Resolution on Admission Fee Increases at National Parks

The Wild Basin entrance station at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

Resolution in Opposition to Proposed Admission Fee Increases at National Parks and National Park Service Sites

Submitted by Tommy Hough, president of San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action

Adopted by San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action on 12/13/17.

WHEREAS, the U.S. Department of the Interior, at the behest of the Trump Administration, has suddenly and without any precedent or public input proposed raising admission rates for National Parks and National Park Service (NPS) sites as high as $70 per vehicle to ostensibly pay for decades of negligently deferred maintenance and planned improvements to parks instead of making any effort to access the general fund or utilize other appropriate funding avenues, and with the burden of the higher rates falling on working Americans

WHEREAS, National Parks and other NPS sites are intended to be accessible to Americans of all economic levels so they may see, enjoy and come to understand the nation's most extraordinary natural formations and locales in their most wild, primitive state in which man is only a visitor, and gain an appreciation for conservation and the value of America's natural heritage in the process

WHEREAS, the Interior Department is already working in tandem with resource extraction interests and fossil fuel corporations in subverting the integrity of National Monuments, many of which are managed by the NPS, in order to roll back boundaries to enable mining, drilling and fracking, thereby weakening America's heritage of conservation and protection of wilderness, special places and important cultural sites

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action strongly supports keeping admission fees for National Parks at current levels so parks do not suffer from lost attendance and become a playground for the rich only, thereby giving the Trump administration fodder to further erode the standard of protection National Parks and related NPS sites extend to America's special places, protected over the course of a century for the good of the American psyche and in the best interests of recreation and ecological conservation.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this resolution shall be distributed to all of San Diego County's U.S. congressional representatives and California's two U.S. senators, so that they may pressure the Trump administration, in conjunction with their congressional colleagues, to keep entrance rates at reasonable levels and to utilize alternate and available sources for funding the NPS and addressing decades of backlogged maintenance in our federal parks.

Submit your comment to the National Park Service here.

Download a document of the resolution here.

A rare snowfall at Joshua Tree National Park, near Barker Dam.

Photo by Tommy Hough

View of Half Dome from Glacier Point at Yosemite National Park.