Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue from the Fee Demonstration Program

Since 1996, federal land management agencies have collected over $900 million in recreation fees from the public under an experimental initiative called the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. The Forest Service's part was about $160 million. The authority to collect these fees expires at the end of fiscal year 2004. Central to the debate about whether to reauthorize the program is how effectively the land management agencies are using the hundreds of millions of dollars that the recreation fees have provided them. In April 2003, GAO reported on Forest Service management of the fee demonstration program. (See Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue from the Fee Demonstration Program, GAO-03-470 (Washington D.C.: Apr. 25, 2003)). This testimony is based on the work GAO conducted for the April 2003 report. Four issues are addressed: (1) how the Forest Service determines spending priorities for the revenues generated by the fee program, (2) how the agency has spent its fee demonstration program revenues, (3) what the agency is doing to measure the impact of the recreation fee revenues on reducing its deferred maintenance backlog, and (4) how it accounts for its fee demonstration program revenues.