In recent years, the Congress heard and expressed concerns about the ability of federal land management agencies to provide high-quality recreational opportunities. These concerns focused on declines in visitor services, extensive needs for repairs and maintenance at the facilities and infrastructure that support recreation, and a lack of information on the condition of natural and cultural resources and the trends affecting them. In addressing these concerns, the Congress faced a dilemma: While the needs of federal recreation areas and the rate of visitation to these areas were increasing, the funding for addressing these needs and providing visitor services was growing tighter. As a result, the Congress was looking for means, other than appropriations, to provide additional resources to these areas. The recreational fee demonstration program was one such means. Authorized by the Congress in 1996 as a 3-year pilot program, the recreational fee demonstration program allows the Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Fish and Wildlife Service to experiment with new or increased fees at up to 100 demonstration sites per agency. The program aims to bring additional resources to recreation lands by generating recreational fee revenues and spending most of the fee revenues at the sites where the fees are collected to increase the quality of the visitors’ experience and to enhance the protection of the sites’ resources. In addition, in carrying out the program, the agencies are to (1) be creative and innovative in designing and testing the collection of fees, (2) develop partnerships with federal agencies and with state and local agencies, (3) provide higher levels of service to the public, and (4) assess the public’s satisfaction with the program. The conference report on the program’s original legislation requested that the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture each prepare a report that evaluates the demonstration program, including recommendations for further legislation, by March 31, 1999. The program is currently authorized through fiscal year 2001. The agencies have until the end of fiscal year 2004 to spend money generated under the program. Each of the four federal land management agencies included in the program provides a variety of recreational opportunities to the visiting public. Together, these agencies manage over 630 million acres of land—over one-quarter of the land in the United States. In 1997, they received over 1.2 billion visits. Table 1.1 provides information on the acreage, visitation, and lands managed by the four agencies. The fee demonstration program was established to test ways to address deteriorating conditions at many federal recreation areas, particularly those managed by the Park Service, which collects the most fee revenues, and the Forest Service, which hosts the most recreational visitors. Our prior work has detailed significant needs, including the following: The federal land management agencies have accumulated a multibillion-dollar backlog of maintenance, infrastructure, and development needs. The quality and the scope of visitor services at federal recreation sites have been declining. Some sites have closed facilities, while others have reduced their hours of operation or are providing fewer services. The condition of many key natural and cultural resources in the national park system is deteriorating, and the condition of many others is not known. Despite annual increases in federal appropriations for operating the national park system, the financial resources available have not been sufficient to stem the deterioration of the resources, services, and recreational opportunities managed by the agency. One way of addressing these needs was providing additional financial resources to these agencies through new or increased recreational fees. But while new or increased fees could have increased the federal land management agencies’ revenues, generally these additional fees did not directly benefit the agencies’ field units until the fee demonstration program was established. The Land and Water Conservation Act of 1965, as amended, limited the amount of revenues that could be raised through collecting recreational fees and required that the funds be deposited in a special U.S. Treasury account. The funds in the special Treasury account could only be used for certain purposes, including resource protection and maintenance activities, and only became available through congressional appropriations. These amounts were generally treated as a part of, rather than a supplement to, the agencies’ regular appropriations, and were included under the spending limits imposed by the Budget Enforcement Act. In the context of the Budget Enforcement Act’s limits, in order for the agencies to address deteriorating conditions at recreation areas through fee revenues, the Congress had to provide authority for the agencies to retain the fees. In 1996, the Congress authorized the fee demonstration program to test recreational fees as a source of additional financial resources for the federal land management agencies. The Congress directed that at least 80 percent of the revenues collected under the program be spent at the units collecting the fees; the remaining 20 percent could be spent at the discretion of each agency. By allowing the local units to retain such a large percentage of the fees they collected, the Congress created a powerful incentive