Recreation Fees
Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283 Gao ID: GAO-04-745T May 6, 2004In 1996, the Congress authorized an experimental initiative called the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that provides funds to increase the quality of visitor experience and enhance resource protection. Under the program, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service--all within the Department of the Interior--and the Forest Service--within the U.S. Department of Agriculture--are authorized to establish, charge, collect, and use fees at a number of sites to, among other things, address a backlog of repair and maintenance needs. Also, sites may retain and use the fees they collect. The Congress is now considering, through H.R. 3283, whether to make the program permanent. Central to the debate is how effectively the agencies are using the revenues that they have collected. This testimony focuses on the potential effect of H.R. 3283 on the issues GAO raised previously in its work on the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. Specifically, it examines the extent to which H.R. 3283 would affect (1) federal agencies' deferred maintenance programs, (2) the management and distribution of the revenue collected, and (3) interagency coordination on fee collection and use.
H.R. 3283 would provide agencies with a permanent source of funds to better address their maintenance backlog, and by making the program permanent, the act would provide agencies incentive to develop a system to track their deferred maintenance backlogs. According to the Department of the Interior's latest estimates, the deferred maintenance backlog for the Interior agencies participating in the fee demonstration program ranges from $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion, with the Park Service alone accounting for an estimated $4 to $7 billion. Likewise, the Forest Service, the other participating agency, estimates its total deferred maintenance backlog to be about $8 billion. GAO's prior work on the Park Service's and Forest Service's backlog has demonstrated that neither agency has accurate and reliable information on its deferred maintenance needs and cannot determine how much of the fee demonstration revenues it spends on reducing its deferred maintenance needs. Furthermore, some agency officials have hesitated to divert resources to develop a process for tracking deferred maintenance because the fee demonstration program is temporary. H.R. 3283 would allow agencies to reduce the percentage of fee revenue used on-site down to 60 percent, thus providing the agencies with greater flexibility in how they use the revenues. Currently, the demonstration program requires federal land management agencies to maintain at least 80 percent of the collected fee revenues for use on-site. This requirement has helped some demonstration sites generate revenue in excess of their high-priority needs, but the high-priority needs at other sites, which did not collect as much in fee revenues, remained unmet. GAO has suggested that the Congress consider modifying the current 80-percent on-site spending requirement to provide agencies greater flexibility in using fee revenues. H.R. 3283 would standardize the types of fees federal land management agencies may use and creates a single national pass that provides visitors general access to a variety of recreation sites managed by different agencies and allows for the regional coordination of fees to access multiple nearby sites. GAO's prior reports have demonstrated the need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the agencies to better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more convenient and equitable while reducing visitor confusion about similar or multiple fees being charged at nearby or adjacent federal recreation sites.
GAO-04-745T, Recreation Fees: Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283
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Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands,
Committee on Resources, House of Representatives:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT:
Thursday, May 6, 2004:
Recreation Fees:
Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283:
Statement of Barry T. Hill, Director
Natural Resources and Environment:
GAO-04-745T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-04-745T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, Committee on Resources,
House of Representatives
Why GAO Did This Study:
In 1996, the Congress authorized an experimental initiative called the
Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that provides funds to increase
the quality of visitor experience and enhance resource protection.
Under the program, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife
Service, and National Park Service”all within the Department of the
Interior”and the Forest Service”within the U.S. Department of
Agriculture”are authorized to establish, charge, collect, and use fees
at a number of sites to, among other things, address a backlog of
repair and maintenance needs. Also, sites may retain and use the fees
they collect. The Congress is now considering, through H.R. 3283,
whether to make the program permanent. Central to the debate is how
effectively the agencies are using the revenues that they have
collected.
This testimony focuses on the potential effect of H.R. 3283 on the
issues GAO raised previously in its work on the Recreational Fee
Demonstration Program. Specifically, it examines the extent to which
H.R. 3283 would affect (1) federal agencies‘ deferred maintenance
programs, (2) the management and distribution of the revenue collected,
and (3) interagency coordination on fee collection and use.
What GAO Found:
H.R. 3283 would provide agencies with a permanent source of funds to
better address their maintenance backlog, and by making the program
permanent, the act would provide agencies incentive to develop a system
to track their deferred maintenance backlogs. According to the
Department of the Interior‘s latest estimates, the deferred maintenance
backlog for the Interior agencies participating in the fee
demonstration program ranges from $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion, with
the Park Service alone accounting for an estimated $4 to $7 billion.
