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point, the analysis has been set against the background of (1) the 
development and expected increase in demand for recreation in the 
future, (2) historic governmental pricing policies as they apply to the 
sale and use of Federal lands, and (3) some of the commonly presented 
arguments in support of different user charge policies. If such a policy 
is to be formulated on a rational basis, however, it is necessary to 
take into consideration an additional factor: namely, the overall 
objective of recreational policy, as differing objectives will call for a 
different system of user fees. 
The goal of public recreational policy in society, moreover, is but 
one aspect of the more general governmental problem of allocating 
resources among various competing uses. Thus, governmental policies 
influencing public recreation should desirably be consistent with this 
larger problem of maximizing social welfare, and the specification of 
what objective function should be operative is not an intuitively 
obvious one in this context. 
One way to gain some appreciation of the variations in user charges 
that would result from different objectives is simply to list a set of 
objectives and hypothesize what pricing policies would be consistent 
with each. Before doing this, however, it should be interesting to look 
at what the stated objectives are of an agency such as the National 
Park Service, for in this case it is possible to make a comparison 
between the pricing policy we would assume to be appropriate with the 
system of actual fees. 
One of the main problems in doing this is to formulate some definitive 
statement of what the operating objective of the National Park 
Service is. This is because usually multiple objectives are stated. To 
establish some understanding of what these guiding principles are, 
two quotations are presented below. The first is from the act establish- 
ing the Park Service wherein Congress said: 
The Service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal 
areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations, herinafter specified 
by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of the said 
parks, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve scenery and the national 
historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the 
same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the 
enjoyment of future generations. 
A more recent statement of what the proper objectives of the Park 
Service should be was made by Secretary of the Interior, Stewart 
Udall, in a memorandum on June 10, 1964. He listed six objectives, 
three of which are noted below:'° 
(1) To provide the highest quality of use and enjoyment of the 
National Park System by increased millions of visitors in years to 
come. [emphasis supplied.] Bi, 
(2) To conserve and manage for their highest purpose the 
natural, historical, and recreational resources of the national 
park system. : : 
(3) To develop the national park system through inclusion of 
additional areas of scenic, scientific, historical, and recreational 
value to the Nation. 2 
Both of these statements place a great deal of emphasis on objectives 
such as conservation and the maintenance of a high quality of use for 
10 «A ministrative Policies—For Natural Areas of the National Park System,’’ U.S. Department of the 
Interior, NPS, GPO, 1968. 