for unit managers to emphasize fee collections. In essence, the more revenues that field units could generate through fees, the more they would have to spend on improving conditions in the areas they managed. In addition, the program’s legislative history reflected the congressional belief that allowing the local units to retain most of the revenues they collected would be likely to improve the public’s acceptance of the fees. This belief was consistent with past studies of visitors to recreation areas that indicated that most visitors would support increases in fees if the fees remained at the local units. Under the legislation, the program’s expenditures were to be used to increase the quality of visitors’ experiences at public recreation areas and to enhance the protection of resources. Specifically, authorized expenditures were to address backlogged repair and maintenance projects; enhancements to interpretation, signage, habitats, or facilities; and resource preservation, annual operations (including fee collections), maintenance, and law enforcement relating to public use. In broad terms, these authorized expenditures cover the principal aspects of managing recreation areas on federal lands. The legislation also provided an opportunity for the agencies to be creative and innovative in developing and testing fees by giving them the flexibility to develop a wide variety of fee proposals, including some that were nontraditional as well as others that simply increased previously existing fees. During the demonstration period, the agencies were to experiment with (1) various types of fees to determine what does and does not work and (2) various methods of collecting fees to make payment easier and more convenient for the visiting public. In addition, according to the program’s legislative history, the agencies were expected to coordinate with each other, as well as with state and local recreation areas, so that visitors did not face numerous fees from several agencies in the same geographic area. Coordination among the agencies could yield better service to the public, thereby potentially improving the program’s chances of success. Federal land management agencies have traditionally charged several types of fees to visitors, all of which may still be charged under the fee demonstration program. Most of these fees can be categorized generally as either entrance or user fees. Entrance fees are generally charged for short-term access to federal recreation sites. Most are charged on a per-vehicle basis, but some are charged to individuals hiking or cycling into a recreation area. The entrance fee gives the visitor access to the key features of the area. For example, visitors pay $10 per car to enter Zion National Park in Utah; this fee covers everyone in the vehicle and is good for up to a week. Another example of an entrance fee is collected within the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Utah, where visitors to the Mirror Lake area pay an entrance fee of either $3 per vehicle for a day or $6 per vehicle for a week. Annual passes allow entrance or use of a site for the next 12 months, benefiting frequent visitors to a single recreation area, such as a park or forest. For example, instead of paying a $10 entrance fee every time they drive into Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, frequent visitors can purchase an annual pass for $20, which will give them unlimited access to the park during the next year. Similarly, in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, visitors can pay $20 for an annual pass rather than pay $5 for a daily vehicle pass. The Golden Eagle Passport provides unlimited entry for a year to most national parks, Fish and Wildlife Service sites where entrance fees are charged, and several Forest Service and BLM sites. Costing $50 for the purchaser and his or her passengers in a privately owned vehicle, the passport can be economical when people are planning to visit a number of sites that charge entrance fees within a single year. While the Golden Eagle Passport covers entrance fees, it does not cover most user fees;hence, passport holders pay separately for activities such as boat launching, camping, parking, or going on an interpretive tour. User fees are charged for engaging in specific activities. They are generally charged to individuals or groups for activities such as boat launching, camping, parking, or going on an interpretive tour. For example, individuals pay $3 for a guided interpretive tour of the Frederick Douglass home at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Washington, D.C. Another example of a user fee is at Paria Canyon, a BLM demonstration site in Utah, where visitors pay $5 per day for hiking or backpacking. Individual sites may charge several types of fees for entry and other activities. For example, a demonstration site may have a $10 entrance fee, good for 7 days, and a $20 annual pass. In addition, visitors to the site may pay user fees for a variety of specific activities, such as backcountry hiking, camping, interpretive tours, or disposing of waste from a recreational vehicle. Our review included fee demonstration sites in the Park Service, the Forest Service, BLM, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. At each of these agencies, we contacted staff from headquarters and at least two regional offices. In addition, we visited 15 judgmentally selected sites operated by the four agencies.