Likewise, the Forest Service, the other participating agency, estimates
its total deferred maintenance backlog to be about $8 billion. GAO‘s
prior work on the Park Service‘s and Forest Service‘s backlog has
demonstrated that neither agency has accurate and reliable information
on its deferred maintenance needs and cannot determine how much of the
fee demonstration revenues it spends on reducing its deferred
maintenance needs. Furthermore, some agency officials have hesitated to
divert resources to develop a process for tracking deferred maintenance
because the fee demonstration program is temporary.
H.R. 3283 would allow agencies to reduce the percentage of fee revenue
used on-site down to 60 percent, thus providing the agencies with
greater flexibility in how they use the revenues. Currently, the
demonstration program requires federal land management agencies to
maintain at least 80 percent of the collected fee revenues for use on-
site. This requirement has helped some demonstration sites generate
revenue in excess of their high-priority needs, but the high-priority
needs at other sites, which did not collect as much in fee revenues,
remained unmet. GAO has suggested that the Congress consider modifying
the current 80-percent on-site spending requirement to provide agencies
greater flexibility in using fee revenues.
H.R. 3283 would standardize the types of fees federal land management
agencies may use and creates a single national pass that provides
visitors general access to a variety of recreation sites managed by
different agencies and allows for the regional coordination of fees to
access multiple nearby sites. GAO‘s prior reports have demonstrated the
need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the agencies
to better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more convenient
and equitable while reducing visitor confusion about similar or
multiple fees being charged at nearby or adjacent federal recreation
sites.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-745T.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Barry T. Hill at (202)
512-3841 or hillbt@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss H.R. 3283, the Federal Lands
Recreation Enhancement Act, which proposes, among other things, to
establish a permanent recreation fee program for certain federal land
management agencies and standardize certain visitor fees. For many
years, the Congress has sought to identify programs that would help
federal land management agencies provide high-quality recreational
opportunities for visitors while at the same time protecting their
resources. Accordingly, in 1996, the Congress authorized an
experimental initiative, called the Recreational Fee Demonstration
Program. Under this program, four land management agencies--the Bureau
of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park
Service within the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service
within the U.S. Department of Agriculture--are authorized to establish,
charge, collect, and use fees at a number of sites to, among other
things, enhance visitor services, address a backlog of needs for repair
and maintenance, and manage and protect resources. We have issued a
number of reports and testimonies on the program since its inception,
identifying issues that need to be addressed to improve the program's
effectiveness. (Appendix I lists our related reports and testimonies.):
The Congress is now considering, through H.R. 3283, whether it should
make the program permanent. Central to the debate is how effectively
the land management agencies use the funds generated from recreation
fee collection. My testimony today focuses on H.R. 3283's potential
effect on the issues that we raised in our prior work on the
Recreational Fee Demonstration Program, specifically the extent to
which the act would affect (1) federal agencies' deferred maintenance
programs, (2) the management and distribution of the revenue collected,
and (3) interagency coordination on fee collection and use.
We did not conduct any follow-up audit work in conjunction with this
testimony. All of our prior work was conducted in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
In summary, H.R. 3283 would provide federal land management agencies
with a permanent source of funds to help reduce their maintenance
backlogs--one of the authorized uses of the revenues collected under
the fee demonstration program. According to the Department of the
Interior's latest estimates, the combined deferred maintenance backlogs
for the participating agencies ranged from $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion
of which the Park Service accounted for an estimated $4 to $7 billion.
Likewise, the Forest Service estimated its total deferred maintenance
backlog to be about $8 billion, the bulk of which was needed for forest
roads and bridges. However, as we have previously reported, neither the
Park Service or Forest Service have accurate and reliable information
on their deferred maintenance needs and, as a result, they cannot
determine how much of the fee demonstration revenues is being spent on
deferred maintenance or the fee program's overall impact on reducing
their deferred maintenance needs. Some agency officials have hesitated
to divert resources to develop a process for tracking deferred
maintenance because the fee demonstration program is temporary. H.R.
