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HOME arrow - Privatization
Utah Bill - A pig with lipstick
Written by Scott Silver   
Thursday, 17 April 2008

In yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune, Tom Wharton's appeared under the headline "Public-lands bill may look better, but it's still a pig." His column is about Utah's proposed "Washington County Growth & Conservation Act of 2008" — a wilderness bill cut from shoddy cloth — and what, until recently, would have been deemed "unusually shoddy cloth." Unfortunately, our standards have fallen so low there is little that is unusual about this particular pig. Wharton focuses his attention upon land sale provisions within this so-called "Wilderness" bill. He calls upon the conservation community and specifically upon 'national environmental groups' to oppose this bill. Wild Wilderness is with Wharton.

I'd like to add one thought not mentioned by Wharton. As a direct consequence of the Milton Friedmanesque 'Shock Doctrine' and the economic crisis now being inflicted upon the citizens of America by our elected leaders, we will soon be asked to sell off and/or privatize virtually every asset held in common, including our public lands. In that regard, America stands poised to become the next Pinochet's Chile.

Some will say, "nonsense, that will never happen." Others will say, "well perhaps just a little privatization would be okay, so long as the price is right and the money is well spent".

To both groups, I offer this thought:

At a fancy London dinner party, George Bernard Shaw is reputed to have asked Lady Astor, in front of others, if she would spend the night with him for a million pounds.

"Why yes Mr. Shaw, I suppose I would," she replied.

To which Shaw responded: "Well then, how about five pounds?"

"Mr. Shaw," the suddenly indignant Madame Astor retorted. "What do you think I am?"

"I've established that," Shaw replied. "What I am trying to establish now is the price."

With the era of mass, wholesale, privatization of America and its heritage laying before us, now is not the time for conservationists to be stepping onto this avalanche slope.  Or to use a different metaphor, now is not the time to be distracted with the temptation to pinch pawns -- not when we are threatened with almost imminent check-mate.

Scott 

 
Profitable? It's not Disneyland.
Written by Scott Silver   
Tuesday, 15 April 2008

I've posted below a column from the Idaho Statesman written by their outdoor writer, Pete Zimowsky. Zimo has been reporting upon the recreation fee issue for years and, by and large, he gets it. Don't you wish the outdoor writer with your local newspaper got it? Try to imagine what would be possible if newspapers all across the country were printing columns similar to the one which appears below.
Perhaps all that is required is for you and others who already get it to contact your newspaper's outdoor writer and help him or her understand why, as the headline of this reads: "The commercialization of public lands has to stop."

As for Zimo's remark "it's not Disneyland", let me remind everyone that while public lands are not yet Disneylands, the intended result of pay-to-play is, and has always been, "The Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the Wild."

Scott

 

 
Privatization Acceleration to cause whiplash
Written by Scott Silver   
Wednesday, 09 April 2008

Quoted from appended article from the New jersey press about proposed park privatization:

"Privatization doesn't usually help the parks.  It does, however, often result in higher fees and less service"

I would have put it more strongly than the Sierra Club spokesperson, whose words I've quoted.

Privatization of public parks is never in the public interest and, except for the fact that the public parks have been raising recreation fees so as to reduce to zero the price differential between public and private alternatives, privatization will always result in higher fees for access and use.

I would have also reminded my readers that for the next many years, if not decades, the anticipated consequence of the current financial meltdown will be the privatization of everything that is currently public and which might conceivably be profitably held or operated by the private sector.

Everything is at risk.

Price will be no object. The price of everything public will be slashed as much as is required to facilitate resource disposal.

Credit will be no object. Credit will be available to every would be privatizer willing to take public resources off the public's hands.

Users fees will be no object. The price of access will be adjusted upward until a sweet-spot is found such that the fewest visitors can be served at the highest possible rate of economic return. 

And finally, I'd like to state emphatically that the current state of affairs to which we have now arrived is NOT George Bush's doing.  'Sure', it was President Bush who broke the bank with his failed policies and failed presidency. And 'yes', it will be a long time before America can dig itself out of the hole into which Bush has deposited it.  But the pressure to reduce to private ownership and/or management, everything that was once public has been more than three decades in coming.

