[The retirees’ coalition has a zero-tolerance policy on commercialism in the parks, even opposing the idea of bricks or benches featuring the names of donors. Wade says the only way the parks can truly be a national system is if they are funded by taxpayers, "and, in my judgment, do away with fees, except for certain user fees."

Wade claims the current fee structure excludes entire demographics from experiencing the parks. But Crandall holds an opposing — and seemingly reasonable — view.

"There has never, ever been any proof to that assertion. Again, remember, you can get into every national park in this country for an entire year for $50," Crandall says. "We’re talking about a maximum charge for a carload of people for seven days of $25.]

Crandall is blowing hot air as is anyone who continues to assert that there is no direct correlation between increasing fees and decreasing visitation. The correlation has been established beyond any reasonable measure of doubt. I could provide dozens of pieces of strong evidence to support this statement,  but will provide merely four.  If Crandall or any other fee-tout would like to pit his or her evidence against mine in an open public forum, I invite them to do so!

1. When entrance fees were reduced in California's State Park System, visitation SOARED.
   
   
2. When parking fees we introduced in Washington's State Park System, visitation PLUMMETED.
   
   
3. The Canadian government says "parking meters in provincial parks are almost entirely to blame for the steep drop in visits to B.C. provincial parks."
   

It was become increasingly popular to deny reality or claim a lack of facts when facts abound. It has become popular to deny common sense truths, such as when prices rise, demand drops or higher prices impact lower income persons more than they do the rich. It has become all too popular to deny that the public makes  BLACK and WHITE distinctions between that which is entirely free and that which comes with a price tag. And it is ludicrous in the extreme to suggest, as some have done, that the higher park entrance fees are priced, the more the public will value their parks.

Let me close with this statement and this prediction.

THE STATEMENT: On January 1, 2007 -- it will be out with the old $50 National Park Pass and in with the new $80 America the Beautiful Pass.

THE PREDICTION: Throughout the year, there will be a massive effort by the Park Service, tourism industry and several high-profile conservation organizations to lure additional visitors to the parks. The media will, I predict, be saturated with advertorials and planted stories -- even more so that we saw in 2006.

If park visitation holds steady in 2007, fee-touts will claim that the public accepted the higher-priced America the Beautiful Pass without complaint and if park visitation continues to decline, you will hear denials or silence, from those same fee-touts.

As for the forth piece of evidence, please see the appended news article published just days ago.

Scott

The US Forest Service didn't exactly say "Get of my lands", but they have been acting as if the National Forests are theirs and citizens wanting to visit these lands had damned well better be prepared to pay for that privilege.

Pasted below is a sharply worded denouncement of the Tucson area's Mount Lemmon fee published today in the Tucson Citizen. The local reporter rightly called the fee program "a real lemon" and tells forest officials to "take their fee stations off of our land."

I'd like to add that the US Forest Service is, at this very moment, embroiled in even bigger battles involving access to forest lands. As part of Recreation Site Facility Master Planning, the USFS is about 2/3rd of the way thought the process of targeting unprofitable recreation sites all across America for decommissioning, closure and or privatization. As part of the January 2007 roll-out of the new $80 multi-agency public lands access passport known as "America the Beautiful Pass", the USFS just days ago committed their 16 media talking points to paper and are now conveying these points to the media. Several of these talking points are tall tales. One reveals a stark truth.

Here, for example, is a tall tale. It is talking point #6:

"Many recreation uses and activities continue to be free on all National Forest System managed lands. Examples include general access, pass-through travel, scenic overlooks and pullouts, parking on the side of roads, and walk-up camping at undeveloped sites."

Read the appended article and you will discover how the government is pursing one woman through the court system because she parked on the side of a road and walked in the woods. Know also that I personally have been ticket by the USFS for parking on the side of a road. In my case, however, when I told the prosecutor that I wanted to fight that ticket, the agency immediately backed down.


Here is a second of the agency's talking point. It is point #12 and it presents a stark statement of truth!

