliance on general tax revenues, and that most

people were willing to pay higher fees than were then in effect.

Interestingly, opposition to user fees on the grounds that they deterred

lower-income participation came more from higher income and

education levels; those of lower income and education, who did

patronize recreation facilities less, expressed the greatest support for

fees. BOR distributed the report to Federal, state, and local recreationproviding agencies to encourage them to place greater reliance on user

fees as a way out of their current funding difficulties. [2]

NEXT> The NPS Recreation Fee Study, 1977

1Memorandum, Acting Director Daniel J. Tobin, Jr., to Director,

Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, Feb. 24, 1978, NPS

Ranger Activities and Protection Division, Washington, D.C.
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(hereinafter cited as WASO-535).

2"Evaluation of Public Willingness to Pay User Charges for Use of

Outdoor Recreation Areas," Sept. 1, 1976 (copy in Interior Library).

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National Park Service: History of Visitor Fees

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

VI. THE ADMINISTRATION STRIKES BACK,

1981-1982

The Recreation Fees and Improvements Act of 1982

The several congressional initiatives of 1978-1980 restricting fee

collection ]and administrative control over receipts flew in the face of

President Jimmy Carter's Office of Management and Budget and

Interior Department leadership. On this issue, President Ronald Reagan's

appointees agreed totally with their predecessors. Under even greater

pressure to cut domestic spending, they saw park fees as a logical way

of offsetting general revenue appropriations for this discretionary

category of the Federal budget.

Under orders to respond to what Congress had wrought, the Service's

legislative office prepared and circulated for comment within the agency

a draft "Park and Recreation Revenue Act of 1982" in December 1981.

The draft bill would increase the $10 ceiling on the Golden Eagle

Passport, make entrance and user fee receipts available to the collecting

agency for authorized outdoor recreation functions without further

appropriation, make VTS fees available without appropriation for VTS

establishment and enhancement only, and repeal inconsistent provisions

of existing law, including the general entrance fee freeze and the several

park-specific fee prohibitions. [1]

The proposed bypass of the congressional appropriations process was

judged unrealistic; it was also inconsistent with the response received

from OMB to the Service's fiscal 1983 budget request. In addition to

repeal of the freeze and the Golden Eagle ceiling, OMB wanted fee

revenues subject to annual appropriations to offset funding from general

revenues. It also sought repeal of the legislated criteria for user charges

in the 1974 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act amendment. [2]

The bill was revised to have fee revenues, including concession

franchise, returned to a special account available for appropriation to the

collecting agency; unlike past practice, 20 percent of the revenues would

be earmarked for the collecting park or area, while the rest would go for

"restoration and improvement of visitor use facilities" generally. The

minimum standards for camping fees would be removed, and the

Golden Eagle ceiling would go to $25.

Meanwhile, Interior's Policy, Budget, and Administration (PBA)

secretariat, traditionally allied with OMB in support of higher fees, was

promoting the cause to Secretary James G. Watt:

We feel that a lot more could be done with the concept of

User Fees than either the National Park Service or the

Office of Management and Budget currently are

considering.
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1. The User Fee Program must be established in such a way

that the NPS, from top to bottom, has the maximum

incentive possible to both increase and collect fees. If those

fees are completely offset against appropriations, such an

incentive disappears.

2. The User Fee Program has not worked well in the past

because NPS personnel have not seen any benefits to the

Park Service from the fees and often have viewed a fee

program as a liability.

3. With proper development, a User Fee Program can move

the NPS in the direction of self-sufficiency and

substantially, or entirely, free the Park System from the

appropriation process. [3]

In commenting on the Service's revised draft bill, PBA declared the $25

Golden Eagle still too inexpensive and favored discontinuation of the

annual pass and per-vehicle fee approach as insufficiently productive of

revenue. It recommended deauthorization of the Golden Eagle and

substitution of general language allowing the Secretary to develop

"multiple visit entrance permits" on a per capita basis. It opposed the 20

percent provision as too restrictive. It wanted authority to charge for

back-country camping, canoeing, and rafting. So that fee revenues

would not be used to offset general appropriations and thus impair the

Service's incentive to collect, it proposed an agreement with OMB to

hold the NPS budget at the 1983 level (possibly indexed for inflation)

for the next five years, during which increases would come from fees.

