In a few areas where there is considerable through travel which could use park roads as an alternate route, such as the Shenandoah and Petrified Forest, singletrip permits have been suggested in addition to the annual permits. House trailer permits Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks and Cedar Breaks National 1.00 . 25 .50 .50 . 15 Crater Lake National Park Glacier National Park........ Grand Canyon National Park.. Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Lassen Volcanic National Park.. Mesa Verde National Park. Mount Rainier National Park. Rocky Mountain National Park.. Sequoia and General Grant National Parks_ Shenandoah National Park. Trip permit.. Yosemite National Park. Colorado National Monument. Petrified Forest National Monument.. Trip permit.___ House trailers are new problems in park travel and require special consideration. Owners want utility connections which only a few parks are in a position to provide. It is felt that if such utility connections are to be provided users should be expected to pay and these fees can determine the extent and need for such provisions. Parking fees Abraham Lincoln National Park. Acadia National Park. Hawaii National Park. Platt National Park. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument. Death Valley National Monument.. Devils Tower National Monument. George Washington Birthplace National Monument_ Lava Beds National Monument.. Muir Woods National Monument. Pinnacles National Monument Scotts Bluff National Monument. Southwestern National Monuments. Morristown National Historical Park. Colonial National Historical Park.. Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park. Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National $0. 10 . 25 . 25 . 25 25 .25 . 25 . 25 .25 25 10 . 25 10 . 25 · 10 10 . 25 .25 A small parking fee is included for those areas for which no automobile or motorcycle permits are proposed and where a special provision has been made available for visitors to park while inspecting attractions located therein. Guide fees are recommended for these historic areas for the visitors that desire to take advantage of the periodical tours that will be available during which experienced service personnel explain in detail the events that justify establishment as national reservations to preserve the areas involving sites of national significance. Statue of Liberty. Elevator fees $0.10 The visitors to the Statue of Liberty who use the elevator for the wonderful view from the head of the Statue should not object to the small fee of 10 cents proposed for that service. It is estimated that 250,000 people will take advantage of the opportunity resulting in an increased revenue of $25,000 annually. Miscellaneous Mount Rainier National Park, registration fee for summit climb.................. $1.00 It will be necessary to furnish special service for those visitors to Mount Rainier National Park who wish to climb the mountain, providing detailed instructions as to dress, methods, and precautions necessary for their protection, and a registration system for checking their return from the climb. Estimated annual revenue from the present fees, with the proposed Estimated total annual revenue, together with miscellaneous receipts. $1,468, 450 1, 744, 780 2, 439, 300 The It is considered that those who make use of the park roads should make a special contribution toward their maintenance. Many of the States have established fees for admission to their State parks and other recreational areas. National Park Service does not propose to charge for admission to the areas it administers, but only for the privilege of operating automobiles, house trailers, and motorcycles over the park roads which have been constructed and maintained by the Federal Government. In connection with the revenues which the National Park Service derives from the public for the use of facilities and for certain services rendered it should be pointed out that other Government bureaus and departments which maintain areas used by the public for recreational purposes make no charges for such use. Mr. JOHNSON. I did not quite understand the statement in that report with reference to fees for automobiles. Do you mean auto mobile licenses? Mr. DEMARAY. Yes, sir; for automobile licenses. Mr. CAMMERER. For road use. Mr. SCRUGHAM. There is a tag now required to be bought which corresponds to an automobile license. Mr. JOHNSON. When you enter the park? 139751-37-pt. 1- 32 Mr. JOHNSON. And those cost the amounts that you have read for the different parks? Mr. DEMARAY. Yes, sir. Mr. CAMMERER. May I interpolate? It is not a license tag to be affixed to a car. They get a printed slip which they can show, and can use as many times as they want to during the year. Mr. JOHNSON. Coming back to that report, that $1.50 charge that you read, was that per person? Mr. DEMARAY. Yes, sir. Mr. JOHNSON. That seems very high to me. Mr. CAMMERER. That is what they charge in Virginia, at the Luray Caverns. Mr. JOHNSON. Yes; and I understand that in New Mexico, at Carlsbad, they charge $2. Mr. CAMMERER. $1.50, and we never had a complaint. Mr. JOHNSON. I have had some complaints. Mr. SCRUGHAM. I did not hear you mention Lassen Volcanic National Park. Mr. DEMARAY. Yes, sir. fee is $1 at present. There is a fee there at the present time. the list that you read? At Lassen Volcanic National Park, the Mr. SCRUGHAM. I assume that the reason you charge $3 at Yellowstone and $1 in most of the others, is that Yellowstone has three times as much road? Mr. DEMARAY. Yes, sir; and about three times as many facilities. Mr. JOHNSON. I realize the necessity for getting fees, but it occurs to me that $3 is excessive for Yellowstone National Park. Mr. CAMMERER. It used to be $7.50, and it was reduced to $3. Mr. JOHNSON. You could make it $100 and still a great many people could go there and it would not hurt them, but in my country there is not a great percentage of our people who go to Yellowstone, but we have school boys and school girls who like to go out there, and I have had complaints that the cost is excessive. Of course, the more you charge the more that the people in my State will go to other places. Very few of my people are able to go out there, but if I lived in that area I certainly would protest against what I thought was an excessive charge, not only in Yellowstone but in several others. Mr. RICH. Your receipts from these national parks are $1,131,000? Mr. DEMARAY. It is $1,091,000. Mr. RICH. I take that figure from page 7 of your justification. Mr. DEMARAY. There may be a difference of figures, depending Mr. RICH. In 