Burgum Wants Foreign Visitor Fees, Like Seeing Rwanda Gorillas

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said he wants to charge international visitors to national parks more than Americans, as if they’re visiting “gorillas in Rwanda.”

The Interior Department is missing “a $1 billion revenue opportunity” by not charging international visitors to Yosemite and other national parks more than domestic visitors—money that could be used for park maintenance and staffing, Burgum said Thursday during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing.

“We’re way undercharging as a nation for international visitors,” he said. “We’ve done a study of what gets charged if you were going to see the gorillas in Rwanda, if you’re going to the Galapagos Islands.”

Some of those experiences cost "$500 a day or higher,” he said, answering a question from Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) about enhancing hospitality at national parks.

“I’m not entirely sure we want to discourage international visitors from visiting our national parks, either,” McClintock responded.

Today, entrance fees to national parks range from no fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park to $35 for a private vehicle at Yosemite National Park in California. Parks are funded through congressional appropriations and entrance fees.

A March proposal published in the Wall Street Journal by Montana-based right-leaning think tank Property and Environment Research Center suggests that the National Park Service should impose a $100 surcharge on foreign visitors.

Burgum said revenue from an international fee would be redirected to deferred maintenance and staffing within the parks.

The Interior Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The department is considering increased fees as Congress weighs the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal, which calls for slashing about $1.2 billion from the National Park Service’s budget and transferring some of the 433 NPS-managed sites to states or other entities.

Monuments and Wind Farms

Burgum also suggested at the hearing that he’s interested in shrinking Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. He echoed a legal opinion the Justice Department issued this week that justifies abolishing or shrinking monuments created by presidents under the Antiquities Act.

He said national monuments should be no larger than the smallest area compatible with historic objects they’re created to protect. The Utah monuments together are more than 3 million acres.

“The idea that we can just transform and change the land use on millions of acres” is something he opposes, Burgum said. “We’re going to be taking a close look and working with the administration in the large public land states who are really impinged by these decisions.”

Burgum also said he’s willing to work with members of Congress to potentially impose a moratorium on onshore wind power development on federal land until the Bureau of Land Management can conduct a more thorough environmental impact review of wind farms.

“There is certainly no appetite in this administration for adding more intermittent unreliable” power sources the grid, he said. “It’s a grid problem. The imbalance creates real risk for the country.”