8 September 2025

Articles for this issue

1. Digital America the Beautiful Passes Coming Soon!
2. Digital ATB Pass - Upcoming September Trainings

Digital America the Beautiful Passes Coming Soon!

As required by law in the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences Act or "EXPLORE Act", the Interagency Pass Program (IAP) led by the National Park Service is expanding its current scope to enable visitors to purchase, store, and use digital America the Beautiful-the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Passes. The IAP has engaged Recreation.gov, the federal government's centralized reservation platform, to provide an integrated digital interagency pass solution that enables users to easily purchase, manage, and use a pass to visit federal recreational lands, and offer agency staff a streamlined way to manage and administer passes.

Beginning with a pilot on October 1, 2025, Recreation.gov will welcome customers to purchase digital America the Beautiful Annual Passes through the website, call center, mobile application, and in person via field sales. We must prepare to encounter digital Interagency Annual Passes from visitors where a standard amenity day-use fee is charged starting in October. Additional passes from the suite of America the Beautiful passes will be made available for issue/purchase as digital passes through Recreation.gov on January 1, 2026.

This digital advancement will require compliance by all USACE staff, contractors, and volunteers managing our recreation areas. We must ensure the America the Beautiful pass visitors can access federal lands with ease via new digital interagency passes. Field staff will receive training guidance and instruction to understand process changes and confidently incorporate digital interagency passes into management routines.

As it is released, all information related to the Digital Pass program will be stored centrally on the NRM gateway here: https://corpslake s.erdc.dren.mil/employees/usefees/digitalpass.cfm
At this time, all information posted on the NRM Gateway should be considered for Internal Use Only. A coordinated communication and outreach plan is being prepared at the interagency level for public release at a later date.

An FAQ document has recently been added that will address many of your current questions, but please understand that the program is evolving every day, and some information may change.

The POC for this matter is Jason Owen, the USACE R1S Program Manager. Jason is working closely with each District's R1S and Recreation Fee POC to ensure projects are prepared for this change. Please reach out to him if you have questions.

Thanks for your attention to this matter and for all you do for the USACE Recreation Program

Ryan Hartwig
National Recreation Program Manager

Digital ATB Pass - Upcoming September Trainings

Here are the upcoming training sessions for Digital America the Beautiful Passes. Please pass this along to all your projects, regardless of their recreation.gov use. If they have a fee program, they will need this information.

There are 3 different links below with multiple dates for 3 different offerings. The first round is just a general overview of changes, and will provide basic information for all field staff. The next 2 rounds will depend on how the project uses rec.gov to sell and validate passes. Most of us will likely need to attend the rec.gov user sessions at 11-12 ET. The non rec.gov user sessions will be more focused on NPS since they use a completely different system to sell passes in person, BUT projects that use Ventek tablets to sell passes might get some useful information.

Information Session – 30 minute overview session
Audience: Recreation.gov Users, Non-Recreation.gov Users
Multiple Sessions (pick one):