[This is what Pelosi wrought, with the help of then-mayor Willie Brown and the entire old Burton Machine (along with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups), and it is the most enduring legacy she will leave behind. (See "Plundering the Presidio," 10/8/1997.) It's important for every activist infuriated with the arrogant behavior of the Presidio Trust to remember that - and to start mounting some real pressure on Pelosi to undo the damage and repeal the Presidio Trust Legislation. The Presidio is a national park and ought to be run by the National Park Service. ]

Last week Congressman Charles Pearce held an Oversight hearing on the Reauthorization of the National Park System Advisory Board.� Testimony for Fran Mainella, Doug Wheeler and Derrick Crandall can be found at:http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/archives/109/nprpl/062206.htm
 
Pasted below is Crandall's testimony. I was taken by his comment on luring international visitors to enjoy the world’s best systems of parks and forests, refuges and other public sites because I know PRECISELY the derivation of that particular statement and the program created around it.
 
The "Luring International Visitors" first appeared in a proposal ARC's Recreation Roundtable sent to President Clinton on February 15, 1993. It was part of a larger and more comprehensive compilation of requests from the wreckreation industry -- most of which having already been implemented.  You can read the proposal and its coverletter written by the Chairman of Walt Disney Attractions at: http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/luring.htm . The proposal was originally titled: "Luring International Visitors to America’s Great Outdoors".
 
Would you be concerned if Derrick Crandall were to become a member of the NPS Advisory Board? He presented his impressive resume to Congress last week and some are likely to find him well qualified for the position. I look at his resume and can trace through it, and the programs with which he has been associated, the unraveling of everything that was ever good about America's once great outdoors.
 
Scott
 
PS... There has been a lot of recent buzz around the now undeniable fact that visitation to the National Parks has been in decline for nearly a decade. For the longest while, people didn't even want to acknowledge that visitation was declining because the special agendas of so many interest groups depended upon luring ever more visitors to the great outdoors.  What no one ever seems to talk acknowledge is the possibility that these efforts made to "LURE" visitors to our National Parks ---- have backfired!!! Perhaps the act of LURING is an act of destruction!

Yesterday President bush proclaimed the creation of a new Marine National Monument and I suggested that perhaps there was a hook. A response posted to a listserv by a fisheries expert said: "You are totally wrong, Scott." And so I dug deeper.

The appended article provides useful background about President Bush's interest in promoting "rights-based fishing" with "dedicated access privileges" --- i.e., privatization of the fishes in the seas. This idea is strongly supported Libertarian thinks tanks and by such markets-based "environmental" organizations as Environmental Defense. Funding for the promotion of these ideas comes from the usual right-wing, anti-democratic, foundations (Koch, Bradley, etc...)

This article is part of a series of similar articles on the topic of marine resource privatization found at the anti-commons blog commonsblog.org. The author is Jane Shaw of PERC.  To learn more about current proposals for marine privatization, click both of the links provided below. The link at the end of the page is of particular importance --- it's explains everything from the free-market perspective of PERC's Don Leal.

And why is THAT important? Because, the chances are extremely high that President Bush's interest "to work with regional fish councils to build an improved market-based system to restore our fisheries" (as he said yesterday when signing the proclamation to establish the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument ) is in fact Don Leal's interest and Leal a leader of the marine privatization movement.

The text of yesterday's proclamation itself appears clean.... but something still smells very fishy.

Yesterday , Bush said "the Ocean Action Plan calls for Congress to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. They need to get that done."  But the legislation sponsored by Richard Pombo, Barney Frank and Don Young, H.R. 5018, that would reauthorize Magnuson-Stevens is dreadful and would be harmful to the oceans.  "Although it claims to follow recommendations from the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, the Pombo-Frank bill actually weakens current overfishing laws and threatens the long-term viability of ocean fish populations"  --- said the National Environmental Trust  last month http://www.net.org/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=29100.

