Shortly before sunrise Saturday the U.S. Senate quickly and without debate passed the National Park Service Centennial Act, assuring the Park Service a relatively small, but helpful, infusion of dollars to help maintain the sprawling National Park System. U.S. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, made a motion about 6 a.m. Eastern that the House version of the legislation be approved with unanimous consent and the chamber agreed.
While the House passed its version of the act on Wednesday, the Senate version was attached to a massive Energy Bill that died.
Though it looked like Democrats in the Senate would force the government to shut down at midnight Friday over a dispute regarding the funding of health benefits for coal miners, they relented shortly before midnight and the chamber passed a Continuing Resolution to keep government operating into April. That provided the chamber with additional time to finish last-minute work, such as passage of the Park Service Centennial Act.
As passed by the House, the legislation increases the price of a lifetime pass for senior citizens 62 and older to $80 from its current $10 lifetime fee. Seniors who don't want to pay the $80 could purchase an annual pass for $20.
Park Service staff estimate that the increase in the cost of a senior pass would generate $20 million a year.
The legislation, drafted by U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, had bipartisan support in the House. It calls for deposit of up to $10 million generated from all Park Service sales of America The Beautiful - The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Passes into a Second Century Endowment for the National Park Service to be managed by the National Park Foundation. Any revenues above $10 million would be deposited in a Centennial Challenge fund for projects in the parks. However, they would need to be matched by private dollars before they could be spent as the legislation is written.
The House also approved an annual appropriation of $5 million to the National Park Foundation for each of the 2017-2023 fiscal years for use as matching funds for contributions made to the foundation.
Missing from the House bill was a request from Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Arizona, to amend the bill with a requirement that Congress appropriate an additional $300 million per year for fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019 to help the Park Service address its maintenance backlog, estimated at $12 billion.
Comments
First Congress steals funds from Social Secunity and then they raise the Senior Pass 4 times the previous amount. I wonder if Congressmen and women have to pay to get in the parks.
If the NPS was really serious about increasing funding, why do they not increase the park fees for the foreign national Bus loads that visit each year. Many bring their own lunches and the tour buses pay a same fee for entrances.
I knew that was going to go away by the time I hit 65. Just like Social Security and Medicare will be gutted by then, too.
Just curious if those who badmouth foreign nationals spending their cash in our national parks aree the same as those who want to build that mythical southern border wall.
When does this take effect?
Still a bargain but an 8x increase makes the NPS look like complete fools.
Wild places, not sure why it makes NPS look life fools. Only Congress could increase that fee, not NPS.
It'll take place once the president signs the legislation and the NPS/BLM/USFWS converts all its pricing information/programming, or whatever else is necessary from the mechanical side.
Seniors have been paying taxes their entire life. Non-resident tourists pay the same rate as U.S. citizens, and pay no taxes.. A large percentage of visitors to our National Parks are forign visitors. Why not charge them a higher non-resident fee, much like you have to pay when visiting an out-of-state park? This is really unfair to Seniors.