The Federal lands recreation enhancement act (rea) allows federal land management agencies to provide quality recreation experiences for hundreds of millions of visitors every year to some of america's most scenic, iconic, awe-inspiring, historical, and culturally rich lands and resources. rea authorizes five agencies to collect and expend recreation fees on lands they manage: the Department of the interior's (Doi's) Bureau of land management (Blm), Bureau of reclamation (reclamation), national park service (nps), and U.s. Fish and Wildlife service (FWs), and the U.s. Department of agriculture's Forest service (UsFs). These agencies use and leverage recreation fees to implement thousands of projects to enhance public safety, maintain recreation sites, provide eye-opening educational experiences, build informational wayside exhibits, fund interpretive programs, and offer a wide range of recreational and cultural opportunities.

The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (REA) enables the United States Forest Service (USFS), along with other public land management agencies, to charge user fees at recreation sites to support user-generated cost recovery for federal recreation programs. The USFS implements policies as a decentralized agency using both formal procedures and informal agency norms, along with staff discretion in decision making. Previous research suggests that recreation fees could have disproportionate impacts on low-income users and potentially displace visitors, which presents equity concerns with recreation fee implementation. Using interview and pre-existing program monitoring data and reports, this study examined the USFS's implementation of the recreation fee program under the REA at four national forests to (1) understand how staff implement the recreation fee program, and (2) explore staff perspectives on the impacts of recreation fee program implementation. This study found that during implementation of the recreation fee program, USFS staff (1) prioritize similar policy objectives to those in the USFS Recreation Fee Manual, but lack capacity to achieve objectives in full, (2) use formal and informal mechanisms during implementation, however experiences with these mechanisms vary, and (3) must make tradeoffs with limited funding and information, which are exacerbated with rising visitation. Staff perspectives on impacts of the recreation fee program include: (1) impacts to the organization itself which includes staff, site, and financial impacts, (2) visitor experiences are negatively impacted by a negative perception of recreation fees due to ineffective communication, (3) low public engagement in the fee program may be dependent on local demographics, and (4) displacement can occur but is not necessarily a negative impact. USFS implementation of the REA does not distort policy. Rather staff lack the financial resources to achieve the policy objectives in full and the outcomes of implementation exacerbate inequities in outdoor recreation. Increasing appropriated dollars with equitable allocation and improving communication and efforts to include underrepresented groups in USFS recreation processes can reduce inequitable outcomes of REA implementation.

Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act: hearing before the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, One Hundred Ninth Congress, first session, to review the National Park Service's implementation of the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, February 17, 2005.

Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act : hearing before the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, One Hundred Ninth Congress, first session, to receive testimony on the implementation of the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, P.L. 108-447, by the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior, October 26, 2005.