3283 would provide agencies with a permanent source of funds to better
address their maintenance backlog, and by making the program permanent,
the act would provide agencies incentive to develop a system to track
their deferred maintenance backlogs.
H.R. 3283 provides the participating agencies greater flexibility in
how and where they may apply fee revenues. Currently, the fee
demonstration program requires federal land management agencies to
retain at least 80 percent of the collected fee revenues for use on-
site. While this requirement has helped some demonstration sites
generate revenue in excess of their high-priority needs, the high-
priority needs at other sites, which do not collect as much in fee
revenues, remained unmet. We have suggested that the Congress consider
modifying the current 80-percent on-site spending requirement to
provide agencies greater flexibility in using fee revenues to better
meet their overall priority needs. However, we noted that agencies
needed to balance the need for flexibility in transferring revenue
against the need of keeping sufficient funds on-site to maintain
incentives at fee-collecting units and to maintain visitor support.
H.R. 3283 would allow agencies to reduce the percentage of fee revenue
retained for use on-site down to 60 percent, if the respective
Secretary determined that the revenues collected at the unit or area
exceed the reasonable needs of the site. H.R. 3283 would also provide
agencies with the flexibility to balance the need to provide incentives
at fee-collecting sites and support of visitors against transferring
revenues to other sites.
H.R. 3283 contains provisions to improve interagency coordination in
the collection and use of recreation fees. Previously, we demonstrated
the need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the
agencies to better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more
convenient and equitable while at the same time, reducing visitor
confusion about similar or multiple fees being charged at nearby or
adjacent federal recreation sites. For example, visitors entering
Olympic National Park or the adjacent Olympic National Forest
previously paid different fees to hike on the same trail. H.R. 3283
would standardize the types of fees federal land management agencies
may use, create a single national pass that provides visitors general
access to a variety of recreation sites managed by different agencies,
and allow for the regional coordination of fees to access multiple
nearby sites.
Background:
For the past several years, concerns about the cost of operating and
maintaining federal recreation sites within the federal land management
agencies have led the Congress to provide a significant new source of
funds. This additional source of funding--the Recreational Fee
Demonstration Program--was authorized in 1996. The fee demonstration
program authorized the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife
Service, National Park Service, and the Forest Service to experiment
with new ways to administer existing fee revenues and to establish new
recreation entrance and user fees. The current authorization for the
program expires December 31, 2005.
Previously, all sites collecting entrance and user fees deposited the
revenue into a special U.S. Treasury account to be used for certain
purposes, including resource protection and maintenance activities, and
funds in this account only became available through congressional
appropriations. The fee demonstration program currently allows agencies
to maintain fee revenues in special U.S. Treasury accounts for use
without further appropriation: 80 percent of the fees are maintained in
an account for use at the site and the remaining 20 percent are
maintained in another account for use on an agency-wide basis. As a
result, these revenues have yielded substantial benefits for local
recreation sites by funding significant on-the-ground improvements.
From the inception of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program, the
four participating agencies have collected over $1 billion in
recreation fees from the public. The Department of the Interior and the
Department of Agriculture's most recent budget requests indicate that
the agencies expect to collect $138 million and $46 million,
respectively, from the fee demonstration program in fiscal year 2005.
H.R. 3283 Provides a Permanent Source of Revenue That Could Be Used to
Address Participating Agencies' Maintenance Backlogs:
H.R. 3283, as proposed, would provide a permanent source of revenue for
federal land management agencies to use to, among other things, help
address the backlog in repair and maintenance of federal facilities and
infrastructure. One of the principal uses of the revenues generated
under the existing Recreational Fee Demonstration Program is for
participating agencies to reduce their respective maintenance backlogs.
The Department of the Interior owns, builds, purchases, and contracts
services for such assets as visitor centers, roads, bridges, dams, and
reservoirs, many of which are deteriorating and in need of repair or
maintenance. We have identified Interior's land management agencies
inability to reduce their maintenance backlogs as a major management
challenge.[Footnote 1] According to the Department of the Interior's
latest estimates, the deferred maintenance backlog for its
participating agencies ranged from about $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion.
Table 1 shows the Department's estimate of deferred maintenance for its
agencies participating in the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program.
