Marketing Our National Parks

Looking to make a couple more buck$ off our national parks the NPS announced plans to over double admittance fees during peak seasons--and that ain't all.

According to the online National Park Service Fact Sheet they are soliciting public comments from 10/24/2017 to 11/23/2017. Although I'm not sure how much weight it will carry in their decision.

The site links to THIS PDF FACT SHEET which says at 17 parks--during peak-season, the entrance fee will be $70 per private, non-commercial vehicle, $50 per motorcycle, and $30 per person. The $80 annual pass that permits entrance into all federal parks would keep the same price tag.

So let's say mom and pop bring their 2 kids 16 years or older by car into the park. That means it will cost them $190 just to get in the place during peak seasons. That may not be the whole story. Different parks may have guided excursions or special programs which would not be included.

Then There's This Press Release
Secretary Zinke Announces Largest Oil & Gas Lease Sale in U.S. History
March 2018 sale to offer 76.9 million acres in Gulf of Mexico .Date: October 23, 2017

NEW ORLEANS – U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke today announced that the Department is proposing the largest oil and gas lease sale ever held in the United States --76,967,935 acres in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The proposed region-wide lease sale, offering an area about the size of New Mexico, is scheduled for March 2018 and includes all available unleased areas on the Gulf’s Outer Continental Shelf, surpassing last year’s region-wide lease sale by about one million acres.I only posted part of it above. Point is the fee increases alone are expected to bring in between $199.99M-$268.5 million annually-- an increase of 34.3% over fiscal Year 2016. That's a pretty steep increase in one shot. Throw in $100's of millions more from the oil and gas leases we're looking at a serious chunk of change.

Think about this. 87% of the state of Nevada is federally owned public land. In September 2017 lawsuits were filed to prevent further drilling permits issued for them. This means Nevada has little say. It's like relegating Nevada to being only a 13th of a whole state. Not saying Clive Bundy was right to graze his cattle on public land, but that kind of narrowed down his and other ranchers options didn't it? So now what--is the land just sitting their getting weeded up? Shouldn't Nevada have a greater say in what it's state's lands should be used for?


April 2017

Donald, Nevada doesn't get to "control" nor
any other state where federal lands or
coastal waters are located and allowed to drill
by the federal government.

The Point Is
I'm not thrilled with this latest announcement of drilling over 150 million acres of what is supposed to be pristine waters set aside. This defeats the very purpose why they were first created. These were never intended to become cash cows for neither the government nor fossil fuel industry.