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course, we are starting with both bills reintroduced as well as your 

 own proposal and several others. 



Mr. Chairman, we support the approach you have taken and oth- 

 ers have taken as well, and we believe that by combining the best 

 points in both bills, you will be successful in your effort to end the 

 problems in concessions management that have been occurring for 

 the past 30 years. 



Reform is long overdue. The Grace Commission concluded that 

 the 1965 law created an anticompetitive system that has been slow 

 to respond to the needs of the visitor and remains grossly unfair 

 to the taxpayer because it fails to provide an adequate return on 

 the taxpayers' investment. 



Between 1981 and 1990, franchise fees as a percentage of gross 

 receipts changed little from 1,8 percent to 2.5 percent. The Grace 

 Commission recommended raising the franchise fee from 2 to 4 per- 

 cent and other legislative and administrative steps. 



Both bills before you would open the concession contracts to com- 

 petitive bidding while increasing franchise fees. The Meyers bill 

 would establish park improvement funds so that the higher fees 

 are used for park maintenance and enhancement, and we agree 

 with Representative Meyers that taxpayers and the parks both 

 benefit from her bill. And we also applaud your legislative effort as 

 well. 



Now, one of the strong points in your bill, Mr. Chainnan, is to 

 standardize processes in structuring concessions agreements among 

 the various agencies affected, and we think elimination of duplica- 

 tion among agencies is welcome. 



CCAGW is obviously interested in deficit reduction, but we are 

 also interested in the condition of our parks and the efficient man- 

 agement. We are well aware, as many others are, of the tremen- 

 dous backlog in operations and maintenance, and we endorse al- 

 lowing a significant portion of fees to remain in the park where 

 they are collected, whether it is the 75-25 split that you have or 

 some other number. 



We also endorse the idea of moving to a kind of quasi-free mar- 

 ket approach in which appropriations would be reduced for parks 

 and recreation. The agencies would be given complete control over 

 fee management, and each agency would be able to keep the fees 

 collected for operations and maintenance purposes. This may be a 

 radical change from the past, but it is certainly worth observing. 



The people in the field, Mr. Chairman, are good people. Right 

 now they have little incentive to increase fees from concessions be- 

 cause that money goes to the Treasury, and maybe we now have 

 an environment in which the motives of sound management, mar- 

 ket-based fees, and confidence in our recreation and park managers 

 can come together for everyone's benefit. 



The greatest singular concern we have about H.R. 2028 is the ap- 

 praisal method, giving the owner of the property a stake in the 

 value accrued from the location of the property which really be- 

 longs to the taxpayers. In the original description of H.R. 2028, ap- 

 praisals were to be based on replacement cost, and we think that 

 might be a better way to assess the current value of the structure 

 without adding any other value that comes about because the 

 structure is in a national park, forest, or other similar area. 