"Fees continue to be one part of a comprehensive recreation funding strategy which also includes appropriated funds, volunteer assistance, interagency cooperation, partnerships, commercial operations and funds leveraged from other sources."

Fees are, as I have frequently stated and as the USFS confirms, merely one tool in the toolbox now being used to facilitate a shifting in the way public recreation opportunities are funded -- from public funding to privatized alternatives.

Scott

A great many National Park advocates have high hopes for the new director Mary Bomar. After the horror that was Fran Mainella, it is understandable that people who love our parks desperately want to believe that the current director will be better than the last.

I expect that will be the case, but only because of how extraordinarily horrible was Mainella. Yet Mainella merely lived up to my expectations. For example, on the day Mainella's name was offered up as a candidate for the Director's position, I wrote:

 A few hours ago, President Bush announced the nomination of Fran Mainella to head the National Park Service. I would hope that the environmental community HOWLS like banshees at this nomination!!!!

Later that  week I went on to say:

Can there be any doubt that Ms. Mainella's job will be to  facilitate the Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the Wild?

Mary Bomar will not be another Mainella though she won't be a great director either. My guts tell me Bomar will likely do a great deal of harm by successfully facilitating additional commercialization, privatization and perhaps even motorization of the park system. But because Bomar is so damned politically savvy and personable, that fact will likely go unnoticed until after the damage is done.

Because Bomar is so damned savvy, I predict that neither the press nor the big-green conservation organizations will adequately watchdog her and as a consequence of that failure, Bomar will successfully advance much the same agenda Mainella would have advanced had Mainella been competent.

Pasted below is Bomar's very first memo to her troops. It sounds so love-er-ly that Julie Andrews or even Mary Poppins herself might have sung it.

I've emboldened phrases and passages that jarred my tilt sensors. This phrases will become the issues for which, in retrospect, former Director Bomar will probably be best known.. or so I predict.

Scott

In recent weeks, dramatically shifting federal recreation policies have begun collapsing all at once.  Efforts of the land management agencies and their private sector partners to concentrate opportunities for outdoor recreation into areas where "experiences" could be sold to PAYING CUSTOMERS are meeting with increasing resistance.  Having been pushed too far by the magnitude, rapidity, insensitivity and overt greed of these changes, the recreating public and key members of Government are pushing back.

Pasted below how the generally conservative, recreation industry-friendly, Federal Parks and Recreation newsletter described that situation today. If anything, opposition the new $80 public lands access pass and associated efforts to shutter recreation sites is even greater than this article suggests!

Scott

PS...the article ends with a gratuitous plug for "a free volunteer pass". That so-called "free" annual access pass is available only to persons who have already contributed 500 hours of free volunteer labor.

Quoted from appended article about the steeply rising cost of taking a walk in the woods:

 [ Critics of the fee hike, including Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., questioned the high cost of the pass. "An $80 fee is certainly higher than what folks should have to pay to recreate on federal lands," Thomas said.

    Thomas, the outgoing Senate Parks Subcommittee chairman, said he opposed expanding the recreation fee beyond the national parks to other federal land management agencies, which will result in higher fees with no guarantee of improving the impacted recreation sites. ]

Let me be plain about this. The reason it will cost you $80 to recreate upon your public lands is because a few democracy-hating, free-market-touting, ideologues such as Lynn Scarlett fought long and hard to eliminate public funding for public lands and to replace  free access with pay-to-play. The reason it will cost $80 to enjoy your birthright is because the recreation industry, lead by the American Recreation Coalition, spent more than two decades and buckets of money lobbying Congress for this change.

To my conservation and progressive-oriented friends, I ask you --- what do you make of the hearty endorsement given by Mark Rey and Lynn Scarlett for the new America the Beautiful Pass???

To all of my friends, conservatives and progressives alike, I ask you --- do you agree with Senator Thomas (R-WY) that entrance fees should be confined to the National Parks ONLY --- and that those fees should be kept affordable???

America is made less beautiful with each infringement of the rights of citizens. America is made less beautiful by the transformation of fully-vested citizens into mere customers. Please do not passively accept this latest infringement.

