# Plain Language Summary: Yosemite National Park Equal Access and Fairness Act

This bill opens up two areas in Yosemite National Park—Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and Lake Eleanor Basin—for public recreation. Currently, these areas are largely off-limits to visitors, but the bill would allow swimming, camping, picnicking, and non-motorized boating in these locations. People would also be able to use roads to access these areas by car or on foot. The bill essentially treats these water areas more like typical national park recreation zones where the public can enjoy outdoor activities, rather than keeping them restricted as they are now.

The bill also increases the annual rental fee that the City of San Francisco pays for operating its water and power system in these areas. Right now, San Francisco pays $30,000 per year—a number that hasn't changed since 1913. The bill raises this to $2 million annually and requires it to increase each year based on inflation. The bill also prevents San Francisco from passing these costs onto its water and power customers; the city must absorb the increased fees itself. Additionally, the bill requires San Francisco to contribute to wildfire prevention and mitigation activities in the area.

Finally, the bill directs the National Park Service to study and report back to Congress within a year about how these areas were originally intended to be used for recreation, and whether that original purpose has been followed. The report should also analyze how to fairly fund maintenance of these areas—including trail work, road improvements, and wildfire prevention—while keeping them accessible to the public. This is essentially a call to examine whether San Francisco has been getting too good a deal for too long while the public has been largely excluded from these scenic areas.

Yosemite National Park Equal Access and Fairness Act

Rep. McClintock, Tom [R-CA-5]

Yosemite National Park Equal Access and Fairness Act This bill makes changes with respect to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and Lake Eleanor Basin areas of Yosemite National Park. Specifically, the bill increases rent paid by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for the use of the park from $30,000 to $2 million per year. That amount shall be adjusted annually to reflect increases in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The commission may not recoup such sums from wholesale water or power customers. The bill allows collected rent to be used by the Department of the Interior for wildfire mitigation activities in the park and other national parks in California. The bill requires the National Park Service to administer the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and Lake Eleanor Basin areas for public recreation, benefit, and use in a manner that will preserve scenic, historic, scientific, or otherwise important features.