Today's Washington Post features an article about Vice President Cheney under the headline "Leaving No Tracks." I've quoted a small passage of it below — one dealing with the issue of snowmobiling in Yellowstone and with administration efforts to commercialize, privatize and motorize America's National Parks.

Pasted immediately below todays WP article I've provided a short passage from a 2001 "Trail Tracks Newsletter" — the voice of a pro-motorized recreation advocacy organization. That article had been given the headline "Outdoor recreation groups meet with Bush Team" and was written by the American Recreation Coalition's President Derrick Crandall.

Pasted immediately below that is a broadcast message I shared with the Wild Wilderness network on January 6, 2001. I had titled that message "Motorized Message to President Elect" and those who make the effort to read it today will discover precisely why Vice President Dick Cheney did not need to tell his people what needed doing with regard to snowmobiling in Yellowstone, with National Park policy revisions or, for that matter, with regard to anything associated with the radical transformation of outdoor recreation on America's public lands which has occurred in recent years.

Cheney delegated that authority to his industry friends... or so I would suggest.

Scott 

If you currently hike, bike, hunt, fish, camp, float, bird, ride, climb, swim or engage in any other form of outdoor recreation on National Forest managed public-lands, the appended article from today's Oregonian is a MUST READ. It is more than a 'MUST READ'... it deserves ACTION.

If you receive valuable compensation in exchange for labor, are you volunteering or are you employed? If an agency, a concessionaire, or a non-profit organization operating upon federally managed public lands gives a free recreation pass in exchange for a specific quantity of labor performed, is that showing appreciation or providing employment?

  The Oregon Court of Appeals will soon be taking up those issues in a nationally significant case. The case involves the giving of seasonal ski-passes to those who volunteer for the Bend-based Mt. Bachelor Ski Education Foundation --- but, so I suggest, something FAR more important is at stake!!

The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004 authorized the creation of a the America the Beautiful Volunteer pass which, according to government sources "will be issued free of charge to volunteers who accrue 500 volunteer hours."  The America the Beautiful Pass is the contentious new $80 public lands recreation pass which replaced the older National Parks Pass and now provides basic access to most federally managed public lands.

According to the front page article from today's Bend Bulletin (appended), with respect to the giving of ski passes, Oregon's "Employment Department and Department of Justice are arguing that those free annual passes are actually the equivalent of wages, because they have value and were offered in exchange for service."

The Hearings officer said:

"Volunteering is commendable and in many ways governmental policies and laws do encourage this ... but the volunteer work cannot be done in exchange for remuneration or with the expectation of remuneration being paid."

I've long said that the America the Beautiful Volunteer Pass was ILLEGAL because it compensates workers at the equivalent of sixteen cents per hour and runs afoul of minimum wage laws. Now it appears that the awarding of an America the Beautiful Volunteer Pass may have more legal problems than those to which I've previously pointed. And as the federal government continues to transition from using paid employees to using volunteers, the issue of what exactly is a volunteer will become of increasing importance.

Scott 

The process of accepting public comment pertinent to outdoor recreation on public lands has, in effect, been turned over to the motorized segment of the recreation industry --- with predictable results.

Pasted below is the American Recreation Coalition's preliminary report following Monday's national recreation listening session. Their final report detailing their findings for the 6 session series,  will be presented on May 22 during a special event featuring remarks by author Richard Louv

To my friends in the conservation community I wish to stress one point. The ARC has co-opted the Richard Louv (brand) "Last Child in the Woods" message and they are using it to advance their own, long-standing, commercialization, privatization, motorization agenda.

To the extent that we in this community support that branded PR-message, we are assisting the ARC in its quest to dominate the Great Outdoors and shape the very meaning of the words "outdoor recreation".
Scott

The 1996, passage of Fee-Demo gave the land management agencies virtually cart blanche to charge visitors for recreation, access and use. Inventiveness in setting and collecting was strongly encouraged. Nine years ago as part of this inventiveness, the U.S. Forest Service converted a portion of one of Colorado's State highways into what, for all intents and purposes, became a federal toll road. What the USFS did was probably illegal,  though they got away with it for many years.