Scott

PS... The  "America the Beautiful Pass" was 27 years in the making. I have warned of its coming since 1997. GOOGLE for "wild wilderness" combined with "America the Beautiful" and you get 456 hits. Follow them and you will learn the ugly truth about this new pass.

Beginning more than 15 years ago, the recreation industry, led by the American Recreation Coalition began lobbying Congress for the creation of a universal public lands access pass that they called "The America the Beautiful Passport".  Congress even introduced the ARC's preferred legislation in 1992, though the proposal received a cold reception and went nowhere.

Opposition to the ARC's passport never waned, but the political landscape of America shifted and in 2004 ARC's legislation was sneaked though Congress as an appropriations rider. After 15 years, the recreation industry got it's way, the "America the Beautiful Passport" was renamed the "America the Beautiful Pass" and the people of America must now pay the price.

Yesterday the government announced that the new public lands access pass would go on sale beginning January 1. What follows are excerpts from what was said  today on the blogosphere The public is not amused. More to the point, the public is not buying the line our government is selling.

Scott

The America the Beautiful Pass became real yesterday when federal officials announced that this new $80 per year public lands access pass will go on sale beginning January 2007.

Many of my readers will recall that the is was Ohio Congressman Ralph Regula who introduced the legislation that gave us the much detested Recreation Fee Demonstration Program in 1996.  Some may recall that it was the Congressman Regula who introduced the legislation that gave us the Recreation Access Tax (aka the RAT) in 2004. Few will know that it was this very same Congressman, Mr. Regula who, in 1992, introduced legislation that for the first time in America's History proposed the creation of an outdoor recreation PASSPORT --- a passport to be purchased and carried by all who recreate upon America's Public Lands.

That 1992 legislative proposal, which can be read below, was broadly denounced and soundly defeated.

By way of contrast, the legislative proposal that has given us both the RAT and the America the Beautiful Pass was never so much as introduced in the US Senate. It was attached in the middle of the night onto "must pass" legislation and became law over the objection of the American People and of those in Congress who had vowed to prevent this bill from becoming the law of the land.

The Pass is called "America the Beautiful" but there is nothing beautiful in how it became the law of the land. There is nothing beautiful in that fact that citizens must now pay to walk in their National Forests. There is nothing beautiful in having to show a photo ID when using the new America the Beautiful Pass --- or is that Passport?

Scott

On September 28th,  I shared a message I'd titled: Government Offers Volunteers Slave Wages . In it, I announced that federal land management agencies would soon introduce the new America The Beautiful public lands pass and that persons unable to pay the anticipated $85 - $100 price tag would be given the option to earn a pass by volunteering 500 hours for one or more of the land management agencies.  Assuming the $100 price-tag, I pointed out that for purposes of this recreation pass, the government was valuing citizen's labor at 20 cents per hour. I was wrong.

Today the Department of Interior and the US Forest Service formally announced the introduction of this pass. While it will, as I suggested, still be available at absolutely no cost to anyone who volunteers 500 hours, the cash purchase price will be just $80 per year. The value of volunteer labor has thus been devalued by 20%.

I'd ask you to consider how much personal time 500 hours represents.

• If you worked 8 hour days, five days a week, you could earn an America The Beautiful in 12.5 weeks.
  
  
• If you worked 2 hours a day, each and every day after returning home from your normal place of employment, after one year you would have volunteered enough to receive an $80 pass.
  
  
• If you worked 24/7 from this moment (December 5) until Christmas --never stopping for breaks, never stopping to eat or sleep -- late on Christmas Day federal land managers would be ready to reward you with a one of their friendly stocking stuffers.

Today the US Forest Service and Department of Interior jointly announced the introduction of the "America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass." (see appended).  With this new pass comes the end of an era of almost universal free-access to public lands. It also shatters the illusion that the recreation fees introduced since 1996 are "user fees".

Ten years ago, the concept of "recreation user-fees" was foisted upon this nation. The vision was that the federal government would gradually cease to offer opportunities to recreate on America's public lands as if citizens had any kind of right to enjoy those opportunities. The idea was that outdoor recreation would be packaged, marketed and sold to paying customers by land managers and their private-partners. Access to public recreation sites would become a privilege for which the public would be required to pay.

