In the 10 days since Representative Regula's Recreation Access Tax was sneaked onto the Omnibus Appropriations bill, dozens of articles and editorials have been published. All but one, have been critical of the new tax and the underhanded way in which such unpopular legislation was rammed through. Links to these articles are provided here and I encourage you to see what the press has been reporting.

Even more interesting is what elected officials are saying. Senators and House members are livid at the arrogance of Mr. Regula. Many are speaking of revising the RAT when congress reconvenes.  We should be encouraging and supporting such efforts.

Technically speaking, the RAT has not yet passed. The House will vote on the Omnibus Bill on Monday, December 6th.  There is still an opportunity to rid that bill of the RAT.

One way or another, we will expunge Regula's vermin. Doing so will require actions that further increase the visibility for this already contentious issue. Contacting Senators as suggested in the above-referenced alert will help. Having letters to the editor published will help even more as such letters have the added benefit of educating your community about the shenanigans that have taken place in Washington DC.

Whatever you do, remember the RAT was slipped onto the Omnibus bill by people who knew that the program lacked adequate support to be passed into law by normal legislative procedures. Remember that the RAT didn't just crawl onto the Omnibus bill. People with names and reputations put it there. I'd like to say to everyone who resents the underhanded dealing that gave us the RAT....  "Don't get mad : Get even."  Ruin some reputations. Undercut some power. Do what it takes to ensure that these people do no further injustice to you and yours in the coming year.

Scott

P.S. What follows appeared in today's press as a front page article. It lays blame were blame is deserved and helps to ruin reputations, undercut power and bust balls.

Three new Recreation Access Tax (RAT) articles appear in today's press, including one by the Associated Press that is getting wide national distribution. The most complete version of the AP article I've been able to locate, appears below.  If you spot a more complete version, please send it my way.

I'd ask everyone not to look upon these articles as simply being great coverage for an issue of importance to each and every one of us. I'd ask each and every one of us to look upon them as engraved invitations to write our own letters to the editor and to do whatever additional action will help this cause.

Read the story, write a response and share YOUR thoughts with your local community, your family and your friends. Thanks so much.

Scott

Quoted from appended article:

"(the program) could be up and running in 60 days, though it would take a while to go through the court system and sentence 50 appropriate people."

What's proposed is the creation of a new prisoner monitoring system, the funding of which would be generated, in part, by user fees that presumably will be charged to the prisoners themselves.  But in order to get the program up and running, this Wisconsin country apparently(?) needs to arrest, try and convict 50 of the right sort of people. Perhaps there's a peace march being planned nearby from which suitable demonstrators can be culled.

Scott

PS... You'd think the new system will be outsourced. If so, I wonder who'll be awarded the contract  --  Dyncorp, Halliburton, Wackenhut or perhaps the concessionaire of Abu Ghraib?

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (administrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery." -Thomas Jefferson 

Several of you have reminded me that the Recreation Access Tax (the RAT) will not become law until the House votes upon the Omnibus Appropriations bill and the President signs it. Many of you have expressed a strong desire NOT to accept the RAT without putting up a fight.  I thank you for your willingness to act. This message is for you!

The House vote is scheduled for December 6th, so the window of opportunity for action is small. The chances of removing the RAT from the Omnibus Bill are also small, but not so small that we can ignore the opportunity before us! For everyone prepared to act quickly, here's what can be done in the next few days.

Write a letter and send it to the editor of your local paper and to every other newspaper that might publish it.  Say whatever you want about the RAT in your own words as they come from your heart. In addition, consider the appended suggested point as possible inclusions within your letter.  For additional ideas, read the Editorial from www.magicvalley.com ,  pasted below.  For still more ideas, read what activists have been quoted as saying since the RAT was attached to the Omnibus Bill. Links to two dozen new articles can be found at: www.wildwilderness.org/docs/feedemo.htm

Scott

I thought you might like to know a little more about the Senator responsible.  Were it not for this one individual, the Recreation Access Tax would have probably gone nowhere. Heck, not one piece of public-lands recreation user-fee legislation has received a favorable vote in 39 year!!! The failed Fee-Demo program that RAT replaces, was passed as a rider to the 1996 Appropriations Bill after Rep. Jim Hansen's stand alone fee legislation met with the same fate as those recreation fee bills introduced in 1982 and 1992: they all went no-where!

So why did Senator Ted Stevens do it? Why would anyone deliberately circumvent our nation's legislative process and pass an immensely unpopular law by using the power of imperious fiat? What would motivate any one man take such an outrageous action?

Read on for what may be an answer to this vexing question.

Scott

"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." -Ronald Reagan

Pasted below is the first of many blasts directed at the Recreation Access Tax (RAT) passed as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill.

