National Park fees may not increase
Dramatic seasonal park entrance fee increases proposed by the National Park Service in 2017 may not take effect after all. Though the Department of the Interior claimed the approximately $70 million the fee increases were predicted to raise would help deal with a $12 billion backlog in park maintenance and repairs, nearly all of the more than 100,000 comments received on the topic were against the increase.
While national park entrance fee increases of some sort are still being proposed, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has been pushing the sale of public lands and leases for energy development as his preferred means of funding the deferred maintenance backlog in national parks. It's part of a larger push toward domestic energy development by the Trump administration.
According to the Center for Western Priorities, "Since taking office, the Trump administration has completed or initiated at least 22 policy changes meant to bolster the private oil and gas industry while decreasing protections for our most treasured landscapes and surrounding communities." Zinke had recently been caught lying about his motivations for reducing the size of national monuments in Utah, proving the critics who claimed the reductions were driven by natural resource extraction industry interests, were correct. A listing of national parks, monuments, and historic sites threatened directly by the Department of the Interior's lease sales can be found HERE. An excellent analysis of Zinke's plan can be found HERE, in Outside magazine.
In addition to the American public, many organizations spoke out against the proposed entrance fee increases, including the Vietnam Veterans of America, after Zinke blamed free access to national parks for some groups of Americans, such as veterans and fourth graders, as part of the problem.
“Secretary Zinke’s rationale to steeply increase the entrance fees for others, because disabled veterans and active-duty military get in for free, is a small-minded and mean-spirited jab that pits some citizens against others," noted VVA President John Rowan. "I believe that we, as a nation, are more inclusive and compassionate than this.
“By discounting fees, we honor our veterans and our seniors and bring a bit of inexpensive enjoyment to our disabled citizens. Does Mr. Zinke really think that citizens who pay $25 or $30 per carload to enjoy some of our most popular national parks are going to pay twice as much? Does he really believe that they will buy his ill-conceived argument that because veterans get in for free, the rates must be doubled for everyone else?
“Secretary Zinke’s flawed plan needs to be discarded and forgotten," Rowan concluded.
The seasonal entrance fee increases, in some cases nearly triple the current amount, were to impact a number of desert parks, including Joshua Tree, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Zion, and Grand Canyon, as well as other popular parks such as Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite.
For a time, at least, entrance fees will remain at their current levels.