If public pushback does not begin pretty damned quickly and if that pushback is not more aggressive than is the push to privatize, then the rate of privatization that will be seen in the months and years ahead will likely give you whiplash.

Scott

 
Letting the market drive privatization
Written by Scott Silver   
Monday, 24 March 2008

I have frequently likened the issues of road-tolling and recreation fees as well as the concepts of "congestion pricing" with recreation "differential pricing". I have claimed countless times that very purpose for the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program  was to commercialize, privatize and motorize our public lands.

What I have never stated is that the purpose of Road-Tolling is also to commercialize, privatize and motorize.  Perhaps I never stated that because it was so obvious. Then again, for a decade now, I've believed that the recreation fee issue was equally obvious. I've compared these issues largely to impress upon my readers the universality of the transformation that was occurring.

Pasted below is an Op-Ed recently published by two Washington Post staff writers. The headline under which this appeared read: "Letting the market drive transportation - Bush officials criticized for privatization."

Most people get the road-tolling issue and the appended article presents the road-tolling issue. The appended article also presents recreation fee issue, albeit without ever making reference to recreation . The reader simply needs to replace all references to "road-tolling" with a recreation equivalence. It's easy -- and I invite you to try it.

Here are a few quotes from this lengthy Op-Ed. Please, at least, read them and try substituting recreation equivalences. Discover how familiar this subject really is!
  

"They have a myopic view," said Rep. John L. Mica, R-Fla., ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Pricing transportation to drive down traffic may make market sense, but it harms the public, he said. "This was a country based on some system of equality. People are paying their taxes and have representation. You can't exclude them from having a fair return."

"Everything they're doing is designed to drive things to privatization," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure highways and transit subcommittee. DeFazio said the nation long ago settled that roads are public goods. "They're just trying to undo 200 years of history and go back to the Boston Post Road."

"Tyler Duvall is a little pointy-headed neocon with grand ideas about the future of transportation, and they all involve tolling," DeFazio said. "He's bright, young, energetic -- just totally wrong, and has a bizarre, neocon view of transportation."

Last month, the Government Accountability Office warned that tolls on privatized roads are typically higher than if the roads remain under public control, because of the need to generate steady profits for private investors. The report said the federal government needs to better protect the public interest.

"This is all about making money," said Frank Busalacchi, the Wisconsin transportation secretary and a member of a congressionally chartered commission that last year studied transportation funding and supported raising the gas tax. "The financiers, bankers, people coming in -- the foreign dollars coming in and buying infrastructure in this country that American people [built]."

       Scott

 
The Beast has been Starved. Now for the consequences.
Written by Scott Silver   
Thursday, 20 March 2008

In the late 90s, I authored an essay titled, Our Public Lands: Their Working Capital. Looking back upon it today, it is almost frightening how accurately it predicted the future NOT just of public lands, but of all public assets and the delivery of virtually all public goods and services.

Pasted here is a passage from that essay followed by a passage from one of two newspaper article published today in the Boston Globe. Both were written by the same reporter and both have been condensed by me so as to draw attention to the elements of national importance. In combination they provide an up-to-the-minute update on my years-old essay.

From: Our Public Lands: Their Working Capital

In the coming debate, you will hear all about the benefits of rec-fees and glowing proclamations explaining how federal agencies have been re-invented and are now more responsive to their customers. You will hear sad tales about diminished budgets and be told that user fees will be retained locally to improve local resources. While our land-managers may continue to pay lip service to the idea of biodiversity, conservation and natural resource protection, you must understand that these agencies are being transformed into profit-driven enterprises. Foremost upon their minds are thoughts of downsizing, spinning off unprofitable assets, brand management, customer satisfaction and all the problems associated with running a profitable business. To these former bureaucrats, what were once recognized as our public lands are now considered their "working capital."

From today's Boston Globe

"Depending on the community, it's definitely coming to a crisis point," said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, whose members are juggling rising costs, many with flatlined funding. "If you're not a crisis community, you probably will be, in short order."

The point I'd like to leave you with is that if your community is not already in crisis, it almost certainly will be in short order. The financial crisis which is about to gut the American way of life and hobble all public and social programs, isn't an accident. It is the direct result of the ideology of "Starving the Beast."