This account was published last night by a local Bend, Oregon news outlet. By mid morning Google indexed the story and reporters have been calling activists ever since. The commercialization / privatization story is getting told and the Recreation Access Tax program will, I most certainly hope, get off to a difficult and contentious start.  Your help in drawing further attention to the contentious nature the RAT will be most helpful and greatly appreciated.

Scott

Shenanigans, dirty politics and brutally applied abuse of raw power has, once again, trumped the Democratic process. As a result of actions taken by Congress earlier in this day, the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program is no longer a "demonstration" program and, as a result,  America's public lands have become less public.

It's unfortunate that I must report that an important battle in what has already been a seven year long struggle was lost today. But the war is anything but over. Never doubt that the public will trump the special interests who are responsible for creating and forcing this program upon an unwilling and resentful public.

Pasted below are two press releases. The first is the Western Slope No Fee Coalition. They tell it like it is. The second is from those who passed legislation so unpopular that it could not have become law unless attached as a rider to 'must-pass' legislation such as the Omnibus Appropriations bill.

In the days, weeks and months ahead, I will be sharing with you increasingly aggressive strategies that, when executed, will ensure that the newly passed recreation fee program will fail. Your ongoing support and personal efforts will be even more important in the future than they have been in the past. I thank you for everything you have done. I thank you in advance for all that you will do in the future.

Scott 

Let's try something different.

Normally I find an article I think you'll will find of interest and write a short introduction to accompany it. Immediately below my name you'll find a article from the September 2004 newsletter of Project for Public Spaces (PPS). Pasted BELOW that you'll find a link to my introduction.  It shared that intro with many of you several years ago when I first warned that a problem was developing. I keyed that intro to another PPS article... one written in 2002.

Perhaps now knowing how things have turned out at Bryant park will strengthen the warning I gave for our federally managed public spaces.

Perhaps now knowing how things turned out at Bryant park will allow us to prevent the same things from happening elsewhere.

Scott

The appended PRESS RELEASE issued today by the Department of Interior is self-explanatory -- as far as it goes. It announces that the Walt Disney Company will receive from Secretary Norton an "Outstanding Charter Partner Award" for it's leadership role in a program called "Take Pride in America" (TPIA).

What the DOI's news release does not say is that TPIA was created by the wise-use American Recreation Coalition and spoon fed by ARC to Ms. Norton when she first took office. It does not mention that the recipient of this award, Kym Murphy, is a Board Member of the ARC as well as an officer of ARC's elite Recreation Roundtable.  It most certainly does not say that TPIA is a pro-privatization, anti-federal employee scheme that exists primarily to confer special favors to high-impact, commercial and motorized recreation interests while facilitating further reductions in the federal workforce. To learn those things you'll want to read an article that was published a few days ago under the headline; "Nat'l Public Lands Day Raises Questions About Fate of Federal Parks "

To better appreciate what ARC's TPIA program is about, go to: www.takepride.info and http://www.funoutdoors.com/coalitions/tpia

Scott

PS... If Gale Norton is giving an award, doesn't that provided a strong indication that the associated program is suspect????  Heck, just think of the American Recreation Coalition's highly-coveted "Great Outdoors Award" which was recently presented to, you guessed it, Gale Norton!!!

Quoted from appended recreation industry insider newsletter:

[Planned meetings between House staff and Departmental representatives have been postponed until the week of August 23rd and we have been promised that the WSTPC will be sent a copy of the discussion draft following that meeting.]

When industry and government share the same bed, all sorts of mischief can happen. All too often it is the public that gets screwed. As you will see, that's what is happening today with public lands recreation policy.

The appended update comes from the Western States Tourism Policy Council. WSTPC is a lobby group that has long been intimate with the American Recreation Coalition. It is one of the nation's most influential proponents of commercial recreation/ tourism on America's public. Unless you are in the tourism industry, they are NOT your friends.

WSTPC's website is www.wstpc.org . Until recently, if you typed that address into your web-browser you'd go directly to that domain. Try it now and you'll be redirected to the State of Alaska's Commerce Community and Economic Development domain where the WSTPC site now resides.

Recall that Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK), now governor of Alaska, earned ARC's top honors in 1997 for his unflagging efforts to bring their pay-to-play agenda to our public lands. Coincidence??? Hell no!!!  .

Please read on to see what WSTPC and the Alaskan  Economic Development folks are saying about fee-demo legislation that is quickly moving forward and could pass this year!!!!  Learn of their efforts to make recreation user-fees the permanent law of the land and to do so in spite of what they openly acknowledge as massive public / grassroots opposition!

