When do I get a refund for the National Parks' shutdown?

The only picture I bothered to take at Mojave National Preserve. There's only so much motivation that I have to do photography at 105 degree desert heat with a baby strapped to my chest. I'ts not a good photo. I know. // photo my own

A few weeks ago, we took a vacation and one of our stops was Mojave National Preserve.

It was hot.

So we didn't stay too long. We aimed to do a hike at Hole-in-the-Wall, which is down a crevasse, nice and shaded. Since the park was technically closed due to the pandemic and is just public space, there were no services while we were there, which is fine.

What I don't understand is why they roped off the short driveway turnoff toward the trail head. What exactly was the point of that? All it did was to make us park on the side of the road and hike in to the trail head, past the visitor center that was closed. Fine.

Also, there was not a single other soul there, except for a snake on the trail, making it maybe the safest place to visit. Probably because no one else was dumb enough to wander around the Mojave in the summer during a heat wave.

While we were there, my parents, also on vacation since they didn't have to babysit the week we were out, went to Zion National Park.

In Zion, cars are not permitted beyond the visitor center at the entrance, unless reservations were made at the lodge inside the park. Shuttles run frequently into the park, but during the pandemic, the shuttles were shuttered, but the car restriction was still in place. People wanting to hike had to hike to the trail head, which can be quite a ways. My parents braved the heat and hiked three miles just to get to the trail head, despite the lodge being open and sparsely populated.

A few days after Mojave, we went to Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas. They were open and collecting fees, but the visitor center was closed. It has, in the previous months, restricted usage of the park. It seemed like there should have been some kind of discount since aspects of the park were closed, but they took our National Park Annual Pass.

Rock formation at Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas. // photo my own

All this makes me wonder. The costs for the park system must be significantly lower during this time by shutting off all of these programs. At least, they must be if they're a competently run organization, which is a lot to ask for. I understand that there is still wear and tear and such, but things like not running shuttles and closing visitor centers across all the government run parks run on tax dollars must be a huge benefit to their bottom line. Not to mention the windfall received from the annual passes which won't be used for at least a quarter of the year (as far as I know currently, the passes will not have their deadlines extended, even though they closed the parks).

Even the companies routinely called an "evil monopoly", such as Comcast (which I very much dislike as well), gives me rebates due to service outages. Vail Resorts have offered pro-rated discounts to ski resort season passes for next year.

I'm sure that my federal taxes next year will show a reduction in my taxes to reflect this service outage, right? And I will be offered a discount to renew my Annual Pass? Surely the government isn't as evil as an evil monopoly?

Maybe I shouldn't hold my breath.

To be fair, while the Mojave National Preserve is operated by the Bureau of Land Management and charges no entrance fee (meaning its funding is likely almost all from taxes), Zion does normally charge entrance fees, though they haven't been collecting during the pandemic. However, according to The Revelator, in 2017, of the National Park Service's $3.4 billion budget, $2.9 billion is from federal taxes, with the remaining portion from user fees.

Despite this, only 117 out of 417 sites in the National Park Service collect entry fees. As far as funding goes, user fees are far superior to taxes. This way, only the people that use the service pay for it, and it gives a far clearer picture of which park site is doing better than others.

Red Rock Canyon // photo my own

Granted, $2.9 billion is peanuts compared to the multi-trillion dollar tax receipts the federal government gets every year, but the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management are not the only services shut down or had their operations scaled back during the pandemic. After all, Comcast refunded me ten bucks when my internet went out for about an hour out of a month. Surely the government would refund me some money for shutting down federal parks for months on end.

Yes, any day now. The IRS will send me a refund check for services not rendered.