[Old406Kid]

Interior Department backs off plan to increase fees at popular parks
Posted: Apr 04, 2018 7:28 AM PDTUpdated: Apr 04, 2018 7:28 AM PDT

Yosemite National Park Facebook page
WASHINGTON -
The Interior Department is rolling back its plan to increase fees at 17 of the nation's most popular parks.

An interior official says the department is amending the plan following major backlash from the public.

The admission hike would have more than doubled fees during the peak summer season, forcing visitors to pay $70 a car.

No word yet on exactly how the rates are being revised.

 

[Alosa]

At some point fees need to increase to pay for infrastructure...there's no way around that. Instead of doubling fees, the Interior Department might consider gradually increasing it by 5-10% annually to cover these mounting costs. Just my 2 cents.

 

[TDB]

Or they can charge more for grazing and extraction leases and use that increased revenue to fund the parks...

 

[HBB]

At some point fees need to increase to pay for infrastructure...there's no way around that. Instead of doubling fees, the Interior Department might consider gradually increasing it by 5-10% annually to cover these mounting costs. Just my 2 cents.

Even doubling entrance fees wouldn't have made a dent in the maintenance backlog the National Park Service is facing. That was one of the biggest issues for folks opposed to the fee increase.

As an example, the NPS currently has an annual budget of around $3 billion (this is set to decrease substantially under the current administration). The current maintenance backlog is about $11 billion.

If you set NPS up so maintenance and necessary capital improvements were fully funded by user fees, you'd have to charge something like $5,000 per visitor.

 

[dust in the wind]

If you set NPS up so maintenance and necessary capital improvements were fully funded by user fees, you'd have to charge something like $5,000 per visitor.

God don't give them ideas...

 

[Skip Enge]

My car license renewal is $86 if I wanted to "donate" $5 to the park service...Ain't saying what i did...

 

[Stonefish]

My car license renewal is $86 if I wanted to "donate" $5 to the park service...Ain't saying what i did...

My fishing rig has a trade in value is $160 according to Kelly BB, but my tabs are more then that.
Go figure.....

As far as the parks go, I wonder what the $11 billion backlog would really be if they didn't keep deferring stuff rather then just getting it done when it is needed.
SF

 

[HBB]

Hard to "get it done" without the money to do so.

 

[Stonefish]

Hard to "get it done" without the money to do so.

And delaying things just costs more money.
SF

 

[Sir Homey]

We're the richest country in the world. How much did we just increase our military budget by? And we can't afford the upkeep on our parks? Come on. We have the money, we're just spending it on the wrong things and our priorities are all out of whack.

 

[Gard Nale]

And delaying things just costs more money.
SF

Does Costco accept food stamps?

 

[GAT]

The USFS also sells timber on OUR land at bargain prices to the timber companies... plus paying to build and maintain the roads for the logging trucks. If the parks are having problems staying open, maybe we shouldn't be selling the trees at such low prices... just a thought.

 

[Guest]

they could put a few oil wells in the parks & then they could offer free admission, or we could pay up & quit whinning

 

[Guest]

The USFS also sells timber on OUR land at bargain prices to the timber companies... plus paying to build and maintain the roads for the logging trucks. If the parks are having problems staying open, maybe we shouldn't be selling the trees at such low prices... just a thought.

that's a double edge sword, raising the cost of standing timber raises house costs, impacts forestry jobs , no logging roads mean no access if there are forest fires, and so on .

 

[BaldBob]

The USFS also sells timber on OUR land at bargain prices to the timber companies... plus paying to build and maintain the roads for the logging trucks. If the parks are having problems staying open, maybe we shouldn't be selling the trees at such low prices... just a thought.

Sorry Gene. You are off base on that. National Forest timber is sold by competitive bid which in many cases results in stumpage rates higher than private timber owners get. Also any time a timber company uses USFS roads they pay maintenance fees and , in those cases where the government built the road rather than the timber company ( a significant percentage of USFS roads are built by the timber purchaser as part of the contract), they also pay cost recovery fees at a rate such that the road will be paid for by the time all timber that is tributary to that road is removed. Other than taxes , which timber companies also pay, the general public pays nothing into building or maintaining USFS roads. Based on my experience maintaining many hundreds of miles of forest roads on private timberland that we left open to the public, public use often creates more maintenance costs than does logging use. This is because of the public often using the roads at too high of speeds, or during the wrong time of year, or causing wash boarding through improper use of power on gravel surfaces. I often had to have maintenance performed on roads that had not received any recent logging traffic, just to keep them usable.

And by the way the USFS and the National Park Service are in two entirely different agencies ( Agriculture and Interior) with entirely separate budgets. Using an increase in revenue from the USFS to help the NPS would be analogous to using FCC licensing fees to pay for communications equipment for the military.

 

[GelJockey]

My car license renewal is $86 if I wanted to "donate" $5 to the park service...Ain't saying what i did...

I believe that donation is for state parks, not federal parks.

 

[Skip Enge]

I believe that donation is for state parks, not federal parks.

Have not been to a federal park in 15 years...and then it was a weird one... Sulphur Springs OK...and for installation work...National parks sort of put me off a long time ago...too damn many people and fees for everything...

 

[GAT]

Sorry Gene. You are off base on that. National Forest timber is sold by competitive bid which in many cases results in stumpage rates higher than private timber owners get. Also any time a timber company uses USFS roads they pay maintenance fees and , in those cases where the government built the road rather than the timber company ( a significant percentage of USFS roads are built by the timber purchaser as part of the contract), they also pay cost recovery fees at a rate such that the road will be paid for by the time all timber that is tributary to that road is removed. Other than taxes , which timber companies also pay, the general public pays nothing into building or maintaining USFS roads. Based on my experience maintaining many hundreds of miles of forest roads on private timberland that we left open to the public, public use often creates more maintenance costs than does logging use. This is because of the public often using the roads at too high of speeds, or during the wrong time of year, or causing wash boarding through improper use of power on gravel surfaces. I often had to have maintenance performed on roads that had not received any recent logging traffic, just to keep them usable.

And by the way the USFS and the National Park Service are in two entirely different agencies ( Agriculture and Interior) with entirely separate budgets. Using an increase in revenue from the USFS to help the NPS would be analogous to using FCC licensing fees to pay for communications equipment for the military.

Bob, I know we've had this discussion before and you worked for the USFS and I haven't. However, I still can't completely discount articles... that true, are not pro USFS.. that indicate the USFS is under no obligation to make money selling trees.

However, there's no point in arguing over the same subject we did 10 years ago and wasting space on a flyfishing site so we'll just need to agreed to disagree, again, because you won't convince me and I won't convince you. So I'll drop it.

 

[Montana1422 (Roger Craft)]

Dammit. I was hoping they would triple the fees. Since my Lifetime Pass will be good for my lifetime. High fees would keep the traffic down, and people off the NP streams.

 

[Jim Wallace]

Dammit. I was hoping they would triple the fees. Since my Lifetime Pass will be good for my lifetime. High fees would keep the traffic down, and people off the NP streams.

Yes, I similarly had envisioned the benefit to myself of charging higher entrance fees for others, since I also have the Lifetime Pass. Oh,well. For a moment there, that looked like a real sugar plum!

edit: I have actually considered moving to the Forks area, since then I would be close enough to ONP beaches, ONP lakes Crescent and Ozette, the Hoh and other rivers within the Park, so that I actually would not need a WA fishing license to go fishing, but would still be able to fish certain beaches, lakes and streams....anything within the Park's boundaries. Just a thought.