 Meanwhile "Ocean Champions" www.oceanchampions.org  have dclared Pombo "Ocean Enemy #1"  Is it possible that the legislation President Bush said needs to "get done" is none other than Pombo's Magnuson-Stevens bill? More to the point, were deals cut yesterday that will facilitate the passage of Pombo's marine bill???? Does that sort of thing actually happen in politics --- or in horse trading???

Scott 

I was asked today my opinion of the announcement that George Bush was going to create the world largest marine area. I didn't have an immediate answer so I did some research. I now have an answer.

Pasted below are two articles. The first, from the UK's Independent, a progressive newspaper suggests the obvious --- that it might be "Greenwash". The second, from Republicans for Environmental Protection praises the President's "gift and legacy" in the most glowing terms imaginable.

Reading those article couldn't give a definitive answer but they led me to suspect that buried within this tasty piece of Velveeta was a sharp hook. So I dug.

Does the following sentence, quoted from the Whitehouse's announcement, mean anything to you!??

www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060615-9.html

   The President's Ocean Action Plan Calls On Congress To Reauthorize The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation And Management Act. Under the President's plan, this act would provide enhanced authority to work with regional fish councils to build an improved, market-based system to restore our fisheries.

I suspect passage of Magnuson-Stevens is the hook. Why --- because the Free-Market privatization folks at PERC have recently praised President Bush for his environmental stand on fisheries www.perc.org/perc.php?id=765 and PERC's Don Leal was recently appointed to the President's Fisheries council www.perc.org/perc.php?id=751 and because the issue of Ocean Fisheries privatization is such a high priority for PERC www.perc.org/topics.php?topic=9  and because the political fate of Magnuson-Stevens has merited recent attention on PERC's website www.perc.org/perc.php?id=795.

And that's not the only hook I suspect. Read the Whitehouse's announcement and you'll see a lot of talk about cooperative conservation, building a strong American off-shore aquaculture industry and more. I suspect we're dealing with at least a treble hook.

Scott 

Healthy Parks - Healthy Living is a new National Park program, brought to you by Wal-Mart and Lipton Tea/Unilever.

Pasted below is a relevant article from today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. And here is a relevant quote from NPS Director Mainella

"The National Park Service is working with Unilever's LIPTON® brand to renew America's commitment to wellness. We invite you to enjoy your National Parks - not just as destinations - but as everyday outdoor recreation retreats."

You can read Mainella's quote and learn more about this new program at: www.nationalparks.org/proudpartners/partner_unilever_lt.shtml

The weird thing is, I thought Fran Mainella recently said she was not going to allow National Parks to be used as props or as  backdrops for commercial interests trying to sell stuff!? Perhaps I misunderstood her.

Scott

PS... If you want to see how BRAZENLY the National Parks and Unilever are being abused as props/backdrops for selling stuff, click on this link http://homebasics.eprize.net/win/index.tbapp?affiliate_id=4k . If you want to know what's behind the new found interest in promoting the national parks as playgrounds,  click on this link to a new report titled "Addressing the Role of National Parks to Promote Healthful Recreational Activities: An Outcome-Based Approach" www.nps.gov/pub_aff/healthrec_PDF/HEALTH&REC_BOARDREPORT.pdf

Here's a quote from this report.

Measurement of active visits could be achieved through the use of: pedometers, infra-red counters, visual observation, surveys, on-line self-reported log of activity (including use of existing opportunities such as the President's Challenge program, offered by the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports), a passport program, GPS monitoring, wearable radio frequency identification (RFID) tags similar to those used for marathons and other events and other creative means.

ARC's name appears at the end of the report.

 Scott

I've been a critic of National Public Lands Day for enough years to know that certain of my peers will lambaste me if I say anything derogatory about the appended news release.

And so I won't. I'll simply say that it provides a remarkably clear example of the growing corporate intrusion into every orifice of American society, culture and heritage.

This year, when on September 30th your government permits you one day to visit your public lands without having to pay for the privilege, perhaps you really should head on down to your local Toyota dealership --- as the news release suggests.

Scott

Pasted below is an article from today's Oregonian in which I'm quoted.