In 2004, the Federal Land Recreation Enhancement Act abolished Fee-Demo and gave the land management agencies much more limited authority to charge user fees. Many of the fees charged under Fee-Demo were clearly prohibited by FLREA.

And so when the U.S. Forest Service continued to charge drivers on Colorado's Mount Evans Highway, what they were doing became unambiguously illegal and utterly shameless.

The appended article from yesterday's Denver Post explains what had been going on and, more importantly, details a much appreciated victory for the citizens of Colorado. The State of Colorado has stepped in and busted up the U.S. Forest Service's illegal toll road operation. Hopefully other States where the U.S. Forest Service continues to operate similarly illegal toll booths will take similar actions against the law-breaking Forest Service.

Scott

NewWest blogger Bill Schneider has recently caught the US Forest Service  doing some reprehensible and possibly illegal things. There's little new in that, other than the fact that what Bill caught them is unrelated to classic resource extraction. It is specifically related to the agency's attempted transformation of free-flowing recreation into commodified wreckreation —  i.e., the transformation of leisure into an extractive industry.

In Bill's piece, he blasts the agency's brass for what they are doing and for the contempt they are showing the citizens who pay their salaries.  I'd just add that the top brass within the agencies are, with few exceptions, people who have been promoted to the current positions specifically because of their willingness to serve the anti-democratic interests which have come to control this nation and its government.

Bill's piece is titled "Stretching the Law is Not Good Policy"  and stretching the law has become policy within the Executive Branch of government. The USFS is merely an element within the Executive Branch.  Bill's piece is subtitled "FS Digging Its Own Grave."  I take no comfort in knowing the US Forest Service is Digging Its Own Grave, though I accept this to be a statement of unvarnished fact.

The USFS and the FDA, and the EPA and all of the other elements within the Executive Branch of government are digging their own graves. If these agencies succeed they will, in combination, have dug the grave of America.

Scott

A picture may be worth a thousand words.
The graph which appear below is priceless.      -Scott

Source: Natural Resource Economics by Barry C. Field, Professor of Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst
 
On the Use of Graphs in Economics 2:

Graphs may come in any number of different shapes, however. Suppose, for example, we are interested in the relationship between the amount of the entrance fee to visit a public park and the number of people who visit that park. We might expect a negative relationship, as depicted below:

Note that there are no actual numbers on the axes in this case. We are interested only in the general nature of the function, i.e., at higher entrance fees visitation will be lower. So the actual numbers on the scale need not be specified.

A point that we will come back to is the following: There are normally lots of factors that affect park visitation rates, not solely the entrance fee. But Figure 4 shows only the relationship between the two variables: entrance fee and visitation. We have to understand that this function expresses the connection between these two factors with other things assumed constant. In other words, at higher or lower entrance fees this function show how visitation will respond, on the assumption that all other factors that might affect visitation are remaining unchanged. Of course in the real world this is hardly ever true; everything is usually in constant change. The reason for singling out just these two variables and assuming everything else is constant is because we wish to explore the nature of the connection between these two important factors. Thus, in this particular graph (or model) we are temporally abstracting from other factors that might have an impact on visitation.

This short article about Swedish museum fees is so revealing that I post it here without introduction other than to say it has direct analogies to the issues associated with National Park Service entrance fees. I have place the symbol "••" next to each point of special importance.  -Scott

Sweden: Entry fees deter visitors
By Clemens Bomsdorf - 25 April 2007

STOCKHOLM. Visitor numbers to Swedish museums have declined dramatically since the re-introduction of entrance fees •• in January this year. A survey by the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter compared visitor figures for 15 museums in January 2007 with the same month in 2006. This revealed a decrease of nearly 90,000 visitors to 183,000, from 272,300 the previous year—a substantial drop of 33%.

The greatest decrease was at the Swedish Museum of Architecture which suffered an 83% decline ••. The museum is adjacent to the Moderna Museet, which has also seen a 35% fall in visitors.

The new centre-right coalition government ••, which came to power in September 2006, removed the legal requirement for museums to retain free entry •• but simultaneously cut their subsidy by up to a quarter ••, effectively leaving institutions with no option •• but to reintroduce charges ••. At museums which have enforced admission fees, free entry is now restricted to those aged 19 or under ••.