Yet when the user-fee concept was first rolled out, the American pubic was told that the fee they paid would be used to fund the service they consumed. Today, with the issuance of the interagency America the Beautiful Pass, we have moved beyond that concept.  From this day forth, when you purchase an "America the Beautiful" at the new www.recreation.gov web-portal,  the $80 you pay will be divided amongst 5 federal agencies operating in 50 states.

What do you call that - a user-fee, or a tax????  And let me just add this. It is a quote from the US Forest Service they used in the late 90s until they realized that their words were making their new $5 per day user fee program look ridiculous.

"A person with an annual income of $40,000 pays less than $.03 per year in taxes to recreate on Forest Service lands, nationwide."

By the way, you are still paying that same 3 cents in income taxes, though now it doesn't look like a lot of money compared to the cost of an America the Beautiful Pass.

Scott

PS... stay tuned. I will be having a lot to say about this new pass in the next few days. 

Within days you will begin hearing a great deal about the new, America the Beautiful Pass. You will be told that the America the Beautiful Pass will serve as your passport to fun and adventure.

National Park Service managers will claim that by purchasing an America the Beautiful Pass, you will be helping  preserve and protect America's Crown Jewels.

Forest Service mangers will hawk the America the Beautiful Pass as being a great bargain, giving you basic access to your National Forests for less than 50 cents per day.

Bureau of Land Management officials will tout the America the Beautiful Pass as being your admission ticket to millions of acres of thrills and excitement ... a ticket costing far less than what a family pay for a single day at Disneyland.

US Fish and Wildlife managers will shill the America the Beautiful Pass, saying ... etc.

Within days, I will begin filling in the gaps, countering the frauds, exposing the deceits and presenting the unfortunate truth about the poorly named America the Beautiful Pass.

Scott

For five or more years, the US Forest Service has been quietly engaged in a process of determining which of its thousands of recreation sites could be closed, decommissioned, outsourced, or (in some cases)  enhanced so as to transform currently free-access sites into pay-to-play sites.

Eighteen months ago, Wild Wilderness picked up the scent and at that time described what we saw as "Closing Down, Selling Off, Forest Recreation."

We followed that original warning with 19 additional postings.

At first, the agency's effort met with little resistance.  It wasn't until the Forest Service began actually shutting, decommissioning, bulldozing and otherwise destroying opportunities for outdoor recreation did the public take notice.

Today the public has not merely taken notice, it is justifiably angered. This issue has reached the phase where the public is saying NO to the closing of low income recreation sites and the Forest Service's efforts to promote and maintain only those sites which can be operated profitably.

Appended are two excellent Editorials published today. Please read what is being said and consider writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and warning your community of the runaway bulldozer that needs to be brought under control.

Scott

Today NationalParksTraveler blogger Kurt Repanshek wrote about the soon to be introduced America the Beautiful Pass (ATB). You can read what Kurt had to say by clicking here

ATB is a new multi-agency National Recreation Passport that will go on sale starting January 1, 2007. ATB will replace such familiar passes as the National Park Pass, the Golden Eagle, the Golden Age and the Golden Access Passports.

This new pass will also allow the bearer to enjoy basic access and use of most of the nearly 700,000,000 acres of public lands administered by the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation.

The annual cost for an ATB pass had yet to be determine as of October 27, 2006. What has been determined, is that American citizens (or those domiciled in America) can earn a pass by volunteering at least 500 hours.

If you start today and are prepared to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week until the end of the year, you'll almost, but not quite, have earned a pass. If you can't afford to purchase a pass this Christmas, you better start volunteering quickly! And should you wish to work at a more leisurely rate of 40 hours a week, you can earn your pass in a mere twelve and a half weeks.

