Time for Public Land Recreation Fees

NPR has an article about a serious problem that has an easy solution that no one wants to mention. The problem is that the number of hunters in the United States is declining, and since — under the Pittman-Robertson Act, a tax on guns and ammunition is one of the main source of conservation funding, money for conservation is also declining.

The article doesn’t mention some of the nuances of the problem. First, the real financial problem isn’t the declining number of hunters but the fact that America has a president who supports the Second Amendment. By comparison, when Obama was president and questioned widespread gun ownership, sales of guns and ammunition hit record levels, not because people were hunting but to safeguard and/or express their gun rights.

Second, the decline in hunters creates another problem at least as significant as the shortfall in revenues: a surplus of deer and other huntable wildlife. Deer in particular are overrunning much of the country. The animal most likely to kill you in rural areas is not a cougar or grizzly bear but a deer when you hit them with your car and they come flying through your windshield. Some areas also have too many elk and other huntable species.

Third, Pittman-Robertson funds are hardly the conservation panacea portrayed by NPR. For example, they aren’t generally used to protect endangered species or really any form of conservation other than habitat for game species. The state agencies that spend the money also get the revenues from hunting licenses, and their goal is to enhance that license revenue by providing better habitat for game species.

For example, tourists who want to see wolves bring more revenue into the Montana economy than hunters who want to kill elk. But the wolf revenue doesn’t make it to the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, so that department would rather kill wolves to promote elk numbers.

Supposing that revenue from the tax on guns and ammunition really was declining due to reduced hunting, NPR suggests perhaps we should ask people to pay a license fee to watch birds and other wildlife. Other ideas have included a tax on binoculars and even camping equipment in general that would go for conservation.

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The simple solution isn’t mentioned in the NPR article: charge recreation fees on federal land. Currently, the only fees federal land agencies are allowed to charge are entry fees into some national parks and fees to use developed recreation sites such as campgrounds. This means the vast majority of recreation is free. While it is wonderful that we can afford to provide this recreation at no charge, it also leads to poor land management and sometimes perverse incentives for the public agencies.

A few years ago, Congress allowed the agencies to test fees for dispersed recreation. The Antiplanner thought the tests were successful, but a few people complained and Congress closed the door. One of the fees in Oregon was a fee to park at wilderness trailheads. When Congress ended the fees, the Forest Service responded by ending maintenance of numerous wilderness trails.

Some say recreation should be free because not everyone can afford to pay fees. But the vast majority of public land recreationists are fairly wealthy. When compared with the money they spend on fancy cars, ultra-light camping equipment, and outdoor clothing, the fees would be a small addition to their costs. If people are really concerned about the impact of fees on low-income people, they can support recreation stamps, similar to food stamps.

Many private landowners in the east already charge fees, but it is hard to collect fees in the west when half the land is owned by the federal government that is giving most recreation away. If the feds were to charge fee, state and private landowners could charge them as well, and the incentives created by those fees would transform how they manage their lands. Thus, fees would actually result in more recreation opportunities, not less.

Like road tolls, talking about fees for something that has historically been free is controversial. But at some point, Congress is going to run out of money to keep subsidizing the federal lands (which cost taxpayers close to $10 billion a year). Recreation and other user fees can make it possible to end those subsidies and will actually result in better land management. It’s really a win-win solution for everyone.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

6 Responses to Time for Public Land Recreation Fees

  1. LazyReader says:

    Proof environmental groups are nothing more than ponzi schemes aimed at pumping money into the upper echelon………….themselves. There are only 3 nations on the planet who’ve seen increases in their wildlife populations in the 20th century, The United States, Canada and South Africa……………..where hunting big game……or any game is perfectly legal, encouraged.

    The Conservation movement today has thrived on it’s ability to sell sob stories of species extinction. but it thrives on animals that have attracted the qualities of being cute. Save the panda’s awwwwww. Save the eel’s………ewwwwwww. And it’s done well to earn them money….money of which they spend on animals??? Hardly, more like headquarters like the World Wildlife Funds new headquarters in DC. Anyone who lives or works in DC knows that DC has some of the most expensive office rents in the country. Of course there’s no rare occurrence of charitable organizations spending exorbitant sums of money…..on themselves. Look no further than the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who spent a whopping half a billion dollars on a headquarters for themselves. You can smell the public-relations excrement hitting the proverbial fan. Shouldn’t that money have gone to the foundation’s work? Wouldn’t that $500 million have been better spent on malaria research or schools in Africa? And with so much empty commercial space around Seattle area, they could have just rented space elsewhere. Virtually every charitable organization has a prominent address.

    90% of all life on Earth is microscopic. You may cause a mass extinction every time you wash your hands. Now of that 10% remaining, get rid of plants and fungi, after all we’re focusing on animals. Now of the remaining animals, separate vertebrates from invertebrates (jellyfish, worms and other ugly, slimy things). Only 3% of animal’s are vertebrates. Now separate from vertebrates, the fish, the lizards, amphibians that are slimy, scaly and smelly. And what you have left are mammals and birds and that’ is what gets most of the money.