“Free entry to museums made it harder for other institutions, which still charged a fee, to attract visitors ••. That is not fair,” Carl Johan Swanson, political advisor at the ministry of culture, told The Art Newspaper. He added that museums “can now decide for themselves, what they prioritise—free entry, education or restoration” ••.
 

Bill Schneider over at the NewWest Blog has uncovered yet another example of the US Forest Service playing fast and loose in their 'mis"-interpretation of the Recreation Access Tax (aka, "the RAT").

Although expressly prohibited from doing so, the Forest Service has erected what amounts to toll-booths upon several State and County Highways throughout the West and are extracting a fee from everyone who passes.

Bill has presented details for how this is playing out on Mt. Evans in Colorado. I've myself been ticketed for refusing to pay an illegally charged Forest Service toll in Oregon.

Check out Bill's Blog to learn the sordid details of this latest scandal. See also this UPDATE.

Scott 

I have frequently explained how the same recreation industry lobbyists who brought us forest recreation fees, are aggressively pushing to take the fee concept to the next higher level. "Congestion Pricing" , "Value Pricing" and "Differential Pricing" are the terms most commonly used to describe the refinement in pricing being sought. Each of these concepts represents a classist, anti-democratic, method of allocating access based upon willingness to pay.

Let me give an example. Congestion Pricing is usually associated with the concept of converting public freeways into private tolls roads then adjusting the price charged for use of the roads hour by hour. Whenever the road becomes congested, such as during the rush hour commute, the price charged for using the road would be increased. The concept is that when higher fees are charged,  people of limited financial means will avoid the road and commute times will thus be reduced for those willing or able to pay the higher fee.

Differential Pricing is the American Recreation Coalition's preferred fee mechanism for our National Parks. Like Congestion Pricing, this mechanism calls for varying the cost of visiting a National Park or forest based upon changing demand. Popular parks would be priced higher in order to drive lower income persons toward lower cost options. Likewise, when because of some special event or seasonal occurrence (such as wildflowers being in bloom) the desirability of visiting a park increases, higher fees would be charged. Increased fees would not only better capture the higher value, these increased fees would eliminate crowding and thus further increase the value of the experience for those capable of paying top dollar. Those of wealth would, in effect, get to pay a premium in order not to have to share the experience.

Pasted below is an article from today's press describing how entrance fees at Chinese tourist sites are being increased in preparation of the coming holiday season. The article explains how "The price hike is a major source of income for tourism companies" and goes on to describe how differential pricing is being applied using these words:

 Tourism sites usually raise entrance fees during peak periods, said Guo Weihua, an official with the travel service. Basic entrance fees for the Forbidden City will jump 50 percent, from 40 yuan to 60 yuan (8 U.S. dollars) while a basic ticket to get into the Summer Palace will go from 20 yuan to 30 yuan for the coming holiday.

 Many other lesser-famed sites scattering across the country have pledged not to increase entrance fees hoping lower prices will attract more visitors.

If that's how things are done in Communist China, imagine what we can look forward to as the American Recreation Coalition and Free-Market ideologues take control of our parks and recreation lands.

Scott 

If the National Park Service wants more visitation as they claim, then they could do as has just been done at Australia's Brett Whiteley Studio —  (see appended article).

If the National Park Service wants lower visitation, then they can continue to raise their fees, as they are doing and as had frequently been proposed as a mechanism for reducing visitation when managers were worried that visitors were "loving the parks to death."

PS... Unlike the privately owned Whiteley museum, America's National Parks are publicly owned and should not be required to survive upon the kindness of volunteers, the largess of corporate sponsors and exclusionary user fees. Public parks need public support — support denied them for far too long.

From Today's Aspen Daily News, full article appears below:

{Aspen/Sopris Ranger District continue to finagle their way along with an ever-shrinking pot of funds as the U.S. Forest Service tightens its operations nationally to meet budget shortfalls...