Thirty years after this ideology was presented to the American people by President Reagan, the beast has been starved and the consequences are entirely predictable. They were predicted in my 1990s essay and in the writings of many others. 

Scott 

 
Big Picture Recreation - What's the Future
Written by Scott Silver   
Monday, 03 March 2008

In less than 24 hours the Forest Service staffers most directly responsible for facilitating the privatization and commercialization of outdoor recreation will gather with their industry partners.  American Recreation Coalition President,  über-lobbyist Derrick Crandall, will deliver a talk titled:  "Big Picture Recreation - What's the Future." Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, Crandall's junior recreation partner, will deliver the keynote.

For two fun-filled days, agency personnel and industry leaders will conspire behind closed doors and a good time will be had by all. The American Public will, as always, be left out if the process entirely.

Pasted below is about all you are likely to ever know  about the 2008 Partners in Outdoor Recreation Conference which begins tomorrow in San Diego.

Do you think it important that you knew more?
Do you wish you were represented??
Do you believe you deserve to have a vote and a voice???

In 1992, speaking at the 75th Anniversary of the National Park Service conference, conservation hero Michael Frome said:

 Let us go on from this conference to rescue everything that still remains wild and to recapture a lot more that has been lost. Let us not privatize the parks with the goodies of Disneyesque "partnerships" and the strings attached to them."
             
-Michael Frome

Imagine how different the world would be if America had followed Frome's sage advice. Let us now recapture that which has been stolen from us.

Scott

 
Public Private Partherships - Stop and Think
Written by Scott Silver   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

GOOGLE for the terms "public/private partnership forest-service" -- and you get 90,000 hits, the first of which takes you to an exceptionally important document on the Wild Wilderness website.  

What I provided is the agreement between the American Recreation Coalition --a lobby group which, since 1979, has strived to dominate and control access to outdoor recreation-- and the USDA Forest Service, the nation's second most important provider of recreational access. The document details the Public/Private Partnership (P3) which radically, and potentially forever, changed the very nature of outdoor recreation. It transformed how citizens are treated by land managers and it is responsible for undercutting the ability of the US Forest Service to manage recreation as a public resource.

The stated purpose of this P3 is expressed as follows:

[The purpose of this Agreement is to cooperatively implement the recreation user fee demonstration project, authorized by the fiscal year 1996 Interior Appropriations measure, in order to enhance outdoor recreation opportunities on Federal public lands.]

Today, as a result of this and similar partnerships between public agencies and special interest entities, citizens are treated as mere customers/consumers and land managers have become lackeys who take orders from, and pander to,  their "partners".  Today, managers manage partnerships and privatization contracts.
The Canadians got here before us. Canadians were early adapters who, when they realized their mistake, attempted to pull back.  Yet in spite of their efforts, they continue to slip toward the brink. Appended is an article published today in the Canadian press titled "Why are we revisiting P3s?"

Whenever you hear the words Public Private Partnership -  stop and think.

Knowing how frequently you will be hearing those words, I've made quite a demand upon you. Then again, this is EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT.

Scott

PS... The USFS is the second most important provider of outdoor recreation. CLICK HERE to see what the ARC is currently (RIGHT NOW) doing with the most important provider.
 

 
Those Utah Lefties
Written by Scott Silver   
Wednesday, 13 February 2008

When I think of Utah, Salt Lake City and the Editorial Board of the SL Tribune,  I don't think of a bunch of pinko lefties.  I think of them as bedrock conservatives.  So when I read the appended editorial against Utah's proposed  legislated mass privatization of public recreation facilities and saw their impassioned outcry against excessive free-market ideology gone exceedingly wrong, I smiled.

I figured that if THEY were starting to figure out what was going on and if THEY were opposed to it, then perhaps there was hope after all.  

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE understand that just about every word in this SL Tribune editorial can, and should, be said about the privatization of recreation on federally-managed public lands. The forces as play are, near enough, identical and the issues at stake are indistinguishable.

Don't take my word to that last statement. Go to these two links
and either read to, skim to, or jump to the very last line on those pages.

