Repeal Bill for Forest Fees |
Repeal Bill for Forest Fees |
Jan 5 2008, 01:35 PM
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Shovel Buster! Group: Members Posts: 179 Joined: 2-May 05 Member No.: 252 |
We all need to call our legislators and let them not we support doing away with the Recreation fees on Forest Service and BLM lands.
Jerry Dear Public Lands Supporter: FYI the following press release was sent out today. Please copy it to your local media. The Fee Repeal bill has been given a number: S2438. You can read the text at www.thomas.loc.gov <http://www.thomas.loc.gov/>. Type in the bill number then click Search by Bill Number. It can be tricky to understand since it refers to several other laws and has language repealing previous repeals, which works like a double-negative, i.e. the repeal of a repeal is a re-instatement. Essentially, the bill restores the rules under which the Forest Service, BLM, Fish & Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Reclamation operated for over 30 years under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. They will be able to charge for developed campgrounds, swim sites, and boat launches. No more fees for trailheads, scenic overlooks, roads, parking, toilets, or picnic tables. National Park entrance fees are retained, but the National Parks Pass is reinstated at $50 and the planned NPS increases every 3 years using the Consumer Price Index are stopped. The America the Beautiful Pass ($80) goes away. Please contact your U.S. Representative and both of your U.S. Senators and ask them to support S2438. Kitty Benzar, President Western Slope No-Fee Coalition December 18, 2007 For Immediate Release More information: Kitty Benzar 970/259-4616 wsnfc@earthlink.net Bill Would Eliminate Recreation Fees No-Fee Coalition Hails Proposal, Calls For National Public Lands Initiative DURANGO CO A bill introduced by three western Senators on December 10 would repeal the Federal Lands Recreation Act and restore free public access to millions of acres of federal public lands managed by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Bureau of Reclamation. Montana Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester joined with Idaho Senator Mike Crapo as original co-sponsors of S2438, the Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act of 2007. Baucus and Tester are Democrats, Crapo a Republican. The Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, which has championed the effort to end the user fees that began as an experiment in 1996, hailed the bill as the first step in a national initiative to restore public lands to public control. "The Fee Repeal Act will bring an end to a failed experiment that has for 10 years burdened Americans with a double tax and kept them away from public lands they have always enjoyed," Benzar said. "I applaud this bipartisan effort and call on all public lands supporters to mobilize in support of it." S2438 would allow National Parks to continue to charge Entrance Fees, but would return all other federal land management agencies to the provisions of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965, which governed recreation use fees for 32 years. Fees would be allowed only in developed campgrounds and swim sites, and at specialized boat launch facilities. Fees would be specifically prohibited for the use, either singly or in any combination, of drinking water, wayside exhibits, roads, overlook sites, visitors' centers, scenic drives, toilet facilities, or solely for the use of picnic tables. Fees would also be prohibited for dispersed, undeveloped camping and recreation. The 1965 rules were repealed in late 1996 by the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that came to be known as Fee Demo. Originally limited to a 2-year experiment at no more than 100 sites, Fee Demo was repeatedly expanded and extended, but met increasing public resistance. By 2004, there was so much opposition to Fee Demo that another extension was unlikely to pass, and the program was set to expire. Instead, Representative Ralph Regula (R-OH) attached the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act to a must-pass omnibus appropriations bill, which went into effect on December 8, 2004. FLREA, known to its detractors as the Recreation Access Tax, or RAT, replaced Fee Demo with a permanent fee program. It was never debated on the floor of the House and was not even introduced in the Senate. Under FLREA, access fees have multiplied, visitation has declined, recreational facilities that cannot pay their own way in fees have been closed, and fee revenue has replaced public funds at the local level. "Recreation user fees were originally sold as a way for the agencies to raise supplemental funds to address their backlogged maintenance," according to Benzar. "Instead, fee revenue was used for day-to-day operations and to build facilities that have only added to long-term maintenance needs. And now we are facing thousands of site closures and being told they are necessary because there is still no money for the backlog." Appropriated funding for recreation has increased by 22% over the past 10 years, but administration and overhead costs have skyrocketed, and fewer dollars are making it to the ground. Some local areas saw budget cuts of up to 60% last summer, even though appropriated funding was the same as the prior year. Even as local managers were facing huge cuts, a 2006 audit of the recreation fee program by the Government Accountability Office (GAO 06-1016) found that $296 million in unobligated fee receipts was being held by the four federal land management agencies that are authorized to levy fees. A full 93% of National Forests were carrying unobligated fee accounts, and 58% of Forests had more than a year's fee revenue in their unobligated fund. Benzar sees the policy of Fee Retention at the heart of the problem. "Fee Demo and RAT allowed the local land managers to keep whatever recreation fee revenue they could raise, instead of returning it to the Treasury," she said. "Congressional oversight was lost, and appropriated funding was diverted to other uses. Local managers were left to raise their own budgets, and their incentives changed from land stewardship to revenue generation. They began looking at citizens as customers, instead of as the owners of public lands." After ten years of increasing reliance on fee revenue, the program will not be easy to uproot. Benzar is calling on public land users and supporters to rally behind the fee repeal bill as the first step in a new National Public Lands Initiative. "Numerous state legislatures, county commissions, city councils, and civic organizations have passed resolutions opposing Fee Demo and RAT," said Benzar. "We will be asking all of them, and additional groups as well, to support S2438. "For a decade, the agencies have been acting as if they own our public lands," she concluded. "It's time for the real owners - the American people - to step up and assert our rights. This bill offers us a golden opportunity to take back our precious public lands." |
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Jan 6 2008, 05:29 AM
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russau Group: Members Posts: 2,841 Joined: 4-December 03 From: st.louis missouri Member No.: 43 |
ill be emailing my state legislators today!
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Jan 6 2008, 11:20 AM
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Master Mucker! Group: Admin Posts: 4,149 Joined: 7-October 03 From: Colorado Member No.: 3 |
Awesome news!
The Western Slope No Fee Coalition has been doing some great work for a long long time. Their efforts and many citizens efforts are why FS plan revisions were suddenly halted last year. Everyone can learn more about them and the history behind this from their site at www.westernslopenofee.org Great work folks!! CP -------------------- CP-Owner/Administrator
www.ColoradoProspector.com IF YOU USE IT, THE GROUND PRODUCED IT! MINERS MAKE "IT" HAPPEN!! |
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