[4]

At a meeting attended by Secretary Watt, Assistant Secretary G. Ray

Arnett (Fish and Wildlife and Parks), and Deputy Assistant Secretary

William D. Bettenberg (PBA) on January 5, 1982, agreement was

reached to rework the bill generally in accordance with PBA's

recommendations. [5] The bill was put in final form at OMB after

another meeting there with representatives of Interior, Agriculture, and

the Corps of Engineers; it was transmitted to Congress on February 22

retitled "Recreation Fees and Improvements Act of 1982."

The transmittal letters to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of

the House, signed by Secretary Watt, Secretary of Agriculture John R.

Block, and Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh, Jr., declared the

administration bill "necessary for full implementation of the President's

program for economic recovery." Noting that existing fee revenues

covered only four percent of the cost of public recreation areas and

facilities, they estimated an increase to ten percent under the proposed

legislation. The bill would accomplish this by

authorizing all Federal recreation-providing agencies to collect

entrance fees;

authorizing entrance permits, including the Golden Eagle, Golden

Age, and Golden Access passports, for each visitor 16 or over

rather than for carloads, and eliminating the $10 limit on the
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Golden Eagle;

repealing the entrance fee freeze and Mount McKinley

transportation fee prohibition in Public Law 96-87, the several

park-specific entrance fee prohibitions, the prohibition on national

parkway fees and the limitation on Great Smoky Mountains

National Park entrance fees in the Land and Water Conservation

Fund Act, and Section 210 of the 1968 Flood Control Act

prohibiting Corps of Engineers entrance fees;

repealing the prohibitions on user charges for certain facilities,

including picnic tables, unmechanized boat ramps, and primitive

campgrounds;

authorizing user fees for wilderness areas, national trails, and wild

and scenic rivers; and

repealing the provision in the fiscal 1981 Interior Appropriations

Act requiring visitor fee revenues to be deposited in the Land and

Water Conservation Fund, thereby restoring the agency recreation

fee accounts for greater collection incentive. [6]

Among the provisions in the bill was one authorizing the several agency

heads " to require an admission permit for the occupancy and use of

Federal lands for hunting and fishing...." When this reached the

responsible congressional committees, reaction was immediate and

emphatic. Only four days after its transmittal, Secretary Watt wrote the

presiding officers of Congress asking that the bill be withdrawn. The bill

had been misunderstood to prescribe Federal hunting and fishing

licenses, he said:

That certainly was not the intent of the proposal and we

want the record to be absolutely clear on this issue. The

provision was included to allow an expansion of the Golden

Eagle Passport to cover those areas for which there is a

charge for entry into hunting and fishing areas. In other

words, we were giving an additional benefit to hunters and

fishermen whereby they could use their Golden Eagle

Passport in these particular areas without having to pay

additional fees.... However, because this provision has been

badly misinterpreted, we would request that this legislation

be withdrawn to allow us the opportunity to revise the

legislation to reflect our true intention.

"Thank you for forcefully bringing to our attention your objections to

our recent submission to the Congress on recreation fees..., " Assistant

to the Secretary Stanley W. Hulett wrote simultaneously to Senator

James A. McClure of Idaho, chairman of the Energy and Natural

Resources Committee. "It was our intention to expand the Golden Eagle

Passport by allowing its use for entry into federal hunting and fishing

areas where entry fees are already charged." [7]

NEXT> The National Park System Fee Dedication and Park

Improvement Act of 1982
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1Memorandum, Chief, Office of Legislation to NPS Associate Director,

Management and Operations, Dec. 4, 1981, NPS Office of Legislation,,

Washington, D.C. (hereinafter cited as WASO-170).

2Memorandum, Associate Director Nancy Garrett to Chief, Office of

Legislation, Dec. 15, 1981, WASO-170.

3Memorandum, Deputy Assistant Secretary William D. Bettenberg,

PBA, to Watt, Dec. 17, 1981, WASO-170.

4Memorandum, Assistant Secretary J. Robinson West, PBA, to

Assistant Secretary, Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Dec. 29, 1981,

WASO-170.