The subject about which I spoke was that of bringing technology to the Great Outdoors in general, and to Oregon's top tourist attraction, Multnomah Falls, in specific. I would just add that this issue involves much MORE than cell-towers in National Parks and wi-fi hotspots wherever nature is put on display.

To better appreciate how transformational the incursion of technology will be to what you think of when you think of nature, who might look over the top 20 ideas being touted, and promoted, by the American Recreation Coalition www.funoutdoors.com/node/view/1080 . My favorite, "Talking Trees" is item #14.

Scott

PS... the many references within this article to RVs are significant. The founder of the ARC was the President of the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association.

America's public lands recreation policy is, as many know, being dictated by the recreation / tourism industry with considerable input from pro-privatization ideologues. The public has no say in this matter. The conservation community has no say.  Some few recreation special interest groups do have a seat at the table --- but no organization that cares about wildness or wilderness is represented.

The public lands management agencies willingly accept the industry's lead and together they are conspiring to create an entirely new public lands recreation paradigm. Pasted below is a CONDENSED version of a News Release issued today.

I STRONGLY encourage people who care about America's Public Lands to explore the new www.tools4outdoors.us website and to familiarize yourself with the privatization tools being used to bring about this transformation.

Scott

Quoted from appended article:

   [Besides commercial ventures, the Forest Service is seeking other partnerships that would ease the burden of recreation management.]

In this short article we see;

1) public facilities being privatized
2) forest recreation being commercialized
3) recreation fees increasing
4) cheap labor replacing USFS labor
5) still more concessionaires being solicited

and

 6) the FS using outsourcing to get out from under what they are now calling " the burden" of recreation management.

In this short article we see the future and it is not the future I'd hoped my child would get to enjoy when he became a man.

Scott 

Quoted from appended Wall Street Journal Article about the liquidation of America's major highways and the threat of privatization to the Federal Interstate System:

[ ...according to a compilation by , an expert on transportation at the Reason Foundation, a libertarian research organization.]

The privatization of America's transportation networks and the privatization of America's National Parks and public lands are both being coordinated by ideologues form the Reason Foundation. The situations on the roads and in the parks are analogous.

Quoting the Reason Foundation's website we learn: "Robert Poole is the founder, and was the long-time president, of the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank advancing free minds and free markets." http://www.reason.org/poole.shtml -

Quoting the Department of the interior's website, we learn that Acting Secretary of Interior Lynn Scarlett -  "Prior to joining the Bush Administration in July 2001, she was President of the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, a nonprofit current affairs research and communications organization." http://www.doi.gov/bio/bioscarlett.htm

And finally, quoting Ms Scarlett herself "The organization that I came from invented the word 'privatization'..." http://www.businessofgovernment.org/main/interviews/bios/scarlett_frt.asp .

This interview was conducted by a representative of the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers. For those who do not know, PricewaterhouseCoopers is directly and ubiquitously involved in bringing about the privatization of virtually all government functions in this nation.

GOOGLE for the terms (PricewaterhouseCoopers and privatization) and you get over 100,000 hits.  GOOGLE for the terms (PricewaterhouseCoopers and "American Recreation Coalition" and you get 800 hits. Follow these and you will come to better appreciate how, why and for whom, American's public lands are being privatized, commercialized and motorized.  Follow this link to the Reason Foundation's privatization website www.privatization.org and you will come to appreciate how, why and for whom, America is being liquidated.

Scott

Quoted from appended article:

[OOIDA believes the toll road is not the governor's to sell and that it belongs to the people of Indiana and to the highway users who have paid for it and continue to pay for it with their tolls and taxes.]

As this nation is driven ever deeper into debt, we will be increasing forced to convert our tangible assets into cash in order to pay our bills and service our debt. Whereas we once sold American manufactured products, goods and services, now we sell the infrastructure required to produce such things and to move transport them to market. We have even begun to liquidate our public's owned lands and that trend will rapidly escalate as the urgency of satisfying our creditors increases.

