Environmental Economics

Finally, we're running government like a business (a bad one)

When there is an increase in demand a business firm will increase output. In the case of a park, you need more employees to make sure the quality of the product stays high. But, no:

Handling throngs of visitors has long been a tough task for a dwindling number of Park Service employees. The task has gotten tougher as visitation has jumped and staffing has shrunk.

The amount of full-time equivalent park employees in the National Park Service fell 20% between the 2010 and 2023 fiscal years, according to federal data. Park visitation rose 16% to 325.5 million over that stretch, and the park service got more land to oversee.

Officials now face difficult choices about how to manage some of America’s most prized parcels of land. In smaller parks, they close visitor centers and bathrooms and stop tours when they don’t have staff to manage them. Travelers say they’ve come to expect reduced services or to spend a good chunk of their day waiting in line at popular parks. Rangers report more vandalism and damage. ...

In larger parks such as Zion, funding from nonprofit partners and labor from volunteers helps fill gaps. How best to staff the park remains an exercise in triage, former employees say. Visitation has increased over 70% since 2010 at Zion. It welcomed more than 4.6 million people in 2023. The number of full-time equivalent employees has dropped about 8% in that stretch, according to federal figures. ...

Visitation to parks accelerated during the Park Service’s centennial celebration that began in 2015, then skyrocketed during peak pandemic years.

Government funding for staffing hasn’t kept up. Republicans and Democrats are at odds over how much more that funding could shrink. The latest funding bill, which passed the House before the summer recess, would eliminate more than 400 positions next year, according to Democrats on Capitol Hill. A spokeswoman for the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee says a recent one-time influx was enough to restore some past staffing cuts and that the number of personnel assigned to parks isn’t directly correlated to budgets.  

The National Park Service manages an appropriated budget of about $3.5 billion when it needs closer to $5 billion for staffing and capital improvements, says Kristen Brengel, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Some of the other problems mentioned in the article are due to crowding and we're not quite ready to ration the popular National Parks to reflect capacity constraints or the realities of reduced government funding. 

Source: America’s National Parks Are Beset by Long Lines, Increased Vandalism (WSJ)

New working paper: The Aggregate Economic Value of Great Lakes Recreational Fishing Trips

The Aggregate Economic Value of Great Lakes Recreational Fishing Trips

John C. Whitehead, Louis Cornicelli, Lisa Bragg and Rob Southwick

Abstract: We use the contingent valuation method in a survey of Great Lakes anglers to estimate the willingness to pay for a Great Lakes recreational fishing trip. Employing various assumptions and models, we find that the willingness to pay for a trip ranges from $54 to $101 ($2020). We then combine the willingness to pay per trip estimates with an estimate of the number of trips and find that the aggregate economic value of Great Lakes fishing trips in the U.S. is $611 million. We conduct a sensitivity analysis over the estimates of willingness to pay and the number of trips and estimate that the 90% confidence interval around the mean estimate of $632 million is ($182.5, $1,553) million. 

URL: https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/aplwpaper/24-11.htm

Breaking news: "State parks won’t be closed because of the shutdown" (WSJ)

From the WSJ (National Parks Will Close if Government Shuts Down):

National parks will close their gates if lawmakers don’t pass legislation to keep the federal government funded by the end of this week.

The Biden administration announced Friday morning that sites run by the National Park Service will close if government funding lapses on Sunday. The administration will release a full contingency plan later Friday. The closures would roll out over the weekend and into Monday if a shutdown does occur, a senior Interior Department official said.

The closures will affect national parks, including sites like Yosemite and Yellowstone, and other monuments and sites like the National Mall and memorials in Washington, D.C. During the shutdown, thousands of park rangers will be furloughed.

Visitors will still be able to access some parks during the shutdown. While some parks have entry points that can be closed to guests, visitors could go to many other federally run destinations that are easier to access. State parks won’t be closed because of the shutdown.

The nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, citing government data, projects that the parks could see nearly one million fewer visitors and an economic loss of as much as $70 million for every day that the destinations are closed in October.

Here is one reason to close them down:

During the most recent government shutdown, the Trump administration kept national parks open with lower staffing levels. As travelers continued to visit, trash and toilet facilities overflowed at some locations. Visitors also caused damage to some locations, including Joshua Tree National Park.

...

The Government Accountability Office rebuked the Trump administration for keeping the parks up and running. In a 2019 legal opinion, the GAO said the administration ran afoul of federal rules that dictate how money can be spent during a lapse in appropriations. The GAO also warned that similar moves in the future would be considered “knowing and willful violations” of the law.

Thanks Kevin!

Oh, and the WSJ felt obliged to add this:

State parks won’t be closed because of the shutdown.

Because ... um, they're state parks?

What sort of outdoor recreation data can you collect without a research budget?