Table 1: Estimated Deferred Maintenance for Participating Interior
Agencies, as of February 2002 (dollars in billions):
Bureau: National Park Service;
Low estimate: $4.08;
High estimate: $6.80.
Bureau: Fish and Wildlife Service;
Low estimate: 0.84;
High estimate: 1.14.
Bureau: Bureau of Land Management;
Low estimate: 0.19;
High estimate: 0.33.
Bureau: Bureau of Reclamation[A];
Low estimate: 0.03;
High estimate: 0.03.
Total;
Low estimate: $5.14;
High estimate: $8.30.
Source: Department of the Interior:
[A] Agency will be allowed to participate in the program under H.R.
3283.
[End of table]
Of the current participating agencies within Interior, the National
Park Service has the largest estimated maintenance backlog--ranging
from $4 to nearly $7 billion. As we have previously reported, the Park
Service's problems with maintaining its facilities have steadily
worsened in part because the agency lacks accurate data on the
facilities that need to be maintained or on their condition. As a
result, the Park Service cannot effectively determine its maintenance
needs, the amount of funding needed to address them, or what progress,
if any, it has made in closing the maintenance gap. Although the Park
Service has used some of the revenues generated from the fee
demonstration program to address its high-priority maintenance needs,
without accurate and reliable data, it cannot demonstrate the effect of
fee demonstration revenues in improving the maintenance of its
facilities.
The Park Service has acknowledged the problems associated with not
having an accurate and reliable estimate of its maintenance needs and
promised to develop an asset management process that, when operable,
should provide a systematic method for documenting deferred maintenance
needs and tracking progress in reducing the amount of deferred
maintenance. Furthermore, the new process should enable the agency to
develop (1) a reliable inventory of its assets, (2) a process for
reporting on the condition of each asset, and (3) a system-wide
methodology for estimating its deferred maintenance costs. In 2002, we
identified some areas that the agency needed to address in order to
improve the performance of the process, including the need to develop
cost and schedules for completing the implementation of the process,
better coordinating the tracking of the process among Park Service
headquarters units to avoid duplication of effort within the agency,
and better definition of its approach to determine the condition of its
assets and how much the assessments will cost.[Footnote 2] In our last
testimony on this issue before this Subcommittee in September 2003, we
stated that the complete implementation of the new process would not
occur until fiscal year 2006, but that the agency had completed, or
nearly completed, a number of substantial and important steps to
improve the process.[Footnote 3]
The two other Interior agencies participating in the program--the Fish
and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management also report
deferred maintenance backlogs of about $1 billion and $330,000,
respectively. We do not have any information at this time on the
effectiveness of the program in reducing these backlogs.
The Forest Service also has an estimated $8 billion maintenance backlog
most of which is needed to maintain forest roads and bridges. In
September 2003, we reported that the Forest Service (like the Park
Service) had no effective means for measuring how much of the fee
demonstration revenues it had spent on deferred maintenance or the
impact that the fee program had had on reducing its deferred
maintenance needs.[Footnote 4] Although the Forest Service has
recognized the significance of its deferred maintenance problem, it
does not have a systematic method for compiling the information needed
to provide a reliable estimate of its deferred maintenance needs.
Furthermore, the agency has not developed a process to track deferred
maintenance expenditures from fee demonstration revenues. As a result,
even if the agency knew how much fee revenue it spent on deferred
maintenance, it could not determine the extent to which these revenues
had reduced its overall deferred maintenance needs. Forest Service
officials provided several reasons why the agency had not developed a
process to track deferred maintenance expenditures from the
demonstration revenues. First, they said that the agency chose to use
its fee demonstration revenue to improve and enhance on-site visitor
services rather than to develop and implement a system for tracking
deferred maintenance spending. Second, the agency was not required to
measure the impact of fee revenues on deferred maintenance. Finally,
because the fee demonstration program was temporary, agency officials
had concerns about developing a process for tracking deferred
maintenance, not knowing if the program would subsequently be made
permanent.
H.R. 3283 would provide participating agencies with a permanent source
of funds to supplement existing appropriations and to better address
maintenance backlogs. Furthermore, by making the program permanent,
H.R. 3283 could provide participating agencies like the Forest Service
with an incentive to develop a system to track their deferred
maintenance backlogs.
