The US Built a Site to Ensure Fair Access to Public Lands. Then Everything Went Wrong

We do know that Booz Allen Hamilton is making much more money than it originally projected. In the contract, the company estimated that it would make $87 million in the first five years, and a total of about $182 million over 10 years if the contract was extended, which it has been.

According to their invoices, Booz Allen Hamilton billed for more than $140 million in the first four years of the contract. The Forest Service didn’t return our FOIA request for more recent numbers, but one analyst, Canadian sales strategist Blair Enns, projected that they could make $620 million by the time their contract expires in September 2028.

The uptick in traffic is one reason for that. But the model has also changed since 2016. That year there were less than 3 million reservations through the site; in 2023 there were roughly 9 million. BAH says there are now 5,800 facilities and more than 128,000 sites and activities to reserve. More facilities have shifted to using Rec.gov’s system, and things that were free, or didn’t exist, are now run through Rec.gov, where they come with a charge. That includes things like free Christmas tree–cutting permits for fourth graders (now with a $2.50 fee!) and timed entry tickets to national parks, introduced in 2021, which are nominally free but have a $2 processing fee. Booz Allen Hamilton gets a percentage of every permit application fee, even if you don’t win a permit.

That might be news to you, because it’s not clearly delineated on the site. As one former ranger, Betsy Walsh, told me, she often talked to people who were surprised. “People want to support the parks, so they’re fine with fees,” says Walsh, who worked at several parks before being let go from her job at Thomas Edison National Historical Park during the 2025 DOGE layoffs. “But you’re not supporting the parks. You’re supporting a private company.”

It’s not transparent. And in the past few years, several groups have gone to court alleging that it’s not legal, either.

In 2022, a Nevada hiker named Thomas Kotab sued the Bureau of Land Management, arguing in his complaint that the $2 fee for visiting Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area violated FLREA, which says public participation is required for setting fees and that it needs to be clear how much money stays on the landscape. The BLM moved to dismiss the case, but the district court ruled in Kotab’s favor on the public-participation aspect of his claim. The fees, however, were never changed.

The next year, seven plaintiffs filed a class-action suit, Robyn Wilson et al. v. Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging that the company was “forcing American consumers to pay Ticketmaster-style Junk Fees to access National Parks and other federal recreational lands.” BAH filed a motion to dismiss, alleging the plaintiffs didn’t understand the contract. “To be sure,” its memorandum asserted, “certain federal agencies charge reservation fees to the users to help cover the government’s costs of operating Recreation.gov, including the USDA’s payments to Booz Allen. But those fees are charged by the agencies in their ‘sole discretion.’” More than six months after filing their lawsuit, the plaintiffs filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss their case. Their lawyers did not reply to requests for comment.