I'm doing a small study at Fire Mountain Trails (FMT) in Cherokee, NC: 

The Fire Mountain Trails are Cherokee’s source for big adventure—a multiuse trail system that’s made to mountain bike, hike, or run. The network of trails is more than 11 miles total, so there’s plenty of room for everyone to recreate safely, responsibly…and flowy?

That’s right—if you like your trails with a nice flow of features, with fun berms and quick hits of elevation that are manageable and fun, Fire Mountain is made for you. You’ll find tables, rock gardens, and blinds for those who know, along with single-track and wider sections, spots that are smooth and fast, and trails that invite the more technically accomplished with options for those less so. The trailhead is located at 160 Indian Village Road, about 100 yards from the Oconaluftee Indian Village in Cherokee and shares a parking lot. The trails interlace through the nearby Great Smoky Mountains, so you already know the views and terrain will take your breath away, even if your recreation of choice doesn’t!

The data collection is going to cost less than $250 out of pocket. Right before Memorial Day weekend we put up a sign with a QR code that takes you the online survey. As of the July 4 week we have a disappointing n=23 responses. We have n=96 responses from outreach on social media. The folks at FMT are interested in any economic impacts generated by the trails. I'm interested in collecting data for students and wondering how the two survey modes differ. Real quick, here is the t-test on distance traveled.

Sample 1 is from the QR code and sample 2 is social media. Social media seems to be missing people who travel farther to get there. I'll be posting the link on the WNC mountain bike trails facebook next week so, in addition to more responses from the QR code, there should be more responses by the end of summer. 

A couple of years ago I did a similar study at Beech Mountain trails but Beech Mountain spent about $600 to pay App State students to hang out and pass out rack cards with the QR code. That generated about n=400 responses. I'm concluding that a passive QR code is no substitute for college students pleading with potential respondents at the trailhead. 

Here is a view from my hike on one of the trails:

Free Webinar: Valuing Environmental Catastrophes (with an impressive lineup of experts if I do say so myself!)

Feel free to promote far and wide. Intended for a non-expert audience (my goal is to get a spot in the sequel to this blockbuster).

If you don't like QR codes, you can register here.

 

 

 

 

And you thought your Recreation.gov user fees were funding National Parks

Nope (As National Parks Visits Surge, Booz Allen Benefits): 

Visitors driving into Montana’s Glacier National Park this summer must buy a vehicle pass on Recreation.gov. The pass is free, but visitors pay a $2 fee to book the reservation.

Visitors might assume that, like entrance fees, the reservation charges help pay for improving trails around the park’s Running Eagle Falls or expanding the park’s volunteer program. But a chunk of the money ends up with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

Booz Allen runs Recreation.gov, the website and app where people book campsites, hikes and permits on U.S. public land. The company has a five-year contract that is up for renewal this year. In its bid for the work, Booz Allen used data provided by the government to estimate that over the first five years of the contract, it would receive $87 million, and a total of about $182 million over 10 years.

Booz Allen gets paid every time a user makes a reservation on Recreation.gov, per its government contract. That has earned the company money far beyond the projections in its bid.

Booz Allen invoiced the government for more than $140 million from October 2018 to November 2022, the most recent date available, according to documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal in a public-records request. Ten months remain to be counted for that initial five-year period.

You all are a bunch of suckers:

Booz Allen leadership has described the benefits of per-transaction fee structures like the one Recreation.gov uses. “One thing I learned in B-school, for all that money, it’s a small number times a big number is a big number,” Booz Allen president and chief executive Horacio Rozanski said at the 2019 Citi Global Technology Conference. ...

The arrangement has its critics, including members of a lawsuit against Booz Allen seeking class-action status, and other die-hard national park visitors. They say the government has let a multibillion-dollar company profit by charging for access to public lands—access that used to cost less, or nothing. The lawyers said in the suit that the company is “forcing American consumers to pay Ticketmaster-style junk fees to access national parks and other federal recreational lands.”

Booz Allen says such claims mischaracterize its work and its compensation structure. Recreation.gov officials say the arrangement is an example of efficiency in government: Users get a technologically sound website at no cost to taxpayers. ...

At that point I tuned out Booz Allen while reading the rest of the article, wondering why infrastructure at the Blue Ridge Parkway is underfunded when Booz Allen is getting rich but you should read it and decide for yourself. 

Here are a couple of links: 

• National Parks Continue to Set Visitation Records but Remain Underfunded and Understaffed
• Recreation.gov Use & Share Our Data

Hatchery supported trout waters open Saturday*

From the local paper (Hatchery supported trout waters to open April 1):

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission will open approximately 1,000 miles of Hatchery Supported Trout Waters at 7 a.m. on April 1. The season will run through Feb. 29, 2024.

The Wildlife Commission has posted the full Hatchery Supported Trout Waters stocking schedule on its website to give trout anglers opportunities to plan fishing trips in advance. The schedule is searchable by county and month and provides information on what days each water is being stocked.

