Across the United States, cash is quietly disappearing from places that once took it without question. Government agencies and private businesses now route even the smallest transactions through digital networks that record who paid, when, and where.
This has created a growing dependence on card processors and mobile payment companies that profit from every exchange and hold the power to deny or suspend access.
That dependence has now reached federal land. The National Park Service has begun refusing cash at dozens of parks and historic sites, forcing visitors to use electronic payment systems to enter public property.
A lawsuit challenging that policy argues that by excluding physical currency, the agency is violating federal law and pushing citizens into a digital system that tracks their movements and spending.
Attorney Ray Flores has filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seeking to overturn the dismissal of a lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS) for refusing to accept cash at dozens of federal sites.
We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.
The case, backed by Children’s Health Defense, centers on whether a federal agency can legally decline the very currency the government itself issues.
At issue is the NPS policy that bars visitors from paying park entrance fees with cash. The appeal argues that the agency has violated both the Administrative Procedure Act and the Legal Tender Statute, which defines US coins and bills as “legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.”
Flores wrote that the district court’s earlier decision effectively “demonetized the U.S. Dollar on federal property without justification.”
His brief asks the appeals court to declare the policy unlawful or send the case back for trial.
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