5Memorandum, James M. Lambe to reviewers, Jan. 17, 1982, WASO170.

6Letters, Watt, Block, and Marsh to George Bush and Thomas p.

O'Neill, Jr., Feb. 22, 1982, with accompanying bill, WASO-170.

7Letters, Watt to Bush and O'Neill, Feb. 26, 1982, WASO-170; letter,

Hulett to McClure, Feb. 26, 1982, WASO-170. The explanations given

were confused if not disingenuous. Entrance fees were levied in no areas

where hunting was permitted. At all areas where entrance fees were

charged, including those with fishing, the Golden Eagle already served

for admission. The only way use of the Golden Eagle would be

expanded for hunters and fishermen was to charge for previously free

hunting and fishing areas--the clear purpose of the offending provision.

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

VII. SOME CONCLUDING COMMENTS

In reviewing the turbulent history of visitor fees in the National Park

System, several observations and conclusions may be drawn.

Fees have almost always been controversial, with different parties on

different sides at different times. Congress initially supported fees as a

way of making the parks more nearly self-supporting. In the 1920s

Representative Louis C. Cramton, chairman of the Interior

appropriations subcommittee, reversed this policy; although failing to

drastically cut the equivalent of entrance fees, he succeeded in

prohibiting campground charges. In the 1930s the subcommittee

leadership supported the extension of entrance fees, and in the early

1950s it pressed hard for more fee revenue. The Land and Water

Conservation Fund Act of 1965 was preceded by a broad consensus on

the fee concept. In the last decade the consensus eroded, with

Representative Phillip Burton, chairman of the Interior and Insular

Affairs subcommittee on parks, leading the anti-fee forces.

In the executive branch, successive administrations as represented by

their budget bureaus have generally favored fees as a means of

offsetting appropriations from general revenues. The budget office

opposed Cramton's fee reduction plan and urged campground charges in

the 192Os, requested the extended fee schedule a decade later, and

moved forcefully for more and higher fees in the Carter and Reagan

administrations. Political party affiliations have played no noticeable

role in positions taken on the fee issue: Cramton, a Republican, and

Burton, a Democrat, held parallel views, as did the Carterites and the

Reaganites.

There has been a significant shift in the type of visitor fees favored over

time. Although some pains were taken to define them as permits for the

use of park roads and thus "user fees," the original automobile permits

were de facto entrance fees for all coming to the parks by car--originally

a minority, but soon the great majority. Fees for Government-operated

campgrounds, ultimately the most widely employed user fees, were

effectively prohibited in the parks between 1927 and 1965 and were not

systematically instituted until 1970. This was curious, in that campsites

were and are specific benefits given certain visitors to the exclusion of

others for particular periods, and thus seemingly more susceptible to

fees than parks as a whole. Today there is virtually no opposition to the

principle of campground charges, and although some complaints have

been heard about recent increases, Congress has made no move (since

1973) to halt or freeze camping fees. In general, these and other user

fees for specific facilities are more politically palatable than entrance

fees, there being greater reluctance to allow charges for mere entry to

public property. The 1979 freeze on entrance fees has left user fees the

only recourse for increasing revenues from the visiting public--an

unfortunate development from the standpoint of income, in that entrance
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fees are significantly more profitable.

How has the National Park Service stood on visitor fees? Outwardly, of

course, it has had to reflect the views of the Interior Department, which

reflects the views of the President, as represented by the Office of

Management and Budget (formerly Bureau of the Budget). So the

Service has always supported the fee concept--in public.

In reality, the Service has tended to regard fees at best as a necessary

evil. After 1918, when fee receipts were taken from its control, placed in

the general Treasury, and made subject to congressional appropriation,

the Service would have gladly done without most fee collection had

Congress and the executive allowed. Fee revenues equaled a generally

decreasing portion of the Service's budget and so carried progressively

little weight at budget justification time. Despite certain fringe benefits,

collection was often a nuisance and seldom enhanced public relations.

