[ZERO] Every day, visitors to Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Northern Arizona hike into an area named Coyote Buttes North to see one of the "most visually striking geologic sandstone formations in the world," which is known as The Wave. On an ancient layer of sandstone, millions of years of water and wind erosion crafted 3,000-foot cliffs, weird red canyons that look like you are on the planet Mars, and giant formations that look like crashing waves made of rock. There are old carvings known as ’petroglyphs’ on cliff walls, and even "dinosaur tracks embedded in the sediment."
The Wave is unlike anywhere else on Earth. It is also part of a U.S. national park, and thus technically, it’s open to anyone. Yet, to preserve its natural beauty, the Bureau of Land Management lets just 64 people daily visit the area. Snagging one of these slots is an accomplishment, a ticket into The Wave is known as "The Hardest Permit to Get in the USA" by Outside and Backpacker Magazines.
To apply requires going to Recreation.gov, the site set up to manage national parks, public cultural landmarks, and public lands, and paying $9 for a "Lottery Application Fee." If you win, you get a permit, and pay a recreation fee of $7. The success rate for the lottery is between 4-10%, and some people spend upwards of $500 before securing an actual permit.
But while the recreation fee of $7 goes to maintaining the park - which is what Henry George would appreciate - the money for the "Lottery Application Fee" is pure Plunkitt. That money goes to the giant D.C. consulting firm, Booz Allen and Company. In fact, since 2017, more and more of America’s public lands - over 4,200 facilities and 113,000 individual sites across the country at last count - have been added to the Recreation.gov database and website run by Booz Allen, which in turn captures various fees that Americans pay to visit their national heritage.
You can do a lot at Recreation.gov. You can sign up for a pass to cut down a Christmas tree on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, get permits to fly-fishing, rifle hunting or target practice at thousands of sites, or even secure a tour at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. There are dozens of lotteries to enter for different parks and lands that are hard to access. And all of them come with service fees attached, fees that go directly to Booz Allen, which built Recreation.gov. The deeper you go, the more interesting the gatekeeping. As one angry writer found out after waiting on hold and being transferred multiple times, the answer is that Booz Allen "actually sets the Recreation.gov fees for themselves."
Lately, hundreds of sites have begun requiring the use of the site. A typical example is Red Rock Canyon, which added "timed entry permit" in the past two years. Such parks, before adding these new processes, usually do a "trial" period followed by a public comment period, and then the fees are approved by a Resource Advisory Council, objects of derision composed of people appointed by the government bureaus. As one person involved in the process told me, these councils are sort of ridiculous. "Agencies fill it with people beholden to them," he said. "so the council playing committee rubber stamps whatever they send their way, often even if it makes no sense."
The entry permit almost always become permanent. This includes heavily visited lands like Acadia National Park (4 million annual visitors), Arches National Park (1.5 million), Glacier National Park (3 million), Rocky Mountain National Park (4.4 million), and Yosemite (3.3 million). There’s nothing wrong with charging a fee for the use of a national park, as long as that fee is necessary for the upkeep and is used to maintain the public resource.
That was in fact the point of the law passed in 2004 - the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act - to give permanent authority to government agencies to charge fees for the use of public lands. But what Booz Allen is doing is different. The incentives are creating the same dynamics for public lands that we see with junk fees across the economy. Just as airlines are charging for carry-on bags and hotels are forcing people to pay ’resort fees,’ some national parks are now requiring reservations with fees attached. And as scalpers automatically grabbed Taylor Swift tickets from Ticketmaster using high-speed automated programs, there are now bots booking campsites.
None of this is criminal, though the fee structure may not be lawful, but it is very George Washington Plunkitt. "I Seen My Opportunities," he said, "and I Took ’Em."
Honest Graft
The entry point for Booz Allen can be traced back to the Obama administration, and a giant failed IT project. In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, pledging that by 2014, the government would have a website up in which uninsured Americans could buy health insurance with various subsidies. In perhaps one of the most embarrassing moments of the Obama administration, Healthcare.gov failed to launch the day the new health law came into force, and millions couldn’t sign up to take advantage of it.