§101917 Franchise Fees

Summary

Requires concession contracts to pay a franchise fee or other money set by the Secretary based on the likely value of the rights given. The fee is meant to allow a reasonable chance for net profit compared to the money invested and the contract duties. Earning money for the United States is secondary to protecting park units and giving visitors needed services at fair prices. The contract must say how much will be paid and the amount can only change for extraordinary, unexpected events. Contracts longer than 5 years must let either the Secretary or the concessioner ask to rethink the fee if such events happen, and must use binding arbitration if they cannot agree. All fees go into a special Treasury account. Twenty percent of the total in that account can be spent by the Secretary for system-wide needs. Each park unit has a subaccount that gets 80 percent of fees collected at that unit to pay for visitor services and urgent resource management there. The Secretary can lower that unit share for a year if revenues exceed needs, but never below 60 percent.