Scott

 
USA Going Out of Business Sale
Written by Scott Silver   
Saturday, 09 February 2008

Fee-Demo was, very possibly, the first modern-day program which authorized a federal agency to sell something (in this case recreational access) and to KEEP the proceeds from that sale. After Fee-Demo, this trend became increasingly commonplace. and with each new application we have moved closer to the long-predicted (and long sought after), fire-sale liquidation of our publicly owned assets.

Pasted below is the most recent proposal as reported in yesterday's WashingtonPost. President Bush, has asked for a "real property disposal pilot" which, according to the Post,  "would move unneeded properties directly to sale and provide an incentive for agencies -- they would keep 20 percent of the net proceeds, with 80 percent going into the U.S. Treasury."

Please understand that the is NOTHING particularly new or unusual about this. The USFS piloted almost precisely this program in 2005 with an effort to dispose of "unneeded"  USFS-managed public properties.  Wild Wilderness played a significant role in drawing national media attention to what was going on. We placed the agency's Working Capital Fund Conveyance Plan online for the public and the media to examine. It was at about the same time that we similarly raised the red flag about the USFS program known as 'Recreation Site Facility Master Planning' --- another program that is part of the trend involving to dispose of so-called unneeded, unwanted or unprofitable, public properties. 

Here's a quote from the LA Times article published on  May 31, 2005.

[Tom Udall of New Mexico, was more skeptical. "I think it creates an incentive that could have some very adverse consequences," he said. "If you have agencies which are starved for maintenance funds, and you create the incentive to sell assets to get maintenance funds they might very well be carrying out transactions that are not the best."]

THAT, my friends, is precisely what we said about Fee-Demo when we broke that particular story in 1997.

I almost hate to ask this, but I will and would appreciate hearing from you.

Do you care enough to become actively engaged in resisting this trend?

Scott 

 
Forest Service Bake Sale?
Written by Scott Silver   
Friday, 01 February 2008

The appended article is NOT about the US Forest Service holding a real bake sale. The Forest Service is instead, and once again, selling public lands and keeping the cash.

The trend which has the USFS selling lands and keeping the cash did not begin with the passage of legislation in 2002, as this article reports. In my hometown of Bend, Oregon the USFS and special interest groups --with the full and active support of our elected officials-- broke the ground that led directly to the current state of affairs.

We Oregonians created, supported and ultimately passed legislation which authorized the Forest Service to sell 8 parcels of public lands in our State and to use the proceeds to construct a nice new administrative facility, soon to be built in my town.

Appended is the appeal Wild Wilderness issued on April 28, 2000. In it, we reached out to the community with the hope of nipping this trend in the bud. We didn't think the USFS should be selling the farm to pay the heating bills. We failed to convince others that this was a bad idea and today you are seeing the consequences.

Scott

 
Erosion of the ( ) as a Public Sphere
Written by Scott Silver   
Monday, 28 January 2008
I write almost daily about the privatization of nature, the commercialization of outdoor recreation and preserving the ideals of wildness and freedom. But those are merely the focus areas of the non-profit organization for which I serve as Executive Director.
 
For the past decade I have warned of the ongoing "Corporate Takeover of Nature," while never forgetting that the loss of nature is not occurring in a vacuum. It is but one of countless pieces of flotsam being carried on the same, outgoing, tide.
 
Pasted below are a few short excerpts from an article published in the current edition of MR-zine and titled "The Erosion of the University as a Public Sphere."  
 
With relatively simple edits, the piece could be rewritten and retitlted "The Erosion of the Great Outdoors as a Public Sphere." With simple edits, the piece could be rewritten to accurately describe an erosive process affecting everything and everyone.
 
You needn't care about nature, outdoor recreation or anything related to wilderness for the appended article to be relevant to you, your life and the future which awaits your children.  You needn't care about education, for this article to impact your future and threaten your country. You needed live in the USA: the author of this piece writes from Canada. What she describes has become a universal truth.
 
You can, if you so desire, replace the word "University" with almost any word of your choosing. Do so and what you get will accurately describe a transformational process the author referred to as "From Public to Private Good."
 
If you prefer, "The Ownership Society."
 
Scott
 
Valles Caldera Worse than a Failure
Written by Scott Silver   
Monday, 21 January 2008

Pasted below is a comment posted upon this website by someone who, apparently, is closely tracking the Valles Caldera / Charter Forest issue.