H.R. 3283 Provides Agencies Additional Flexibility in Distributing
Collected Fee Revenues:
The existing fee demonstration program requires federal land management
agencies to maintain at least 80 percent of the fee revenues for use
on-site. In a 1998 report, we suggested that, in order to provide
greater opportunities to address high priority needs of the agencies,
the Congress consider modifying the current requirement to grant
agencies greater flexibility in using fee revenues.[Footnote 5] H.R.
3283 provides the agencies with flexibility to reduce the percentage of
revenues spent on-site down to 60 percent.
We also reported that the requirement that at least 80 percent of the
revenues be maintained for use at the collection site may inadvertently
create funding imbalances between sites and that some heavily visited
sites may reach a point where they have more revenues than they need
for their projects, while other sites would still fall short.[Footnote
6] In 1999, we testified that some demonstration sites were generating
so much revenue as to raise questions about their long-term ability to
spend these revenues on high-priority items.[Footnote 7] In contrast,
we warned that sites outside the demonstration program, as well as
demonstration sites that did not collect as much in fee revenues, may
have high-priority needs that remained unmet. As a result, some of the
agencies' highest-priority needs might not be addressed. Our testimony
indicated that, at many sites in the demonstration program, the
increased fee revenues amounted to 20 percent or more of the sites'
annual operating budgets, allowing such sites to address past unmet
needs in maintenance, resource protection, and visitor services. While
these sites could address their needs within a few years, the 80-
percent requirement could, over time, preclude the agencies from
redistributing fee revenues to meet more pressing needs at other sites.
Our November 2001 report confirmed that such imbalances had begun to
occur.[Footnote 8] Officials from the land management agencies
acknowledged that some heavily visited sites with large fee revenues
may eventually collect more revenue than they need to address their
priorities, while other lower-revenue generating sites may have limited
or no fee revenues to meet their needs.
To address this imbalance, we suggested that the Congress consider
modifying the current requirement that 80 percent of fee revenue be
maintained for use by the sites generating the revenues to allow for
greater flexibility in using fee revenues. H.R. 3283 would still
generally require agencies to maintain at least 80 percent of fee
revenues for use on-site. However, if the Secretary of the Interior
determined that the revenues collected at a site exceeded the
reasonable needs of the unit for which expenditures may be made for
that fiscal year, under H.R. 3283 the Secretary could then reduce the
percentage of on-site expenditures to 60 percent and transfer the
remainder to meet other priority needs across the agency.
The need for flexibility in transferring revenue must also be balanced
against the necessity of keeping sufficient funds on-site to maintain
incentives at fee-collecting units and to maintain the support of the
visitors. Such a balance is of particular concern to the Forest
Service, which has identified that visitors generally support the
program so long as the fees are used on-site and they can see
improvements to the site where they pay fees. Accordingly, under the
existing fee demonstration program, the Forest Service has committed to
retaining 90 to 100 percent of the fees on-site. As such, H.R. 3283
would not likely change the Forest Service's use of collected fees.
However, it would provide the Forest Service, as well as the other
agencies, with the flexibility to balance the need to provide
incentives at fee collecting sites and support of visitors against
transferring revenues to other sites.
H.R. 3283 Should Help Reduce Visitor Confusion by Creating a National
Pass and Requiring Participating Agencies to Coordinate Fee Collection
on a Regional Level:
The legislative history of the fee demonstration program places an
emphasis on participating agency collaboration to minimize or eliminate
confusion for visitors where multiple fees could be charged to visit
recreation sites in the same area. Our prior work has pointed to the
need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the agencies
to better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more convenient
and equitable while at the same time, reducing visitor confusion about
similar or multiple fees being charged at nearby or adjacent federal
recreation sites.[Footnote 9] For example, sites do not consistently
accept agency and interagency passes, resulting in visitor confusion
and, in some cases, overlapping or duplicative fees for the same or
similar activities. H.R. 3283 would allow for improved service to
visitors by coordinating federal agency fee-collection activities.
First, the act would standardize the types of fees that the federal
land management agencies use. Second, it would create a single national
pass that would provide visitors access to recreation sites managed by
different agencies. Third, it would allow for the coordination of fees
on a regional level for access to multiple nearby sites.