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1920, the appropriation made for the upkeep of these parks was less than a million dollars. Today you are asking for $16,000,000, 16 times more than it cost 20 years ago to operate these parks, and each year, the way that we are spending money, it is going to be an added cost. So if you do not get fees. from the people who use these parks, where will you get the money? Mr. CAMMERER. We must not forget that Congress is authorizing additional park areas every once in a while. Mr. RICH. But you have increased this 16 times in 20 years, and in practically everything that this Interior Department is engaged you are asking for an increase, it seems to me. Mr. SCRUGHAM. Just a minute. That is a little bit unfair. Don't you realize that nearly half of that is for the operation and maintenance and buildings in the city of Washington, and I am quite certain that it includes all of the buildings and structures in Washington. Mr. RICH. I am willing to have that put in the record, but I was thinking that it was only for these public parks. Mr. SCRUGHAM. I am sure you do not mean to be unfair. Mr. RICH. I certainly do not, but I was looking at this table on page 5, which gives the data with respect to the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. Mr. DEMARAY. That includes the public buildings of the District of Columbia. Mr. RICH. Then you might enlarge on that table, and give us what you paid 10 years ago, and what the increased expansion has been in public parks, and roads, what that increase would amount to. Mr. SCRUGHAM. And at the same time insert the increase in the number of visitors. Mr. DEMARAY. If I might confine it to the question of administration, maintenance, and operation of these parks, and use as an illustration the total appropriation for that purpose, in 1937 it was only $2,439,300. The balance of the $16,000,000 was for construction of roads and trails and the operation of buildings in the District of Columbia, and it is estimated that the annual revenue from the fees that we propose would amount to $1,468,450, or nearly one-half of the actual cost of administering and maintaining these parks. Mr. RICH. Then you would receive about one-half of that amount? Mr. DEMARAY. Yes, sir. We exclude from this the capital expenditures, because eventually the park road system will be completed, the parkways which are authorized will be completed so that we can eventually count on being down to a purely maintenance and operation basis. Mr. RICH. You charge a fee for use of the Sky Line Drive? Mr. DEMARAY. That is in the Shenandoah Park, and that is estimated at $1. We have not established it as yet, but we are proposing it. Mr. RICH. And when they put that Doughton Highway through from Smoky Mountain to the Shenandoah Mr. DEMARAY. A fee will be charged for that. Mr. RICH. What is the attitude of the Department of the Interior on that? Do they expect to continue that charge? Mr. DEMARAY. Yes, sir. Mr. CAMMERER. These parks are scattered all over the United States, and there is no instruction of Congress in its statutes that fees must be charged in these areas, except in one instance, where there is a law that I remember Mr. DEMARAY. Congress says that we shall not charge for camping. Mr. CAMMERER. That was put in by your appropriations committees some years ago. The exaction of fees comes within the administrative power of the Secretary of the Interior, and from the beginning it was always discussed and frankly discussed with the members of this committee, and as the membership of the committee changed from year to year, there has always been the utmost frankness on our part as to what the fees should be, and in the early days even a $7.50 fee had the tacit approval of this committee. Then it was reduced to $5, and then to $3 in Yellowstone, and we always bring these matters up to show you what the Secretary of the Interior thinks is proper. Mr. JOHNSON. How do the receipts from Yellowstone compare now with the receipts when you charged $5 or $7.50? Mr. DEMARAY. The receipts, of course, are probably more today than they were when we were charging $7.50, because there are more visitors to the park. Mr. SCRUGHAM. Here is what I think is worth conveying in connection with these proposed fees, that there is no desire or plan to charge any human being for getting into the great outdoors and seeing these wonderful things of nature. The charge is made for the automobile's use of roads. I think that that distinction should be made very clear. It is a facility that the Government provides in the way of roads, whereby the automobile can go in very much more cheaply than any other form of travel. If they were going in by team, the usual method of former days, it would cost them five, six, or seven times as much. Mr. LEAVY. Are any of these charges in any of the parks made on a per capita basis? Mr. DEMARAY. The only per capita charge at the present time is for special guide service. Mr. LEAVY. But the other charges are on the automobile or the conveyance? Mr. DEMARAY. That is right. EXPENDITURES FOR CIRCULARS CONTAINING INFORMATION REGARDING PARKS Mr. O'NEAL. What sort of a department do you have and how much money do you have to spend in that service for promotional work? Mr. SCRUGHAM. Advertising? Mr. O'NEAL. Yes. If these were private enterprises, just like a lot of things in Europe, where they attract hundreds of thousands of people, it would be made self-supporting. How much of an effort has been made along the line of what is being done by, say, Cook's Agency, or an organization of that kind? Mr. CAMMERER. I am glad that you brought that up, because that is very important. The fact is that the travel movement is on, and with the shorter working hours coming, the people want to go to these places, and it is a fine sign that people are more and more able to get out into the open and see the beauties of their country. For instance, when they come to the national parks, they ought to have something, such as a circular like this, to tell them about the roads, something about the beauty of the surroundings, the geology, the flora, and the fauna. Congress last year gave us $50,000 for all of our printing, not only of these pamphlets here, which are sent out by the thousands individually, to school children and others that ask for them, but are also given to the people that come to the parks-— Mr. JOHNSON. They are not sold? Mr. CAMMERER. They are given, and before 2 weeks have expired, the supply is gone, and Mr. Demaray can give you the exact amount that we have spent for these circulars. |