Welcome to the UNofficial website of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service - an agency in search of a mission.

Fee Programs

Run Grand Canyon like a business? The idea terrifies the backpacker and granola crowd.

By Elisa Williams, Forbes Magazine, 07.23.01

Old economic philosophy at the national parks: socialism. Meager fees collected at entrance gates are shipped off to the U.S. Treasury. Park managers wangle money for parking lots and showers out of budgets set by desk-bound bureaucrats in Washington.

New philosophy: capitalism. Park managers finance capital improvements by keeping the bulk of visitor fees and cutting deals with private corporations. The corporation builds the parking lot or whatever, then indirectly recoups the outlay by taking a piece of the gate receipts.

Capitalism was introduced on an experimental basis at a few choice spots, including Grand Canyon, in 1997. That's when the entrance fee doubled to $20 a car to get in. The park used $7 million of these new fees to pay D.L. Norton Contracting to build a transportation and orientation center. Legislation introduced in Congress in June would make such surcharges a permanent option at all 275 million acres of national parks and forests.

No surprise, the Birkenstock crowd is squealing. "We are now customers of our own land," pleads Douglas Hoschek, an outdoor-apparel consultant and opponent of the fees.

Financial control at a park? The idea sends shivers down a backpacker's spine.