 Wild Wilderness has been closely tracking the coming of this new passport since it was first introduced as proposed legislation in 1992 by the American Recreation Coalition. That early legislative effort was broadly denounced by virtually everyone inside and outside of the legislature. For good reason, it failed to become law and the ARC's efforts to create their pass floundered. It was not until December of 2004 when legislation introduced by Congressman Richard Pombo was stuck onto an appropriation bill against the objection of ranking members of the US Senate that ATB was finally authorized.
We have written extensively on this subject and by clicking on this link you can access what we've had to say. We will very soon have very much more to say! Please stay tuned.

 For now, we'd like to invite you to read the Standard Operating Procedures federal land managers are following as they prepare the roll out ATB pass. You can access that document by clicking here.

I would just add that the agencies will be breaking the law when the pass is introduced.  You see, when Pombo's bill became law, Congress required that the new pass be called "America the Beautiful--the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass".  In Pombo's haste he failed to appreciate that the phase "America the Beautiful" was copyrighted and could not be used without permission of the copyright holder.

 Pombo may not have known, or perhaps did not remember, that a century ago while standing atop Pike's Peak in Colorado, school teacher Katharine Lee Bates penned her famous song describing what she saw before her -- the "purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain."

  Today, you or I or Ms. Bates' decedents would need to be in possession of an America the Beautiful Passport to look out upon those majesties and plains. But because the decedents of Ms. Bate own the rights to the those famous words and have not granted the government permission to use them, federal land managers will be in violation of those copyrights when their ATB pass is put on the market for sale.

Interestingly enough, if you decide to read the Standard Operating Procedures referenced above, you'll discover that the agencies are fully aware of this fact. Remarkably, they seem perfectly willing to break the law.

Scott

ParkRemark is a blog which has gradually been homing in upon some extremely important and sometimes controversial National Park-related topics. Today they take a closer look at an issue that has in recent months been receiving increasing amounts of increasingly superficial media attention.

 Appended is today's ParkRemark. I'd like to preface it with two short quotes -- both from Henry David Thoreau.

"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe ... till we come to the hard bottom of rocks in place, which we can call reality."

---

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

Thank you ParkRemark for your efforts. 

Scott

We strive to ensure that Wilderness areas, roadless areas and other areas now substantially free of development will continue to provide outstanding opportunities for high quality, non-motorized, recreation.

The appended article from the Society of American Foresters does a remarkably good job of explaining what's going on with the increasingly controversial Recreation Site Facility Master Planning process now being implemented nationwide.  In this article, the US Forest Service's director of Recreation, Heritage and Wilderness Resources, Jim Bedwell, appears to have stepped into a deep puddle. Bedwell is quoted as saying:

[ "There's no intent to pull back or curtail recreation. What we're seeing so far is that less than ten percent of sites will either have operations modified or closed." ]

The facts suggest that Bedwell's ten percent isn't even in the right ballpark.

Here is the summary of RS-FMP proposed actions for my local forest, the Deschutes. This condensed document was handed out at a USFS meeting I attended last week. It can now be read here. The unedited parent document can be read here.

The bottom line for the Deschutes is this -- out of 212 developed recreation sites, "NO CHANGE" has been proposed for just 50 sites.

Operations will be modified at more than 75% of all developed recreation sites on this forest and I've seen similar figures for other forests.

In the appended article, Funkhouser's version of reality is more believable than Bedwell's, or so I would suggest.


-- Highlights from USFS condensed document --

 The Deschutes National Forest currently manages 212 developed recreation sites.  The following is a summary of the proposed changes ...

• Remove constructed features at 23 sites and manage them as dispersed recreation sites.
  

• Change the season of management at 85 sites
  

• Change operator or work force at 9 sites by seeking partnerships to operate and maintain 5 sites, where possible partners have been identified; and by including 4 sites, currently managed by the Forest, in the next (FY 2009) campground Concession permit prospectus.
  

• improve 12 day use sites to meet public demand, protect resources, and increase recreation opportunities and begin charging day use recreation fees at these sites.
  

• implement fees at 2 overnight sites where we do not currently charge.
  

• No change is proposed for 50 sites.
  

