Youth Camp Safety Act

(Measure passed House, amended, roll call #128 (197-174))

Youth Camp Safety Act - Makes it the purpose of this Act to protect and safeguard the health and well-being of youth attending day camps, resident camps, and travel camps by providing for the establishment of Federal standards for the safe operation of youth camps.

Expresses the intent of the Congress that the States assume responsibility for the development and enforcement of minimum standards at least as effective as the Federal standards.

Establishes in the Office of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare an Office of Youth Camp Safety to be headed by a Director of Youth Camp Safety.

Confers upon the Director the primary responsibility for the promulgation and enforcement of Federal and State youth camp safety regulations.

Requires the Director to submit proposed standards, rules, or regulations to the Congress, for its possible disapproval, before promulgation.

Requires any State which desires to assume responsibility for the development and modification of youth camp safety standards to submit a State plan to the Director for his approval. Allows a State whose plan has been rejected to obtain review of the decision in the United States Court of Appeals.

Directs the Director to make grants to the States for the development of State youth camp safety plans; to States which have plans in effect which are approved by this Act; and to States for the early operation and improvement of youth camp safety programs.

Authorizes to be appropriated $7,500,000 for fiscal year 1975, and for each succeeding fiscal year, to make the grants provided for in this Act.

Authorizes the Director to enter and inspect youth camps and their records.

Directs the Director to establish within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare an Advisory Council on Youth Camp Safety and to submit to Congress at least once a year a comprehensive and detailed report on his administration under this Act.

Prescribes penalties for each violation by youth camp operators of the standards promulgated pursuant to this Act.

Authorizes the Director to request directly from any department or agency of the Federal Government information, suggestions, estimates, and statistics needed to carry out his functions under this Act; and such department or agency is authorized to furnish such information, suggestions, estimates, and statistics directly to the Director.

States that no State law which provides youth camp health and safety standards equal to or superior to those promulgated under the provisions of this Act shall be superseded thereby.

Prohibits the Director from promulgating regulations or standards affecting the curriculum, admission standards, or religious requirements of youth camps.

Defines the term "youth camp" to mean any residential camp, day camp, troop camp, travel camp, trip camp, primitive or outpost camp, or Federal recreational youth camp on public or private land, and activities promoted or advertised as a youth camp regardless of the programs advocated, and shall also include any site or facility primarily designed for other purposes, such as, but not limited to, any school, playground, resort, wilderness area, or Government land, which is conducted for ten or more campers under eighteen years of age.

Defines the term "day camp" to mean a camp which is operated on a campsite on an organized basis for all or part of the day but less than twenty-four hours a day during one or more seasons of the year.