The poster has, so I believe, used a pseudonym and can not be identified.

My original 2006 post, to which this comment was directed, had been  titled "Valles Caldera - A Failed Experiment and Lessons to be Learned."

The good news is the Bush/Libertarian "Charter Forest" model has been invalidated. The Valles Caldera experiment has clearly and demonstrably failed.  GOOD -- because an important lesson was learned.

The bad news is that it will likely be at least another 7 or 8 years before the general public  can begin to enjoy and appreciate these public lands --  lands purchased with your tax-dollars at a cost of over $100,000,000. Lands which have been, and will continue to be, managed as a playground/reserve for the wealthy and the few.

Then again, perhaps that too is part of the good news. Perhaps as more Americans come to understand just how badly they've been screwed, they will actively resist the next attempted screwing, or the one after that, or the one after that, or the one after that ...

Scott

 
Private Wilderness - Steps Toward the Goal
Written by Scott Silver   
Tuesday, 15 January 2008

These days we hear much from land management agencies in regard to their efforts to price recreation at its correct market value. Today, public land managers look to the prices charged by private recreation alternatives and set the price for public access accordingly.

After they have done so, private recreation provides, no longer being compelled to keep their prices low in order to remain competitive with public alternatives, are able to increase their prices.  And, as you would imagine, the spiral repeats. The winners are the sellers of access, both public and private. I needn't remind you who are the intended losers.

That said... there is a darker and much more important issue associated with these  efforts to marketize and, specifically to price, everything from Wilderness, to hunting fishing, camping, skiing, boating, and swimming, etc.

Appended are excerpts from a "Proceedings"  paper presented 25 years ago.   It begins with this question:

[Knowing that a wilderness exists may have value to some people, even if they never visit a wilderness area nor intend to. But why is this value dependent on public ownership of the wilderness?]

The paper's Conclusion begins with these words that pertain to the wholesale disposal / privatization of our publicly owned lands:

[Because of equity difficulties that would inhere in any disposal program and because of a healthy public skepticism about the potential for fraud and give-away, I am doubtful that disposition on a large scale is politically feasible at the present time.]

Contained between those two passages is the reason why today's land managers are obsessed with pricing recreation and with the enforced exclusion of those citizens who are unwilling or unable to pay.

Scott 

 
Up the Plum Creek
Written by Scott Silver   
Sunday, 30 December 2007
The appended article provides an unusual (and therefor interesting) example of the rapidly escalating efforts to "commercialize, motorize and privatize" our National Forests. In this example the timber company "Plum Creek" is working with the US Forest Service to achieve Plum Creek's stated goal which, in their words is "to capture the most value from every acre that we own.”

The USFS could, of course, have chosen not to create a problem for the US taxpayers. They could have chosen to manage the public lands in the public's best interest.  But that is not how the USFS thinks. It is not how the USFS operates ... not when there are private interests involved seeking to capture dollars.
 
There are almost invariably private interests involved and they are always seeking to capture dollars.
 
Scott
 
Good Lattes, Mediocre National Parks
Written by Scott Silver   
Wednesday, 12 December 2007

In the grand scheme of things, the fact that the San Francisco Presidio is getting a Starbucks isn't exactly a big deal. After all, the Presidio was created as a self-funded National Park --- one that is rapidly being filled with much larger private and/or commercial intrusions than a mere Starbucks.

I'm sharing the appended article because it is important, because I'm quoted and because it provides an opportunity to share this quote from the Director of the National Parks Service, ca. 1950.

 

"If we are going to succeed in preserving the greatness of the national parks, they must be held inviolate. They represent the last stands of primitive America. If we are going to whittle away at them we should recognize, at the very beginning, that all such whittlings are cumulative and that the end result will be mediocrity."  - Newton Drury


Scott 

 
CIEDRA - Perfect Compromise, Privatization Perfected or something else?
Written by Scott Silver   
Monday, 10 December 2007

A decade ago, New Environmentalism was broadly denounced as being a thinly disguised effort by corporate America, working through free-market think tanks and ideologues such as Gale Norton, to weaken environmental laws so as to more efficiently transfer our shared commons to the control of special interest.  A decade ago, only the most market-oriented of conservation organizations dared to openly affiliate themselves with those New Environmentalists who were clearly seen as leading the public lands privatization agenda.