H.R. 3283 Standardizes Recreation Fees:
In November 2001, we reported that agencies had not pursued
opportunities to coordinate their fees better among their own sites,
with other agencies, or with other nearby, nonfederal recreational
sites.[Footnote 10] As a result, visitors often had to pay fees that
were sometimes overlapping, duplicative, or confusing. Limited fee
coordination by the four agencies has permitted confusing fee
situations to persist. At some sites, an entrance fee may be charged
for one activity whereas a user fee may be charged for essentially the
same activity at a nearby site. For example, visitors who entered
either Olympic National Park or the Olympic National Forest in
Washington state for day hiking are engaged in the same recreational
activity--obtaining general access to federal lands--but were charged
distinct entrance and user fees. For a 1-day hike in Olympic National
Park, users paid a $10 per-vehicle entry fee (good for 1 week), whereas
hikers using trailheads in Olympic National Forest were charged a daily
user fee of $5 per vehicle for trailhead parking. Also, holders of the
interagency Golden Eagle Passport--a $65 nationwide pass that provides
access to all federal recreation sites that charge entrance fees--could
use the pass to enter Olympic National Park, but had to pay the Forest
Service's trailhead parking fee because the fee for the pass covers
only entrance fees and not a user fees. However, the two agencies now
allow holders of the Golden Eagle Passport to use it for trailhead
parking at Olympic National Forest.
Similarly, confusing and inconsistent fee situations also occur at
similar types of sites within the same agency. For example, visitors to
some Park Service national historic sites, such as the San Juan
National Historic Site in Puerto Rico, pay a user fee and have access
to all amenities at the sites, such as historic buildings. However,
other Park Service historic sites, such as the Roosevelt/Vanderbilt
Complex in New York State, charge no user fees, but tours of the
primary residences require the payment of entrance fees. Visitors in
possession of an annual pass that cover entrance fees, such as the
National Parks Pass, may be further confused that their annual entrance
pass is sufficient for admission to a user fee site, such as the San
Juan National Historic Site, but not sufficient to allow them to enter
certain buildings on the Roosevelt/Vanderbilt Complex, which charge
entrance fees.
H.R. 3283 would streamline the recreational fee program by providing a
standard fee structure across federal land management agencies using a
3-tiered fee structure: a basic recreation fee, an expanded recreation
fee, and a special recreation permit fee. H.R. 3283 establishes several
areas where a basic recreation fee may be charged.[Footnote 11] For
example, the basic recreation fee offers access to, among other areas,
National Park System units, National Conservation Areas, and National
Recreation Areas. Expanded recreation fees are charged either in
addition to the basic recreation fee or by itself when the visitor uses
additional facilities or services, such as a developed campground or an
equipment rental. A special recreation permit is charged when the
visitor participates in an activity such as a commercial tour,
competitive event, or an outfitting or guiding activity.
H.R. 3283 Would Create a National Pass:
In November 2001 we reported another example of an interagency issue
that needed to be addressed--the inconsistency and confusion
surrounding the acceptance and use of the $65 Golden Eagle
Passport.[Footnote 12] The annual pass provides visitors with unlimited
access to federal recreation sites that charge an entrance fee.
However, many sites do not charge entrance fees to gain access to a
site and instead charge a user fee. For example, Yellowstone National
Park, Acadia National Park, and the Eisenhower National Historic Site
charge entrance fees. But sites like Wind Cave National Park charge
user fees for general access. If user fees are charged in lieu of
entrance fees, the Golden Eagle Passport is generally not accepted even
though, to the visitor with a Golden Eagle Passport, there is no
practical difference.
Further exacerbating the public's confusion over payment of use or
entrance fees was the implementation of the Park Service's single-
agency National Parks Pass in April 2000. This $50 pass admits the
holder, spouse, children, and parents to all National Park Service
sites that charge an entrance fee for a full year. However, the Parks
Pass does not admit the cardholder to the Park Service sites that
charge a user fee, nor is it accepted for admittance to other sites in
the Forest Service and in the Department of the Interior, including the
Fish and Wildlife Service sites.
H.R. 3283 would eliminate the current national passes and replace them
with one federal lands pass--called the "America the Beautiful--the
National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass"--for use at any site
of a federal land management agency that charges a basic recreation
fee. The act also calls for the Secretaries of Agriculture and the
Interior to jointly establish the National Parks and Federal Recreation
Lands Pass and to jointly issue guidelines on the administration of the
pass. In addition, it requires that the Secretaries develop guidelines
for establishing or changing fees and that these guidelines, among
other things, would require federal land management agencies to
coordinate with each other to the extent practicable when establishing
or changing fees.
