Federal lands provide Americans and visitors from around the world special places for recreation, education, reflection, and solace. Public lands managed by the Department of the Interior hosted over 370 million recreation visits in 2005. Ensuring that the federal lands continue to play this important role in American life and culture requires that we maintain visitor facilities and services and enhance visitor opportunities. Such efforts require a source of funding with which we can quickly respond to increases in visitor demand. Recreation fee revenues are a critical source of such supplemental funding that significantly enhance our efforts to address the deferred maintenance backlog at our National Parks and better manage other federal lands.
Congress recognized the responsibility of visitors to contribute a greater portion of this funding when it established broad fee authority over forty years ago, in 1965, under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act (LWCF). Congress subsequently enacted the Fee Demonstration Program in 1996, and the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (Public Law 108-447) (REA) in 2004. The rationale is that those who use specific services and facilities should pay for a larger portion of the costs, rather than require taxpayers who never use the amenities to assume the entire cost.
REA provides the Departments of Interior and Agriculture with a new 10 year legal authority to implement improvements to federal recreation fee programs. REA differs from LWCF in that it allows fees to be reinvested at the collecting site to benefit the visitor through enhanced facilities and services. REA differs from the previous Fee Demo program in that it provides narrower and more prescribed authority, limiting fees to locations with specific kinds of infrastructure and services.
Implementation of a well-run and streamlined recreation fee program that maximizes benefits to the visiting public is a top priority for the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the participating agencies - the National Park Service (NPS), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), and the Forest Service. The Recreation Fee Leadership Council, whose members include key officials from both Departments, has provided overall guidance on the implementation of the fee program, convening on a quarterly basis since REA was enacted. An interagency Steering Committee and several technical working groups, made up of agency experts, are leading day-to-day implementation efforts. Throughout the REA implementation process, the participating agencies are working cooperatively to ensure outstanding recreation opportunities for public lands visitors and are engaging the public to ensure the establishment of a transparent and effective recreation fee program.
Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act:
Background Information on the Recreation Fee
Demonstration Program,
1996-2004:
Fee Reports to Congress:
Additional Information:
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