    Wilderness Workshop director Sloan Shoemaker said Forest Service budget issues are part and parcel of a larger problem. "What we're seeing is that philosophy of shrinking government till you can drown it in a bath tub. It's coming home to roost..."}

From the Oregonian, July 31, 2005:

"{[Cid] Morgan, the Angeles [NF] district ranger [is]...seeing her overall budget reduced for basics such as campground maintenance, law enforcement and recreation. 'We're going to have to do more with less until we do everything with nothing,' she said."}

From  Wild Wilderness' most popular webpage since 1997

**Access to public lands is deliberately being manipulated for the benefit of campground associations, private concessionaires, manufacturers and users of motorized sports vehicles, and giant tourist and recreation corporations.

 **Congressional budgetary cuts are intentionally creating a maintenance crisis for federally managed recreation lands and facilities.

 **The rescue of a badly decayed system of National Parks and recreational lands, through private corporate investment, is the planned outcome of this strategy.  <continues>

Today's Aspen Daily News article describes how the privatization process described above is being playing out upon the White River National Forest and, by extension, upon every public forest and National Park in this nation. The issue is not one of penny pinching. The issue is the intentional destruction of America by design for profit.

Scott
 

If confirmed as Department of Interior Assistant Secretary for Fish Wildlife and Parks, Lyle Laverty would set recreation policy for the National Park Service and other Interior agencies. If confirmed, the triumvirate of Dirk Kempthorne, Lynn Scarlett and Lyle Laverty would comprise the dream team for the American Recreation Coalition and those special interests aggressively promoting the commercialization, privatization and motorization of the Great Outdoors.

"Lyle Laverty, tapped by Bush for an Interior Department post, has a record of bolstering Colorado's parks amid tough times and also of taking some questionable personal perks."

   “If Laverty is going to push recreation like
     we think he will, it could be a disaster.” 

Scott

The Smithsonian Institution is the caretaker of many of America's treasures. It is composed of 16 museums and galleries, the National Zoo and numerous research facilities. It holds in trust some 140 million artifacts and specimens. It's a big deal and it is threatened.

Today's Washington Post features an article about the Smithsonian of great importance. It appears under the headline "Castle in Disrepair" and begins as follows:

[It's been politicized and kitschified, and its luster is gone. The Smithsonian needs to get back to basics.

The Smithsonian has just awakened from a leadership nightmare. On this groggy morning after, it finds itself soiled by commercialism, Disneyfication and politicization, and sorely in need of a meticulous scrubbing.

Supporters of now-departed secretary Lawrence M. Small have characterized the former banking executive's tenure at the smithsonian's helm as a "clash of cultures," positing crisp, data-based corporate values on small's side and airy, ivory-tower academic values on the other.]

Much attention is being placed upon Small and his resignation. He's NOT the real story, though everything about Small and his leadership is emblematic of what is destroying the Smithsonian Institution and, I dare say, the National Park System as well. Small has become a fall-guy in this story and though he got caught, his removal does not fix the problem that had been correctly identified five years ago and which was permitted to fester and grow.

Pasted below is an article from the Archeology Institute of America published in 2002. It appeared under the headline "Crisis at the Smithsonian" and it correctly fingered the REAL crisis.

When is the REAL problem going to be addressed and solved in a manner that is both appropriate and respectful of the resource?

Neither Privatization nor Disneyfication are appropriate or respectful solutions. These are the wrong  solutions for the Smithsonian and the National Park Service.

Scott 

 [ In FY 2006, 23 units increased entrance fee rates to align with the new fee structure. In FY 2007, 11-13 units are scheduled to implement the new structure pricing, and in FY 2008 the bulk of the parks (approximately 85) will align with the fee structure model. In FY 2009, the remainder of parks that charge entrance fees will implement the new rates.]

Bill has raised excellent points — what about inflation, will the price hikes end, or will entrance fees just keep on rising?

With each passing day, another news article announces another increase in the entrance fee charged at yet another National Park,  monument or historic site.

Even with park after park after announcing its intended fee increase for 2008, this important news story is only dribbling out piece meal.

WHY hasn't the NPS simply come right out and explained to the media, and thus to the American People, what they are doing!? Why are they dragging this thing out and feeding us the bad news one tiny bite at a time??

