H.R. 4285 would direct the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to waive entrance and recreation fees at national parks and other federal recreational sites managed by the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Forest Service. The waiver would apply for one day, September 17, 2026, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States. In 2024, the agencies collected $484 million in fees at the sites (or about $1 million each day, on average). Those fees are recorded in the budget as offsetting collections, that is, as reductions in direct spending, and can be spent without further appropriation.
CBO expects that enacting the bill would reduce both the fees collected under current law and the subsequent spending of those fees. Because the fees are spent soon after they are collected, CBO estimates that enacting the bill would have a negligible effect on net direct spending over the 2025-2030 period and would have no effect on net direct spending over the 2025-2035 period.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Alaina Rhee. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.