A decade ago,  the Battle for the Wilderness and the efforts of nature lovers to protect and preserve that which they loved, had nothing to do with New Environmentalism. A decade ago, the defense of fundamental principles, the exercise of raw idealism and the expenditure of effort in order to create tools that would facilitate attainment of a better future, were as important as successfully waged battles and well-deserved victories.

Today much has changed.

Pasted below is an Op-Ed published today in the Idaho Statesman. It is about the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act. Some see CIEDRA as the "Perfect Compromise". I believe the author of this piece looks upon CIEDRA as "Privatization Perfected" -- and I agree with that assessment.

CIEDRA is also about the abandonment of principles by those within the conservation community who are supporting this legislation. It is about the exercise of raw unvarnished pragmatism and the ill-advised expenditure of a great deal of conservation capital in order to create tools that will result in a worse future -- and one largely devoid of genuine victories. It is about the abandonment of love for nature, and accepting the consequences that come from love lost.

Similarly stated, New Environmentalism is about the abandonment of Environmentalism and accepting the consequences.

Scott 

 
Selling off not just Nevada
Written by Scott Silver   
Sunday, 09 December 2007

In today's New York Times there appeared an Editorial under the headline "Auctioning Off Nevada". The piece, which is appended, ended with these words.

[Nevadans have every right to have boccie and tennis courts. But it is not clear why the federal government should sell off chunks of the nation to pay for them.]

I wish to repeat a warning originally shared on 2/28/05 with the Wild Wilderness network in an e-mail message titled "Using SNPLMA as a model for liquidating the commons."

Here it is. Please take it to heart. What is at stake is larger than merely selling off Nevada.

 [I wonder what folks in the conservation community were thinking about when they willingly stepped onto the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act slippery slope?  I wonder what they think today, when they read articles such as the one pasted below?

And just imagine.... this same SNPLMA MODEL is being touted as a cornerstone within the American Recreation Coalition's newly proposed "Federal Recreation Policy Act".  The idea, of course, is to sell off unwanted public lands and use the money to fund new recreation development.

I wonder how many conservation and non-motorized recreation groups will be stepping onto THAT particular slippery slope. I hope the answer is none.] 

The ARC's Federal Recreation Policy Act has, so far, gone nowhere. That, however, does not mean it is going nowhere.

Scott

 
USFS Proposes Public Lands Give-Away
Written by Guest - River Runners for Wilderness   
Thursday, 06 December 2007

The United States Forest Service (USFS) has proposed massive countrywide rulemaking changes to benefit outfitter and guiding access to all USFS lands. Your favorite campsite, hunting blind, fishing hole or boat ramp, and your access to it, are at risk!
 
Our longtime readers know that we at River Runners for Wilderness have followed and mounted opposition to various attempts to pass an Outfitters Policy Act that grants rights and privileges to public lands outfitters over the self-guided public.
 
Past long-term efforts by the outfitters’ lobby have failed, due in part to your vigilance. This most recent attempt is more sinister. The outfitters and guides have joined forces with non-profit groups that lead guided outdoor trips, and are now attempting to re-write the rules that govern the policies of the US Forest Service to win special access privileges.
 
Once again, you can counter these efforts through your comments, due no later than January 17, 2008. Now is the time to stand up and protect your right to use Forest Service lands equally with outfitters and their clients.
 
If you do nothing, these sweeping changes will impact all do-it-yourself (self-guided) recreationists, including hunters, fishermen, off-road enthusiasts, hikers, backpackers, canoeists, jet-boaters, paddlers, mountain-bikers and river runners. Once the rights to your favorite picnic area, boat ramp, or wilderness trailhead are sold, the change is permanent; the self-guided public enthusiast loses, and also loses the right to comment in the future.
 
The proposed rulemaking changes include but are not limited to: 

* Outfitters and guides would be able to pay a small fee for sole and exclusive access to prime camping, hunting, fishing and picnic areas, including boat launch ramps.
 
* Outfitters, guides and non-profit organizations would be awarded an allocation of public use for ten-year periods. Commonly referred to as a “taking,” of public land the rule would give preferred access to the outfitters at the expense of the do-it-yourself public on all Forest Service-managed lands.
 
