| Subject: |
|
S2438, the Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act of 2007 |
| Name: |
|
Mark S. |
| Date Posted: |
|
Mar 12, 08 - 7:18 PM |
| IP Address: |
|
64.80.179.213 |
| Message: |
|
This bill does not do anything for detecting but will benefit everyone by repealing a lot of the fees that are in place for use of our own public lands. Contact your congressman and ask for their support. You can do it by going to the Legislative page where you will find a link for contacting your federal representatives.
Mark S.
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The 1965 rules were repealed in late 1996 by the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that came to be known as Fee Demo.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." |
|
Replies:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
FMDAC Forum
bravenet.com