Through the power of the Freedom of Information Act and help from my friends, I have come to possess a table of scheduled entrance fee increases. This official National Park Service document is titled, "Summary of Entrance Fee Rates (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)" — and it can now be read online as a PFD image file .

Here's what this stunning document reveals.

Of the 147 NPS-managed sites at which entrance fees are currently charged, fee increases  are proposed for 88 sites in 2008. 

Restating this another way  —  at fully 60% of all NPS fee-sites, in 2008, either the cost per vehicle, and/or the cost per person, and/or the cost of an annual pass, is staled to increase. In some cases costs are set to double, or even triple compared to what is currently charged.

So next time you chance upon another announcement for another entrance fee being increased at yet another National Park or Monument, understanding that dozens upon dozens of additional fee increases are planned and have yet to be publicly announced. Also know that just about every entrance fee-charging park or monument that is NOT slated to increase fees in 2008, is scheduled to raise fees in 2009. 

The schedule is available for all to see.

Oh, by the way, this planning didn't just happen. The process got underway in 2001. In fact, the National Park Services fee analysis was performed for the agency by private contractors representing private interests. Here's where you can find the beginning of this particular story as I wrote it up a little more than five years ago.

As to the end to the story,  there is absolutely nothing stopping you from creating a different ending than the one that has already been planned.

Scott

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -John F. Kennedy

Visitation to America's National Parks is down. Some are suggesting that it's now necessary to lure additional paying customers to the parks and to do so by providing more commercialized activities and businesses? 

What do you say? 

From the February 2007 issue of Trailer Life. 
 

Here's a thoughtful piece of writing about wildlands management that happens to be about hunting in Theodore Roosevelt National Park but which, I suggest, could be more generically applicable.

The problem, as the author presents it, is that the TRNP elk herd has over time swelled beyond a sustainable level. Because the ecosystem is not intact, no natural mechanism currently exists that is capable of restoring balance. Without some restorative force being applied, the system will break down, or so one can reasonably expect. "What to do" is the question the author poses and "there is no easy answer" is the short response he gives.

Given the current situation, the laws on the books and the traditions long-associated with National Park management, does anyone have a solution they'd like to offer which they believe is more appropriate than those offered below? 

BTW, the title given to this article was "So, when does it cease to be a national park" -- and I thought that question itself was intriguing. Given how designated Wilderness is currently being managed and/or mis-managed, one might similarly ask "So, when does it cease to be a Wilderness?" -- or so I pondered.

With respect to Wilderness, that question has little to do with hunting. With respect to the National Parks, hunting is merely one of a great many issues which are all equally applicable -- or so I suggest.

Scott

Every summer evening in Yosemite National Park a large bonfire used to be built on Glacier Point. The embers were then pushed over the side in a spectacular firefall, a spectacle I witnessed many times. Yet, in one of the most naturally beautiful places on earth, something this artificial seemed out-of-place. And herein lays the central question: do our national parks exist to entertain and cater to human needs? Or to protect America's natural, cultural and historical treasures? The answer to both questions is decidedly yes, but with added clarity needed.

To better manage our national parks-the first was Yellowstone in 1872-congress created the National Park Service (NPS) in 1916. Its mission: to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of future generations. Given such clarity of purpose, what followed is quite amazing. In Yosemite, for example, which got designated in 1905 and had already seen magnificent Hetch Hetchy Valley dammed and inundated with water in 1913, Ahwahnee Lodge opened in 1927, with a golf course, tennis courts, and swimming pool. Badger Pass Ski Area opened in 1935, followed by gas stations, motels, gift shops, apartments, restaurants, houses, garages, all told more than 1,000 buildings and 30 miles of roads in a valley 7 miles long and one mile wide.

A mentality had long existed in America that public lands existed to be exploited. But the attendant poisoning of air, land and water caused Congress to pass vital environmental laws in the 1960s and 1970s. In concert the NPS recommitted itself to preservation of nature as its primary purpose. Yosemite reduced automobile traffic, removed roads and paved areas, eliminated the golf course, gas stations and other businesses, and ended the firefall, something better suited to Disneyland or Las Vegas.