* This rulemaking would force allocating access in management areas where access is presently allocation-free, as it now is at Boundary Waters Canoe Area and the Deschutes River.
 
* Outfitters, Guides and non-profits become “Priority Users”. The public, who does not use outfitters, guides or non-profits for access would no longer have “priority use.”
 
* The general public would no longer be able to comment on USFS giving away blocks of access to Forest Service land. Outfitting and guiding in designated wilderness would not require public comment and review through an Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement. Additionally, there is no provision to prevent outfitting services from selling their preferred access rights to their successor companies.
 
* The new proposed rules do not protect wilderness areas from commercialization.

 To see the document in its entirety click here:
 
Comments on this proposed rulemaking will be accepted until January 17, 2008.
 
Do you care about your and your children’s access to Federal Land? Or their children’s access?
 
If so, please take the time to comment on this one, and urge your friends, no matter what outdoor activities they enjoy, to comment too.
 
<continues>

 
Enviros and Dems Responsible for Public Land Privatization
Written by Scott Silver   
Wednesday, 05 December 2007

On June 10, 2006 I shared, yet again, warnings and misgiving about a piece of  legislation called the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act (SNPLMA). I wrote:

[The appended editorial .. basically suggests that we cash out all of America's public lands. It might not say that in as many words, but it says that nevertheless. It also points to SNPLMA as the model for this sell-off.

I'd just like to remind folks that while a few of us have continually spoken in opposition to that model .... many environmental/ conservation groups ACTIVELY supported it.
]

This week, the New York Times published on this topic a lengthy article titled "Public Lands: Nevada Learns to Cash In on Sales of Federal Land". A much condensed version appears below along with a link to the original.

Last June 10 I asked my readers, "What is it about slippery slopes and wet paint...???"

Today I repeat myself and make my questions clearer and more pointed. Why must the conservation community blunder onto every slippery slope presented to it? Why does it feel compelled to rub its hands into things  grassroots activists have painstakingly identified and labeled as 'wet paint'??  Why has the big-green conservation community permitted itself to become so damned destructive to the environment and to become such a reliable facilitator of the commercialization and privatization of America's shared, public, commons???

Oh, one last point -- Enviros and Democrats are NOT the only ones responsible for this fiasco. The wise-use, anti-environmental, American Recreation Coalition has consistently been a strong supporter of SNPLMA and is encouraging Richard Pombo,  Harry Reid and their other friends in Congress to EXPAND the SNPLMA model. From the get-go, the ARC supported SNPLMA as a mechanism for funding the expansion of their preferred forms of commercialized, privatized and motorized recreation. No one has any right to be surprised at the way things have turned out.

Scott 

 
National Park Compromise - or - Compromised National Parks
Written by Scott Silver   
Saturday, 01 December 2007

When the pro-motorized, pro-development,  American Recreation Coalition joins forces with the Outdoor Industry Association, the Wilderness Society, the National Parks and Conservation Association, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees and others to hash out compromise legislation for our National Parks, strange things can happen.
With respect to the management of America's National Parks, there are few points of intersection between the interests of the American Recreation Coalition and the interests of organizations representing pro-environmental positions. The ARC is this nation's most vigorous advocate for commercializing, privatizing and motorizing our National Parks. President Bush's National Park Centennial Initiative has been crafted so as to advance the recreation industry's agenda.

Fortunately for the parks, there is a competing Centennial Initiative. It has been introduced by Representatives Rahall and Grijalva and unlike the President's proposal, theirs is a genuine effort to protect and enhance the National Parks for the benefit of the people of this nation.

There are few points of intersection between the President's Initiative and the one written by Rahall and Grijalva. One initiative is good, the other is bad.  One should be supported by friends of parks, the other should be denounced, fought and killed. Unfortunately, that is not what is happening.

Name-brand conservationists are working with the enemies of parks. They are not advocating for the passage to the GOOD legislative proposal which has been written and introduced.  They are writing compromises.

Read on to learn about the tentative deal hashed out between the American Recreation Coalition and representatives of the conservation community.

Read on to learn about a proposal that would fund the National Park Centennial Initiative using receipts generated from SALVAGE TIMBER SALES.

Scott

 
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