The dedication or earmarking of visitor fees to the Land and Water

Conservation Fund in 1965 insured that revenues would go to a cause

supported by the Service, but not necessarily to the Service. Between

1972 and 1980 NPS revenues went to a special account for

appropriation back to the Service--the closest the bureau would come to

regaining control over its income. Even this did not generate much

enthusiasm for fee collection, however. Notwithstanding disclaimers, the

presence of fee receipts would inevitably prejudice administration

budget requests and congressional appropriations from general

revenues: money taken in through fees tended simply to offset money

that would have been forthcoming otherwise. Unless the Service were

allowed to retain and spend its income secretly--a political

impossibility--there was no escaping this wholly natural tendency.

In its action on the Service's fiscal 1980 budget request, OMB attempted

to provide a genuine incentive for fee collection: it slashed the amount

requested and told the Service to make up the difference. Had Congress

not reacted by freezing the entrance fees, that draconian tactic might

have worked. Anything less appears unlikely to.

End of Chapter 7

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Cover Page

MENU

 Contents

 Preface

 1908-1940

 1947-1967

 1968-1972

 1973-1974

 1975-1980

 1981-1982

 Conclusion

 Research Note

 Appendix

Visitor Fees in the National Park System:

A Legislative and Administrative History

A NOTE ON THE RESEARCH

As with the author's Assateague park history, a brief note on the

research seemed more appropriate to this "model" program/activity

history than a traditional bibliography repeating the sources already

named in the footnotes.

The intense interest and involvement of Congress in park visitor fees

over the years meant that the project would be as much a legislative

history as an administrative history. (Congressional involvement

extended even to such details as whether fee campgrounds should have

showers--matters normally left to program administrators.) This

necessitated heavy reliance on those indispensable tools of the

Government historian: congressional, hearings, reports, and laws. For

the author, these were most conveniently available in the main Interior

Library and the Interior Law Library, the latter containing certain

compilations of such material facilitating research. Recent draft

legislation and related correspondence was found in James M. Lambe's

Office of Legislation, where excellent files are maintained by Dorothy J.

Whitehead.

The old annual reports of the Director of the National Park Service and

the Secretary of the Interior, in the Interior Library, are almost always

useful for administrative history. Those from 1914 through the 1930s

included pertinent data on visitor fees, again proving their value. Other

good library sources were the several studies and reports on the subject

done by or under contract to the Government, from the 1962 Outdoor

Recreation Resources Review Commission report to the 1982 report of

the General Accounting Office.

The Ranger Activities and Protection Division under Charles A. Veitl is

the NPS office now responsible for administering the visitor fee activity.

That office's files, made available with the assistance of Richard J.

Rambur , the current fee "keyman," contained informative

correspondence by and with the field, Washington officials, other

agencies, members of Congress, and the public.

A search at the outset for secondary works touching on fee history

revealed only one: John Ise's Our National Park Policy; A Critical

History (1961). Ise's book, largely devoted to other matters, was

nevertheless helpful in dispelling the researcher's initial ignorance of the

topic. The 1982 GAO report, not discovered until the end, contains a

two-page historical summary leading up to the 1979 fee freeze.

Prepared under a deadline, this history does not purport to be an

exhaustive treatment of park visitor fees (although some readers may

find it exhausting). Research was limited to sources within the Interior

Department, primarily within the Park Service. Congressional members

and staff and outside groups with an interest in the topic were not
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consulted. Such contacts would undoubtedly have been productive.

Comments and contributions by informed reviewers discovering

significant omissions in the fee saga are welcome.

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National Park System: Analysis of NPS Recreation Fee System

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Cover Page

MENU

 Visitor Fees: Table

of Contents

Appendix

 Contents

 Executive Summary

 Introduction

 Recent Legislative

History

 Current Status

 Results of Analysis

 Potential Changes

ANALYSIS OF THE

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

RECREATION FEE SYSTEM

JUNE 1977

Prepared by

Office of Programming and Budget Policy Division

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I. INTRODUCTION

II. RECENT LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

III. CURRENT STATUS

IV. RESULTS OF ANALYSIS

A. Entrance Fees

B. User Fees

C. Golden Eagle and Golden Age Passports

V. POTENTIAL CHANGES

A. Changes to the Existing Rate Structure

 1. Entrance Fees

 2. User Fees

B. Better Coverage of Visitors to Fee Parks

C. Potential Fees

 1. Entrance Fees

 2. User Fees

D. Covering Collection Costs

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