H.R. 3283 Would Provide Interagency Coordination on the Regional Level:
H.R. 3283 would also provide local site managers the opportunity to
coordinate and develop regional passes to reduce visitor confusion over
access to adjacent sites managed by different agencies. When
authorizing the demonstration program, the Congress called upon the
agencies to coordinate multiple or overlapping fees. We reported in
1999 that the agencies were not taking advantage of this
flexibility.[Footnote 13] For example, the Park Service and the Fish
and Wildlife Service manage sites that share a common border on the
same island in Maryland and Virginia--Assateague Island National
Seashore and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. When the agencies
selected the two sites for the demonstration program, they decided to
charge separate entrance fees. However, as we reported in 2001, the
managers at these sites developed a reciprocal fee arrangement whereby
each site accepted the fee paid at the other site to better accommodate
the visitors.[Footnote 14] Resolving situations in which inconsistent
and overlapping fees are charged for similar recreation activities
would offer visitors a rational and consistent fee program. We stated
that further coordination among the agencies participating in the fee
demonstration program could reduce the confusion for visitors. We
reported that demonstration sites may be reluctant to coordinate on
fees partly because the program's incentives are geared towards
increasing their revenues. Because joint fee arrangements may
potentially reduce revenues to specific sites, there may be a
disincentive among these sites to coordinate. Nonetheless, we believe
that the increase in service to the public might be worth a small
reduction in revenues.
Accordingly, we recommended that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the
Interior direct the heads of the participating agencies to improve
their service to visitors by better coordinating their fee collection
activities under the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. In
response, in 2002, the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture
formed the Interagency Recreational Fee Leadership Council to
facilitate coordination and consistency among the agencies on
recreation fee policies. We also recommended that the agencies approach
such an analysis systematically, first by identifying other federal
recreation areas close to each other and then, for each situation,
determining whether a coordinated approach, such as a reciprocal fee
arrangement, would better serve the visiting public. The agencies
implemented this recommendation to a limited extent as evidenced by the
reciprocal fee arrangement between Assateague Island National Seashore
and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.
H.R. 3283 offers federal agencies the opportunity to develop regional
passes to offer access to sites managed by different federal, state and
local agencies. As we have reported in the past, for all four agencies
to make improvements in interagency communication, coordination, and
consistency for the program to become user-friendly, an effective
mechanism is needed to ensure that interagency coordination occurs or
to resolve interagency issues or disputes when they arise.[Footnote 15]
Conclusions:
Essentially, the fee demonstration program raises revenue for the
participating sites to use for maintaining and improving the quality of
visitor services and protecting the resources at federal recreation
sites. The program has been successful in raising a significant amount
of revenue. However, the agencies could enhance the quality of visitor
services more by providing better overall management of the program.
Several of the provisions in H.R. 3283 address many of the quality of
service issues we have identified through our prior work and if the
provisions are properly implemented these services should improve.
While the fee demonstration program provides funds to increase the
quality of the visitor experience and enhance the protection of
resources by, among other things, addressing a backlog of needs for
repair and maintenance, and to manage and protect resources, the
program's short and long-term success lies in the flexibility it
provides agencies to spend revenues and the removal of any undesirable
inequities that occur to ensure that the agencies' highest priority
needs are met. However, any changes to the program's requirements
should be balanced in such a way that fee-collecting sites would
continue to have an incentive to collect fees and visitors who pay them
will continue to support the program.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to
respond to any questions that you or Members of the Subcommittee may
have.
GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
For further information about this testimony, please contact me at
(202) 512-3841. Doreen Feldman, Roy Judy, Jonathan McMurray, Patrick
Sigl, Paul Staley, Amy Webbink, and Arvin Wu made key contributions to
this statement.
[End of section]
Related GAO Products:
The following is a listing of related GAO products on recreation fees,
deferred maintenance, and other related issues.
Recreation Fees:
Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue
from the Fee Demonstration Program. GAO-03-1161T. Washington, D.C.:
September 17, 2003.
Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue
from the Fee Demonstration Program. GAO-03-470. Washington, D.C.: April
25, 2003.
Recreation Fees: Management Improvements Can Help the Demonstration
Program Enhance Visitor Services. GAO-02-10. Washington, D.C.:
November 26, 2001.
Recreational Fee Demonstration Program Survey. GAO-02-88SP.
Washington, D.C.: November 1, 2001.
National Park Service: Recreational Fee Demonstration Program Spending
Priorities. GAO/RCED-00-37R. Washington, D.C.: November 18, 1999.
Recreation Fees: Demonstration Has Increased Revenues, but Impact on
Park Service Backlog Is Uncertain. GAO/T-RCED-99-101. Washington,
D.C.: March 3, 1999.
Recreation Fees: Demonstration Program Successful in Raising Revenues
but Could Be Improved. GAO/T-RCED-99-77. Washington, D.C.: February 4,
1999.
Recreation Fees: Demonstration Fee Program Successful in Raising
Revenues but Could Be Improved. GAO/RCED-99-7. Washington, D.C.:
November 20, 1998.
Deferred Maintenance:
National Park Service: Efforts Underway to Address Its Maintenance
Backlog. GAO-03-1177T. Washington, D.C.: September 27, 2003.
National Park Service: Status of Agency Efforts to Address Its
Maintenance Backlog. GAO-03-992T. Washington, D.C.: July 8, 2003.
National Park Service: Status of Efforts to Develop Better Deferred
Maintenance Data. GAO-02-568R. Washington, D.C.: April 12, 2002.
National Park Service: Efforts to Identify and Manage the Maintenance
Backlog. GAO/RCED-98-143. Washington, D.C.: May 14, 1998.
National Park Service: Maintenance Backlog Issues. GAO/T-RCED-98-61.
Washington, D.C.: February 4, 1998.
Deferred Maintenance Reporting: Challenges to Implementation. GAO/
AIMD-98-42. Washington, D.C.: January 30, 1998.
Other Related Products:
Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, Department of the
Interior. GAO-03-104. Washington, D.C.: January 2003.
Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, Department of the
Interior. GAO-01-249. Washington, D.C.: January 2001.
Park Service: Managing for Results Could Strengthen Accountability.
GAO/RCED-97-125. Washington, D.C.: April 10, 1997.
FOOTNOTES
[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and
Program Risks: Department of the Interior, GAO-03-104 (Washington,
D.C.: January 2003); U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management
Challenges and Program Risks: Department of the Interior, GAO-01-249
(Washington, D.C.: January 2001).
[2] U.S. General Accounting Office, National Park Service: Status of
Efforts to Develop Better Deferred Maintenance Data, GAO-02-568R
(Washington, D.C.: Apr.12, 2002).
[3] U.S. General Accounting Office, National Park Service: Efforts
Underway to Address Its Maintenance Backlog, GAO-03-1177T (Washington,
D.C.: Sept. 27, 2003).
[4] U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Information on
Forest Service Management of Revenue from the Fee Demonstration
Program, GAO-03-1161T (Washington, D.C.: September 17, 2003).
[5] U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Demonstration Fee
Program Successful in Raising Revenues but Could Be Improved, GAO/RCED-
99-7 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 20, 1998).
[6] U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Management
Improvements Can Help the Demonstration Program Enhance Visitor
Services, GAO-02-10 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 26, 2001).
[7] U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Demonstration
Program Successful in Raising Revenues but Could Be Improved, GAO/T-
RCED-99-77 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 4, 1999).
[8] GAO-02-10.
[9] GAO-02-10.
[10] GAO-02-10.
[11] The listed areas are National Park System Units, National
Conservation Areas, National Recreation Areas, National Monuments,
National Volcanic Monuments, National Scenic Areas and areas of
substantial investment by a federal land management agency that are
managed for recreation purposes or that contain at least one major
visitor attraction and have had substantial investments made in their
facilities or services in restoring resource degradation in areas of
concentrated public use including a visitor or interpretive center, a
trailhead facility or a developed parking lot, or in requiring the
presence of personnel of a federal land management agency.
[12] GAO-02-10.
[13] GAO/T-RCED-99-77.
[14] GAO-02-10.
[15] GAO-02-10.
