National parks must now accept cash for admission fees
S. 1037 — PARC Act · Filed by Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) · 7 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 13, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the National Park Service to accept cash payments for entrance fees at all national parks that charge admission. Currently, parks can refuse cash and require credit/debit cards or other electronic payment methods; this bill mandates they must take cash.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a requirement that federal park units accept a specific payment method (cash) for entrance fees. It is a straightforward access-and-inclusion measure with no hidden provisions or narrow beneficiaries.
What the text implies
- Parks may face operational costs to handle, secure, and transport cash; these costs are not addressed in the bill and may be absorbed by park budgets or passed to taxpayers.
- The bill does not specify whether parks must accept cash at all payment points (entrance booths, online, kiosks) or only at physical gates, creating potential implementation ambiguity.
- Parks may respond by raising entrance fees uniformly to offset cash-handling costs, which could indirectly burden the same unbanked populations the bill aims to help.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens without credit cards, bank accounts, or digital payment access gain guaranteed ability to visit national parks. This removes a barrier to public access to federally owned recreational resources and strengthens democratic access to shared public lands.
Named in the bill
National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, National Park System
Where it stands
7 cosponsors: 7 Republicans.
- Mar 13, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 13, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $40,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 1 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Cynthia Lummis, the sponsor, reported $558,192 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Oracle American Inc. — $40,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (553 characters) on Sep 27, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 15,316 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-27.
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