Recreation Fees: Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation	 
Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283 (06-MAY-04, GAO-04-745T).		 
                                                                 
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.		 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-04-745T					        
    ACCNO:   A09962						        
  TITLE:     Recreation Fees: Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation
Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283					 
     DATE:   05/06/2004 
  SUBJECT:   Federal legislation				 
	     Financial analysis 				 
	     Funds management					 
	     Land management					 
	     Maintenance (upkeep)				 
	     Maintenance costs					 
	     National parks					 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     User fees						 
	     Forest Service Recreational Fee			 
	     Demonstration Program				 
                                                                 

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GAO-04-745T

United States General Accounting Office

GAO Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands,
Committee on Resources, House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT RECREATION FEES

Thursday, May 6, 2004

      Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283

Statement of Barry T. Hill, Director Natural Resources and Environment

GAO-04-745T

Highlights of GAO-04-745T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on National
Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, Committee on Resources, House of
Representatives

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.

May 6, 2004

RECREATION FEES

Comments on the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283

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 [email protected].

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

Background

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.

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.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   Low estimate         High estimate 
                   National Park Service             $4.08              $6.80 
               Fish and Wildlife Service              0.84 
               Bureau of Land Management              0.19 
                  Bureau of Reclamationa              0.03 
                                   Total             $5.14              $8.30 

Source: Department of the Interior

aAgency will be allowed to participate in the program under H.R. 3283.

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

1U.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).

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.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.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

2U.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).

3U.S. General Accounting Office, National Park Service: Efforts Underway
to Address Its Maintenance Backlog, GAO-03-1177T (Washington, D.C.: Sept.
27, 2003).

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.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.

4U.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).

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.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.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.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.8 Officials from the land management agencies acknowledged that some
heavily visited sites with large fee revenues may

5U.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).

6U.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).

7U.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).

8GAO-02-10.

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.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.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

9GAO-02-10. 10GAO-02-10.

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.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.

11The 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.

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.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 H.R. 3283 would also provide local site managers
the opportunity to Interagency Coordination coordinate and develop
regional passes to reduce visitor confusion over on the Regional Level
access to adjacent sites managed by different agencies. When authorizing

the demonstration program, the Congress called upon the agencies to

12GAO-02-10.

coordinate multiple or overlapping fees. We reported in 1999 that the
agencies were not taking advantage of this flexibility.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.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

13GAO/T-RCED-99-77. 14GAO-02-10.

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.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.

15GAO-02-10.

GAO Contacts and 	For further information about this testimony, please
contact me at (202) 512-3841. Doreen Feldman, Roy Judy, Jonathan McMurray,
Patrick Sigl,

Staff Paul Staley, Amy Webbink, and Arvin Wu made key contributions to
this

  Acknowledgments statement.

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.

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