    There are 1,800+ species currently on the American endangered species list. Out of those 1,800, only 41 have been removed from the list that in and of itself gives you a clue as to how effective the legislation works. Now of those 41, Nine are extinct……oops. Sixteen were put on the list by mistake. So that leaves 16 that were on the list as success stories. Really? Of those 16, three are kangaroos……that live in Australia. Three are birds in Palau that were miscounted. Three are birds that recovered solely due to the Federal government’s ban on DDT (Bald Eagle, etc.), that accomplishment was the EPA, not the Endangered Species Act. One is the American Alligator, scientists overestimated the threat they faced, combined with the fact that they’re bred commercially for food, leather and tourism by the tens of thousands means they’ll probably never go extinct even if Disney bulldozed the Everglades to build an Everglades themed attraction. Louisiana has far less legislation put into place for the protection of alligators, despite this they enjoy a higher population of gators. One is the Robbins Cinquefoil, a species of New Hampshire plant that was saved by simply planting some and redirecting a few hiking trails so backpackers didn’t step on them. One is the Columbian white tailed Deer and sub-species of Canadian Goose, all of which were handled with local hunting restrictions, something easily done without super duper federal bureaucracy. One is the Tinian Monarch, a bird whose habitat had been literally blown away by B-29 but was fine by the time the government bothered to count them decades later. One is the Gray Whale, we can thank the petroleum industry for saving Whales in general, by producing oil without having to gut thousands of whales annually. And the Hoover’s Wooly Star, a California plant thought under threat from land use for petroleum drilling and invasive species. Put on the list in 1990 but removed from the list in 2003 when the discovered other populations across California yet still listed as a success story even though they didn’t do anything. Meanwhile legal hunting proved a superior wildlife management tool.
    – There were 2 million deer come turn of the century, now we have 40 million
    – 1 million ducks by 1900, now 54 million
    – Elk 1907: 54,000 circa 1 million
    7 million wild turkey, 1 million pronghorn,
    The hippies can whine and moan all they want, but I’m pulling a page from the liberal handbook They’re gonna have to “Pay their fair share” of course why should they have to pay for ducks they’re not hunting.
    Truth is, if you like wildlife, support husbandry, nature doesn’t care about species perpetuity, 440 million years ago a possible gamma ray burst wiped out 57% of all species, 250 million years ago mass volcanism wiped out 90% of all species, 65 million years ago 75% of all species were obliterated by a space rock. 14.5 million years ago, the oceans chemistry changed and also caused a massive CO2 draw down that crafted the current cycling cool/heat climate over the last 2 million years………
    Nature doesn’t care

  2. TCS says:

    The ‘Trump slump’ in firearms sales is fake news. Approximating firearms sales by the number of NICS checks, 2017 was the second best firearms sales year in US history.

    Even a hunter who fills their deer tag every year would be hard pressed to use a single box of twenty rounds in the act of hunting every few years. If the special tax on ammunition sales were administered as a recreation fee applied to benefit those who pay it, the bulk of the money collected would go to build shooting facilities rather than to wildlife conservation.

  3. Maddog says:

    I was going to rant about the environmentalists who pay nothing and whinge constantly, but … LazyReader beat me to the punch by that much! Thanks!

    Make the enviros pay is the best idea ever.

    TCS makes a good point as well. The states have done little to provide reasonable quality areas for shooting whether in the wildlands or commercial shooting businesses. The laws make running these organizations difficult, especially noise laws. But the state departments of fish and game make nearly all of their money from sport plinkers, and firearms collectors, not hunters.

    Mark Sherman

  4. Frank says:

    Better turn over a large portion of public lands to conservation trusts that can set prices based on market signals. Admission fee could be voluntary, as they are at the Met.

    Fees on cattle grazing should also be increased. It shouldn’t be cheaper to graze a cow on public lands for a month than it is for a family to camp for one night.

  5. Not Sure says:

    Recreation and other user fees can make it possible to end those subsidies and will actually result in better land management.

    Or they will result in increased hiring and salaries for the main office. Want to bet which is more likely to happen? Hint- read Coyote Blog for some clues.

  6. LazyReader says:

    Speaking of 2nd Amendment rights. Citibank announced it policy mandating that financial customers in the firearms sector refuse to sell “high capacity” magazines and bump stocks, and also refuse to sell long guns to any one under 21, although federal law allows sales to customers age 18 and up. While we can argue they’re a private business and permitted to do as they please, what’s so private of Citi anymore?

    Citibank currently enjoys a $700 billion contract with the General Services Administration (GSA), and Indiana representative Todd Rokita is seeking to have that contract terminated. Rokita described these policies as “a flagrant attempt to undermine our fundamental rights by caving to radicals not endorsed by our federal government.” He told Administrator Murphy, “Our federal government should instead do business with companies that respect all of our constitutional rights, including the Second Amendment.”

    Citigroup received the most federal funding during the financial crisis for a total of $476.2 billion in cash and guarantees. Literally as much money as Apple’s net worth…….how can you call a company that got that much from Uncle Sam private.

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