Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's plan to make it a little more expensive to enjoy key national parks apparently is dead/NPS
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's plan to turn to surge-pricing at 17 national parks in a move to try to eat away at the National Park System's $11.6 billion maintenance backlog apparently has gone up in smoke following widespread opposition.
Though the secretary said higher entrance fees were needed because there were too many free or discounted passes given to senior citizens, active military, disabled, and even fourth-graders and their families, the proposal drew opposition from Congress, attorneys general, and many others.
Even Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who was thrilled to see Secretary Zinke recommend that Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments be downsized, and then watched in person as President Trump acted on that recommendation from the steps of the Beehive State's Capitol, told the Interior secretary that surge pricing would "devastate" his small town businesses while having negligible impact on the maintenance backlog.
The proposal would more than double entrance fees at the 17 parks for nearly half the year and raise an estimated $70 million to help address the estimated $11.6 billion maintenance backlog. The proposed $70 fee for a week, if finalized, would apply to Yellowstone, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Denali, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Olympic, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Acadia, Mount Rainier, Joshua Tree, Shenandoah, and Zion national parks.
But scrolling through the more than 109,000 public comments submitted on the plan, words such as "ridiculous," "absurd," "discriminatory," "horrifying," and "horrible" popped up, sometimes more than a few times. Many writers expressed concern about pricing some folks out of the parks with this approach, while others thought Congress needed to do a better job funding the Park Service.
An Interior Department official told the Washington Post, which was first to report that the plan was being discard, that there were concerns that higher entrance fees would cause visitation to fall to the affected parks.
“We’re working to respond to those … thoughtful and well-put comments,” the official said. “Our ultimate goal when it comes to entrance fees is to make sure the parks get 80 percent of that revenue … but we also don’t want to put a burden on our visitors. We believe there is room to increase the fees and the annual passes.”
During appearance last month before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Interior secretary said too much of entrance fee revenues go back to Washington, D.C.. But under current regulations, 80 percent of the fees collected in a park are supposed to stay there, while the other 20 percent is sent to Washington to be redistributed to other areas, including to parks that do not collect entrance fees.
“As families plan summer visits to their national parks, the Trump Administration should be making those visits easier not harder," said Hannah Malvin, recreation policy associate at The Wilderness Society. "Instead, the steep increase originally planned would have hit low-income families especially hard. That’s especially outrageous when the administration is cutting deals to help oil and gas companies drill our public lands and waters at bargain basement prices.”
Comments
Make America Great Again!
Although I don't entirely agree with this particular idea, I guess I'm one of a few Americans who believe that if we want the kind, quality, and variety of services we have become accustomed to having, perhaps we need to be ready to pay for them.
I really believe that our lawmakers do a real disservice to all of us when they buy our votes with tax cuts instead of leveling with us and telling the truth. Results of their fibs are being seen now in teacher strikes across the country as consequences of their vote-buying tax policies are being felt in real life.
Whether it's our schools, roads, sewer and water systems, or our parks, the truth is that if we are going to continue to demand them, someone will need to pay for them.
What's really needed is not more empty and false political popularity propaganda but realism. Truly responsible lawmakers would not be making promises that cannot be kept. Instead, they should be working to EDUCATE voters by telling the truth about costs and then asking all of us to decide what services we value and are willing to continue funding and which we are not. Then they need to ensure that our governments at all levels manage in fiscally responsible manners.
But that ain't gonna happen, because we'd have to make America Sane Again before we can make it great again.
Pity
Lee, local teacher salaries have nothing to do with Federal income tax RATE cuts.
In fact in CO, it is estimated that revenues to the state will rise due to the Federal tax cut.
https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2018/02/24/federal-tax-cuts-could-...
Talk about fibs!
In 2016 the lifetime senior pass cost $10. Last year it jumped up to $80. Those of us who use it don't really mind paying, but that was quite the jump! Why not jump it from $10 to $50?
The same thing should happen to the entrance fees. Most people don't mind paying somewhat more to help maintain our parks, but to increase the cost that much in one year does not feel fair and will quite literally keep people from visiting the parks and yes, it will affect those small communities that depend on the tourist revenue.
Raise the user fees, just don't try to make up the maintenance shortfall in one year.
The parks should receive the entire revenue from entrance fees, rescue reimbursements (if any), and fines (if any) as well as living wages for their staff, adequate equipment and IT to do their jobs, and a decently renovated infrastructure of roads, trails, buildings, camp grounds and other necessary facilities.
The park service has been chronically under-funded and under-staffed since the 1930s.
That was mandated by Congress.
https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt576/CRPT-114hrpt576-pt1.pdf
for the lifetime of the passholder, at a cost equal to the cost of the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass purchased under subsection (a).
HERE IS AN IDEA:
AUDIT THE BOOKS AND FOLLOW THE MONEY. WE BELIEVE SOMEONE/FEDS HAD THEIR HANDS IN THE TILL!