The selling or leasing of our nation's ports and highways is quickly becoming a major front in the privatization agenda. The less maintenance this vital infrastructure is given today, the greater will be the impetus to transfer its control into private (often foreign) hands and the lower will be the transfer price.

Imagine when we no longer own our public interstate roads or major highways. Imagine when increasingly expensive tolls are used as a mechanism for preventing lower income persons from using roads in an attempt to reduce congestion and improve the driving experience of the wealthy.

Imagine the tax breaks the wealthy will receive when those roads are no longer funded through tax dollars. Imagine to cost to the taxpayers when some recently privatized roads are deemed to be unprofitable to operate and are returned to public ownership in degraded condition.

Welcome to the world of road privatization. It is another prime example of the Corporate Takeover of Everything and through road privatization the gap between the haves and have nots in America will be further pried apart. Roads that are part of "the commons" today, will become part of the "ownership society" tomorrow.

Curiously enough, some environmentalists support road privatization and user fees as a mechanism for removing cars from the road. I do not. Pricing poor people off the road is not an equitable solution.

Scott 

There are some who have claimed that recreation fees have no adverse impact upon public land visitation. Those who have said this have been wrong -- or they have been lying.  Pasted below is and article from today's Seattle Times which does an unusually good job of getting to the truth.

That said, there are people out there who have no problem with the idea of paying to walk in nature. There are even people who value recreation fees specifically BECAUSE they understand that the higher the fees charged, the fewer people with whom they must share the public resource.

In this ownership society, fees are being used to facilitate a temporary form of ownership. Fees privatize -- and declining visitation is a privatization issue.

Scott

PS ... If public support for public lands declines, the lands themselves will be sold off or turned over to the private sector to operate. The precipitous declines in visitation reported below, unless reversed quickly, will lead to still more privatization.

I suppose I should be thankful that Randal O'Toole is no longer spending his days pushing recreation user fees as his preferred mechanism for fixing the USFS. In fact, I am delighted that he's largely moved on from public lands issues --- though I deeply regret that he has dedicating himself to being the King of Sproil.

That said ..... and knowing Randy's fee-proclivities, I wonder how long it will be before he jumps onto the Congestion Pricing  (or Differential Pricing ) bandwagon which would, of course, be a natural fit. When he does, will the many conservationists who have been promoting congestion pricing (sometimes called Value Pricing) stick to their free-market guns? Or will they feel unclean, being in bed with Randy.

I hope folks will read how Randal's latest screed (appended). If you should wonder who pays him to write this material, here's the answer . If you've interest in reading more about the multitude of organization like Randal's that are supporting sprawl and opposing public transportation,  (i.e., the company Randy's keeps), here's a useful resource.

Scott

PS... Silly me. I didn't until just this moment, think to GOOGLE for the combination "Randal O'Toole" AND "congestion pricing". Had I done so, I'd have seen that there are several hundred hits.

For some -- one of the beauties of an "ownership" society is that those with wealth will have an opportunity to own everything of value and to own it absolutely. Another beauty is that the shared wealth of all citizens that has long been held in common for the good of all, can be privatized and individually owned. Some might even say that yet another beauty of the system is that those lacking wealth can (morally) be left to rot --- but, perhaps, only after their internal organs have been harvested and sold on the open market.

I know of no individual who has promoted this form of extreme material greed more faithfully than has Terry L. Anderson, Executive Director of Property and Environmental Research Center. Anderson, is the spiritual father of recreation user fees and the idea of restricting public lands access to paying customers only. He is likewise the author of "How and Why To Privatize Public Lands" -- a treatise that calls for selling every acre of federally managed (publicly-owned) public lands. Anderson's plan would reduce to private ownership every National Park, National Forest, National Monument, military base and (I suppose) even the Whitehouse and Congressional buildings -- not to mention the President, all Senators and Congressmen. Once privatized, these lands (and politicians?) would only be accessible to those who could afford the price of admission -- or were friends of the owners.

