A dozen U.S. senators want Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to drop his call for higher entrance fees at 17 national parks during the busy season, saying the proposal not only aims to exclude some members of the public from the park system but also comes as he is opening the doors for commercial entities to reap larger profits from public lands.
"... at the same time as you propose to significantly raise fees for national park visitors, you have reversed efforts to charge fair market value for commercial development of resources on public lands," reads the letter the senators sent to the Interior secretary.
"For example, in August the (Interior) Department repealed the Valuation Rule, allowing private companies to exploit valuation loopholes and ensuring that the American public is denied their fair share of the sale of publicly-owned resources," the letter went on. "The administration should stop subsidizing oil, gas, and coal companies for the exploitation of public resources and instead work to ensure that taxpayers receive a fair value for the commercial use and development of public resources."
Signing the letter (attached below) were Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), Patty Murray (D-Washington), Bernard Sanders (D-Vermont), Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), Kamala D. Harris (D-California), Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Dianne Feinstein (D-California), Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont).
The senators were reacting to the Interior secretary's move last Tuesday to find a way to boost funding to address the National Park Service's maintenance backlog. He proposed to substantially increase park entrance fees during the "high season" for vacations. It's a move that seemingly would do little to address the backlog, estimated at roughly $12 billion, while hitting families with school students hardest.
Under the fee proposal laid out in a press release, "entrance fees would be established at 17 national parks. The peak season for each park would be defined as its busiest contiguous five-month period of visitation."
During the peak season, the release explained, a seven-day-long "entrance fee would be $70 per private, non-commercial vehicle, $50 per motorcycle, and $30 per person on bike or foot. A park-specific annual pass for any of the 17 parks would be available for $75."
Parks to be affected by these rates, if approved, are "Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Denali, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Olympic, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion national parks with peak season starting on May 1, 2018; in Acadia, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and Shenandoah National Parks with peak season starting on June 1, 2018; and in Joshua Tree National Park as soon as practicable in 2018," according to a Park Service release.
In their letter the senators noted that the secretary wants to increase entrance fees at the same time the Trump administration wants to cut the Park Service's budget.
"If implemented, your proposals to increase fees while cutting agency funding would serve to shift major costs to park visitors and undermine public access to national parks -- actions that would be a disservice to the American people," they wrote.
In concluding the senators asked Secretary Zinke to provide them with "the analysis and justification used to establish the proposed park entrance fees to allow Congress to assess the rationale and need for any fee increase. Pending this review, we ask you to withdraw the proposed park fee increases and work to support a strong National Park Service budget that will ensure that all Americans have affordable access to their national parks."
Comments
Good for the senators. We need to have Congress speaking out whenever these proposals appear.
The contrast between repealing the rules that attempted to obtain oil and gas royalties from federal lands at the fair market rate, not at the artificially low paper price one division of a corporation sells it to another, versus substantially increasing entrance fees at National Parks does highlight the priorities of DOI.
However, I would be happier if they had expressed willingness to propose and fight for increased appropriations for NPS, or at least against the proposed budget cuts. And I hope that their second phase includes the proposed law dedicating substantial amounts of offshore drilling royalties from the Land & Water Conservation Fund toward the NPS maintenance backlog.
Then again, Senator Lee of Utah is against the fee increase and for the budget cuts, claiming that NPS has plenty of funding it just needs to use better. I believe that he was against the Obama-era regulations setting royalties at the first arms-length transaction instead of paper transaction among subsidiaries.
I feel the increases will go though as the parks will be then reserved for the rich as the middle class will also be priced out of the market .
Today it is all about exploiting this great natural resource greed is the mantra going forward .
Bob & everyone else--
Please make your comments part of the official record:
https://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?projectId=75576
I think there's a reasonable chance this fee increase will be rejected or reduced in the face of huge public outcry. I suspect top NPS folks would be ok with that: the public show of support may be worth as much as the fee increase.
Bob, you are correct. The NPS wants tour groups guided by concessionaires and lodge owners to run these taxpayer funded resources. What I predict will happen is that the NPS will modify the fee, perhaps by cutting it 20 percent of the original increase proposal, and come out looking like heroes, instead of the crooks they are for charging taxpayers in the first place.