Hatchery Supported Trout Waters, which are marked by green-and-white signs, have been closed since Feb. 28 for stocking. Most trout are stocked April through June, with a few streams selectively stocked in July. Overall, staff will stock nearly 964,000 trout — 96% of which will average 10 inches in length, with the other 4% exceeding 14 inches in length.

One might think that I like to fish as many papers as I've worked on. But nope, I don't seem to be motivated to go fishing. Even with almost one million trout ready to  slay.

I don't like to golf either.  

*It's also my Adoption Day today (i.e., I don't look like my parents). Let me know how you celebrate in the comments.

Last week I began a research project for @FoothillsOfNC

On the Monday of spring break I drove to Morganton, NC and visited Oak Hill Community Park and Forest: 

Located 10 minutes from downtown Morganton, the park will be a hub for outdoor recreation, education, agriculture and archaeological exploration for Morganton residents and visitors.

Foothills Conservancy's Executive Director Andrew Kota (one of my former MBA students) led us on a hike where you can get a view of the South Mountains. In the foreground of the picture you can see the plantings of native trees (I forget the species). 

We'll be putting up signs with a URL and QR code to an online survey when the park opens later this year. Combined with a trail counter we can develop estimates of economic impacts and do a benefit-cost analysis (an "estimate of probable costs" can be found in the Oak Hill Master Plan (see the park link above). The data is from a convenience sample but some data is better than no data. As these studies can be used to decide whether a more representative (and much more expensive) sample is necessary. The out-of-pocket cost estimate for this study is less than $1000. The signs will be about $250 and a trail counter is between $620 and $800. 

Back in 2021 I worked on a Beech Mountain trails study and this will be similar to that, although I'm hoping to get better at this sort of thing as more lessons are learned. For example, I need separate surveys for different data collection methods. At Beech we had signs with URLs and QR codes and a team of students passing out rack cards with the same information. It would have been very useful to see where the data came from but the links went to only one survey. Also, Beech Mountain is full of vacationers so it is difficult to estimate a recreation demand model. 

The (horrible) gift of government shutdowns?

The US government did not shut down in FY 2023. That is immensely unremarkable...

But, I had a social media memory pop up about the most recent shutdown in the US, so I'm going to write about them. It was the longest shutdown in US history: 35 days (December 22nd 2018 to January 25th 2019) because agreement could not be reached to fund a giant wall between the United States and Mexico. The federal government has had major shutdowns under each of its last three presidents, so it will probably happen again soon. *See the end of this post for a quick primer on how shutdowns occur.  

Flashback 10 years: I was in grad school during a sixteen-day shutdown in 2013 under President Obama and was deep in literature on the local impacts of EPA Superfund remediation. Several papers estimate the impact of cleanups on local housing markets (when they are discovered, housing prices fall; when they are cleaned, housing prices increase). I remember thinking, 'WHAT A HORRIBLE GIFT a shutdown is researchers!' Horrible because shutdowns are very costly (380,000 federal employees were furloughed due to the 2019 shutdown), but a gift because shutdowns may be a true, sharp, random shock to government programs that are uncorrelated with local characteristics. They hurt... but, they give us a good shot at some causal estimates of program impacts! 

But... thankfully... this line of research is pretty much a non-starter in environmental... I think. Today (2.9.2023) I searched "government shutdown" in JAERE, JEEM, REEP, and ERE and found 0 results of environmental econ papers that work with government shutdowns. And that may good news for society... because when shutdowns happen, the EPA mostly stays operational if it involves human health. The EPA actually regularly publishes a contingency plan for government shutdown. All cleanups underway (or site discoveries) that involve immediate harm to human health continue operation. Benign waste sites and work-in-progress at safe sites get halted.  

Good for society, bad for researchers. If a Superfund site does experience a shutdown pause, it's likely becuase it is not a risk to human health... which means it is perhaps not located near a large population, and potentially correlated with other local characteristics. Darn... exogeneity ruined. 

There may be other interesting environmental questions to answer with shutdowns, however. For example, I found a paper by Todd Gabe in Applied Econ Letters estimating the impacts of shutdown-induced National Parks closures on local tourism and gate fees. Insofar as we don't get to observe high quality counterfactual data in a world where massive national parks don't exist, government shutdowns may provide us the opportunity to value the local impacts (hey, John! Talking about valuation over here!). 

**A quick primer: each year, congress has to pass twelve budget appropriations to fund crucial entities, like many of the EPAs activities. The twelve bills are consolidated into one large appropriations bill and usually passed at the end of the year. If congress can't pass the bill, they can pass a "continuing resolution" which uses the previous year's budget to fund activities until the new appropriations pass. If they can''t do either of those, the government shuts down until the appropriations pass. The BIG result is that many government programs come to a screeching halt.