Pasted below is a short except from Anderson's most recent ode to private ownership.

If you visit PERC's website and read the entire piece, you'll see that Anderson has mounted an attack upon the Constitutions of Montana, Oregon and other states.  And as you well know (especially you river-runners and fisherman), this is not the only attack currently being waged.

Scott

     All the navigable waters of the State shall be common highways and . . . forever free. -1859 Oregon Admissions Act

Years ago, I tagged the Bryant Park privatization issue as one of special importance and I have reported upon it frequently. I'm doing so again because what's happening today in that little park in the heart of New York City provides such a clear example of how the privatization of virtually all of our public parks and open spaces is now happening. It provides the best example I can think of for what could, soon enough, be happening at the Capital Mall in Washington DC.

There have been NO SURPRISES with the privatization of Bryant Park. The privatization of this park has been occurring EXACTLY as expected. So if you like how the privatization of Byrant Park is progressing (which some will!) and would like to see this applied to the parks, forests, rivers, mountains and/or wilderness areas that you use and enjoy, then be patient. Do nothing and this form of privatization will reach you soon enough.

If you don't like what you see, then please take note and take appropriate action. This form of privatization is most definitely headed your way.

Scott

The appended article from today's press provides an unusually clear example of how the US Forest Service and the private sector are conspiring to commercialize, privatize and motorize our public lands.

What I found interesting about this particular article was the near perfect polarization of interests it displays. Three conservation spokespersons were interviewed and their statements were in almost perfect agreement. Three commercial and/or motorized recreation spokespersons were interviewed and their statements were similarly in near perfect agreement.

One representative of the USFS was interviewed. With which group do you suppose he was aligned???

I would just add that advertising has long been understood to be prohibited by law on the national forests and MUCH has been written on the specific legal status of advertising on chair lifts.

The fact that the USFS has proposed changes to their rule book, will not change the LEGAL status of advertising. But unless someone sues the USFS and forces them to abide by the law, it appear that they will play by their own rules.

Scott

Quoted from appended Op-Ed from today's Rocky Mountain News.

 Some federal lands are so badly mismanaged that if they were in private hands already the owner would be prosecuted, he said. "The environmental quality of the West would be improved drastically if it could be privatized."

Unabashed free-market ideologues invented this message in the late 70s.

Today, modern so-called "free-market environmentalists" claim that by selling public lands to the highest bidder, conservation organizations would be on an equal footing with extractive users and /or developers when bidding for those lands. These arguments were detailed in 1999 by President Bush's land-use advisor Terry Anderson in his report titled, "How and Why to Privatize Federal Lands" .

Sadly, and to my everlasting disappointment, some conservationists have helped precipitate the crisis that's now upon us with Rep. Richard Pombo's pending land sale legislation. Some conservation organizations dabbling in the black arts of free-market environmentalism have actively embraced the parts of this larger privatization agenda that fit their immediate needs. Little by little, those dabblers, wittingly or not,  helped advance the objectives of the Land-Disposalists and the Ownership-Society-Feudalists.

If Pombo's land disposal provision fails to become law, I hope the dabblers will repent and never again support the privatization agenda. If Pombo's land disposal law is enacted, the game will be over and the long tradition of public enjoyment of publicly owned and publicly supported lands will be dead. If Pombo's land disposal law is enacted, I'll be most interested to see how much of the American Commons can be "saved" by being purchased and will be even more interested to see if those privatized conservation lands provide American citizens with benefits equal to those now provided by public lands.

For what it's worth, here's a prediction: After the last of our lands and other shared inheritances are sold and the money spent, all but a handful of Americans will be reduced to living as modern serfs and paupers in a Neo-Feudalistic State.

Scott

    Concentrated Wealth attributes the prosperity and progress of the United States to what it calls free enterprise. To it free enterprise means freedom to take, keep and control all the resources, services and opportunities it can, and charge for them the last possible cent. -Gifford Pinchot (America's first Chief of the USFS)

   Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then you will find that money cannot be eaten. -Cree Indian Prophecy