Posted on 12/29/2014 9:10:28 AM PST by jazusamo
Would you pay more to visit your favorite national park? The National Park Service hopes so. The agency is proposing to increase entrance fees at many national parks across the country in an attempt to raise more revenue from visitors to help cover the cost of park operations and maintenance.
The proposal comes at a time when Congress just authorized the largest expansion of the national park system in nearly three decades — but with no plan for how to fund it.
The defense authorization bill, recently signed by President Obama, creates seven new national parks and expands nine existing parks, adding roughly 120,000 acres to the park system. The legislation, however, provides no additional funding for the expansion, which includes Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument in Nevada, the Coltsville National Historic Park in Connecticut and the Harriet Tubman National Historic Park in New York.
Meanwhile, the National Park Service faces a $12 billion backlog in deferred maintenance projects. The agency estimates that 90 percent of its roads are in "fair" to "poor" condition, dozens of bridges are "structurally deficient" and in need of reconstruction, and 6,700 miles of trails are in "poor" or "seriously deficient" condition. As the agency prepares to celebrate its 100-year anniversary in 2016, the backlog is a glaring blemish in a system known for its crown jewels.
The National Park Service will now have to fund the operations of several new parks while attempting to address the critical needs within existing parks. And with no additional funding, the latest expansion means that the maintenance backlog could grow even larger in time for the agency's centennial.
The National Parks Conservation Association called the legislation a clear sign that the Obama administration is "making national parks a national priority." But as Kurt Repanshek of the National Parks Traveler recently wrote, the plan "will not enhance, but rather degrade the overall system."
"We like to view the national parks as 'America's best idea,' and members of Congress certainly like to point to a unit in their home districts," wrote Repanshek. "But if we can't afford the 401-unit park system we have today, how can we possibly justify new units?"
Even before Congress added the new parks to the defense bill, the National Park Service was exploring the possibility of raising entrance fees in several national parks. Yellowstone, Glacier, and Grand Canyon are proposing to increase entrance fees by $5. Other parks such as Shenandoah may raise fees by $10. If approved, the new fees could come into effect in 2015.
The proposed fee hike has some questioning whether national parks are becoming too expensive . Yet such modest increases are unlikely to have a significant effect on park visitors. Entrance fees represent a small fraction of visitors' overall trip expenditures — just 1.2 to 1.5 percent by some measures — with the vast majority going to food, lodging and travel. And these higher user fees could generate much-needed funding to help address critical maintenance needs.
Thanks to legislation passed in 2004, user fees collected in parks stay within the national park system instead of getting deposited into the U.S. treasury, and 80 percent of the fees remain in the park where they were collected. This allows parks to become more self-sufficient and rely less on Congress for appropriations.
Still, the proposed fee increase will not solve the National Park Service's financial problems, nor will it provide the funding necessary to support the latest expansion to the national park system. It is, however, a small step in the right direction. By generating more revenue from visitors, park managers can fund projects based on their necessity rather than on their political appeal.
As Congress just demonstrated, politicians are often more interested in creating new parks than funding the parks that already exist. The result is what former National Park Service director James Ridenour called "thinning the blood" of the park system. To truly make national parks a national priority, we must first take care of the parks we already have. Unfortunately, with a $12 billion backlog in our national parks, that is something we have yet to do.
Regan is a research fellow at Property and Environment Research Center, a nonprofit research institute in Bozeman, Mont., and a former ranger for the National Park Service.
The word “parks” does not appear in the Constitution a single time. Really. Go check for yourself.
The National Park Service should be privatizing and selling off all but core park land.
It can’t maintain the land it already oversees much less than the new land added to its vast domain by Congressional fiat.
The NPS is opening NEW parks every year with no money to support them other than taking funds from existing parks.
The NPS is a partner along with the USFS and BLM to withdraw more and more land from public usage.
What frustrates the heck out of me is that many national parks didn’t initially require a lot of “maintenance.”
It is when they built huge and elaborate buildings and museums and other structures, tour buses, and then hire hundreds of people to maintain everything, that it becomes expensive.
Here in Michigan our state parks are nicer than the national parks in my opinion.
How much did the System spend on shutting down the great outdoors during the last shudtown? No sympathy there.
I totally agree. Of course the enviro nuts keep pushing to put more and more land into the NPS, this trend has got to stop.
Well, Vince as much as I can understand your grievance and believe that much if not most of the land held by the Federal Government should be sold to private concerns, if you have ever been East of the Appalachians or West of the Sierras you would see that there wasn’t much open land to confiscate.
It would just be better to privatize much of the operations of the parks and sell most other Federal lands.
Clinton did the same thing at the end of his term. It has been the goal of the Left’s elites to reduce the number of common people using the national parks. Especially concerning to our environmental betters are day users and families with children. These are people who don’t spend much money in the park - they pack a lunch and either camp or stay off site.
How to eliminate the common folk who are ruining the elite’s experience? Raise entrance fees, eliminate camping sites, reduce parking spots or move them off site, force people onto crowded buses to free up the roads for those staying in expensive in-park lodging.
Nature and wildlife are only for the King and the King’s men.
They want to control the land and they want to price people out. Fewer visitors. Agenda 21. Restrict people to the cities for easy control and surveillance.
Would you pay more to visit your favorite national park?
NO
I propose a TAX on Entertainment to fund these new parks
$5 per Movie Ticket
$20 per Concert Ticket
Watch Hollywood lose their minds
Oh sure it does. Anything the government wants to do is covered in the “general welfare” clause. If you don’t beleive it, just ask Steven Beyer or Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Sonya Sotomayer or the other wench on the supreme court appointed by BO whose name currently escapes me . . .
I have thought the same in several states — California and Texas have some amazing state parks. For example, I liked the state park outside of Big Bend NP better than the national park.
Yes, this article is only about national parks but 0bama just signed over about 1/3 of a million acres for the San Gabriel Mountains National Mounent in So CA that will be run by the USFS.
> The defense authorization bill... creates seven new national parks and expands nine existing parks
Pork and bargaining chips. This sort of thing has to stop.
In Ohio we have one National Park, but it is really not a traditional National Park. The Cuyahoga Valley National Park is broken up and intertwined with local & state parks as well as residential areas.
The State Parks are well maintained, but the best run park system in the state of Ohio is the Cleveland Metroparks. They now control some former State Parks and City parks and are a regional park system that incorporates the Cleveland Zoo, several golf courses, a toboggan run and stables. It controls over twenty thousand acres of woodlands. It is financed by specific local taxes and user fees and is a great asset to the entire Cleveland Region.
**The National Park Service should be privatizing and selling off all but core park land.**
BTTT!
General Welfare
kidding
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