Scott

Pasted below is an article that ran on the Front Page of the Denver Post under the banner headline -  "Forest Plan Trims Access".  

There are a number of important issues that are not addressed here. Not the least of those are the RSFMP's heavy reliance on access fees to achieve its goal of self-sustainability (profitability), thereby replacing appropriated funding. We are very concerned about the enormous negative impacts to local economies, lack of public comment through the federally mandated NEPA process and additional barriers to public use and enjoyment of public land. The Western Slope No-Fee Coalition has estimated that between 3,000 and 5,000 sites are to be decommissioned, closed, or "returned to dispersed use" with many sites being gated. Having reviewed additional forest RSFMP 5-year Plans we stand by those numbers. We will update estimates when and if additional RSFMP 5-year plans are made available to the public for review. Closures and decommissionings are just one aspect of the RSFMP. Additional fee sites, reduced operating seasons, turning sites over to concessionaire operation and other barriers to public use add to impacts of the RSFMP. The WSNFC's ground-breaking report on RSFMP can be read at http://www.westernslopenofee.org
 
Robert Funkhouser
President, Western Slope No-Fee Coalition 

In today's Fresno Bee there is an article under the headline: "Judge Halts Plans in Park -- Construction projects put on hold over fears about damaging Merced River."   It begins with these words:

  [ In a clear victory for environmentalists, a federal judge has stopped nine construction projects in Yosemite Valley - including the $35 million effort to rebuild Yosemite Lodge - to protect the Merced River.]

This is a clear victory for the Merced River, Yosemite Valley and for the people of this nation, but that's not what the National Park Service is saying. Here's how they are spinning their illegal actions:

 [ "It's sad that a few people are stopping the public from seeing improvements that will make Yosemite Valley a better place for the environment and visitors," spokesman Scott Gediman said. ]

I'd like to offer you the rest of the story and to set Scott Gediman straight.
Here is a link to a message I distributed EXACTLY five years ago to this very day. It's what Paul Harvey would call, "The Rest of the Story."

 Scott

Quoted from appended news release:

   [Greg Adair, Director of FOYV, stated; "The problem in Yosemite is the Park Service vision of upscale hotel rooms, reduction of family camping opportunities, and the implementation of an urban mass transit busing scheme and with that, price increases that will push average Americans away. In addition to failing to protect the river, the park's invalid planning documents accommodate this growing threat of commercialism."

Adair added: "The court's order also is a vindication of the role of small citizen groups holding the government accountable to the law, and protecting places we all love. The Park Service recently grumbled that citizens are standing in the way of the agency moving forward in Yosemite. They're wrong. The direction given by this court suggests that NPS has it backwards."]

I offer congratulations to Friends of Yosemite Valley and everyone involved in this effort to watch-dog the National Park Service and ensure that the laws of the land are followed.

More to the point, I thank FOYV for being one of America's most effective grassroots organizations when it comes to actually slowing the industrial tourism juggernaut that currently threats our National Parks with increased commercialization and rampant Disneyfication.

Scott

Federal land management agencies have prepared a special treat in recognition of those who have served in the military. On Veterans' Day (and ONLY on Veterans' Day), current and past members of our Armed Forces will be allowed to visit America's National Parks, Forest and other public lands without having to pay basic entrance and access fees.

Pasted below are two articles representative of the dozens that have begun to appear in newspapers from coast-to-coast. Both are extraordinarily offensive. Both are extremely disingenuous. In fact, the arrogance of those who tout this hollow gesture is almost unbelievable.

Let me state this clearly. With every passing day, the rights of all American are being stolen.  Permitting veterans one free day of access to their public lands is little more than spitting in their eye. The single free access day granted to all citizens is equally insulting.

The bureaucrats quoted below have, apparently, forgotten that they are NOT talking about federal lands, but rather are talking about PUBLIC lands. Denying citizens access to their lands and then, with a wave and a flourish, restoring a small taste of rights lost, is not what America is all about.

Read what the US Forest Service has to say below and then decide whether they are truly honoring America's veterans or whether they are perhaps simply honoring themselves.

Scott