I'm counting upon each and every one of you to deliver that opposition. I'm counting upon those with newsletters, media contacts, or personal communications networks to expose the collusion occurring between the private sector and the recreation / tourism industry. I'm counting on everyone to keep writing and sending those letters to the editor and letters to Congress!!  Fee-Demo must be stopped and it can still be stopped, so long as the public voice can be heard above the grunts and groans of those rolling in the sack.

Scott

PS.... Here's another link to grunting and groaning. This is very explicit and is many will find it quite disgusting. It is the current newsletter of the National Forest Management Association

Environmentalists appear to have little concern with the 'Take Pride in America' program. The fact that it was championed years ago by Senator Slade Gorton, or pushed upon the Bush Administration by the American Recreation Coalition, or now enthusiastically supported by the motorized recreation community, or currently prized as one of Gale Norton's showcase do-go programs -  has not seemed to trouble many folks. Even the fact that the Take Pride in America logo has begun to adorn the stationery of most federal land management agencies, does not seem to have raised the profile for this issue amongst my peers.

Pasted below is an Op-ed from Senator Crapo. It says only wonderful things about the program. It also reminds us that Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne chairs the Council of Governors for Take Pride in America. Surely that fact alone should be sufficient to set off skyrockets within this community, should it not???  Hopefully folks will be interested in learning more and perhaps even joining me in speaking out against this program and about the bigger agenda of which Take Pride is but a small component.

To be blunt, this initiative scares the heck out of me. But, then again, I know more about the program than most.

Scott

To learn more:

www.takepride.gov (government site)
www.takepride.info (industry site)
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Differential pricing and/or  congestion pricing is almost certainly coming to American's National Parks. It may also come to public lands managed by other agencies and even to wilderness. The concept of this value pricing is simple: by increasing the cost of a good or service it is possible to reduce demand. Reducing demand reduces congestion, crowding or use which, in turn, provides an improved (and thus more valuable) experience for those who can afford the cost.

Stated bluntly, differential pricing is an elitist form of user fee and represents a radical departure from the ideal of equality when used to ration public resources such as roads or open space. Unfortunately, this issue is not on the radar screen of those who might nip this scheme in the bud. I've prepared the following in an effort to change that.

Pasted below is a carefully ordered collection of internet links including short snippets from each web page and a more lengthy excerpt from the final source. I introduce the important concepts using an example that may be familiar to some -- that of congestion pricing for public roads. The source I've selected is a free-market think tank run, until recently, by Lynn Scarlett. Scarlett is currently Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Budget and Policy and exerts enormous influence upon about two-thirds of federally-managed public lands. Following that introduction,  I expose the recreation industry's efforts by to rework the recreation fee demonstration program and to incorporate within it, differential pricing principles. I conclude with a discussion of national parks and wilderness by an unabashed supporter of these fees.

I've provided a roadmap to follow, though I have not provided a stop-by-stop narrative. I encourage you to learn more about this attack upon long-accepted rights of citizenship.

Scott

When the only way to access the publicly-owned Valles Caldera required visitors to pay a minimum of $40 to a private concessionaire, people balked. They said that was "elitist".  But now that the private concessionaire has reduced the price of admission, attitudes appear to have changed.

Quoted from appended article:

  ["I don't know how they do it for $10," Whitted said. "To me, $10 is a steal."]

All that has changed is the PRICE. The fact that the public (i.e., the owners of this land) can not access this public-property unless they pay a private concessionaire, is still elitist. I hope the new low price does not mean that the uproar over the privatization of the Valles Caldera has ended.

When people start quibbling over the price, it reminds me of an old joke. It also makes me worry that those who place high value upon equality, citizenship and democracy are screwed.

Scott

Quoted from an article that went onto the web this morning:

Why make a big stink with taxes, when we can tap sweetly? All the public revenue we need can be tapped from ground rent, user fees, and penalty payments. That's why we don't need any stinking taxes.

The author was progress.org's senior editor Fred Foldvary and pasted below is another of Foldvary's Op-Eds. It should be pretty obvious that Foldvary loves fees, hates taxes and detests government so much so that he wants to eliminate it entirely.

That particular combination of loves and hates is shared by a great many proponents of user fees --- people who understand these fees to be a means to an end and not an end in themselves. It's the mantra of such long-time fee-demo proponents as Terry Anderson of Political Economy Research Center.  And heck, on the American Recreation Coalition's homepage at this very moment you'll find this statement:

Ms. Jourdain testified on May 6, 2004 before the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands at a hearing on H.R. 3283, the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act. During her testimony, she emphasized that ARC does not consider recreation fees as an end in themselves, but rather as a means to be used - in conjunction with other tools, including appropriated funds, volunteerism and partnerships.....

  Fee-Demo is not about the few bucks paid at the trailhead. It's not about a couple of thousand or hundred thousand in revenues collected at a particular recreation site. It's certainly not about sweet smelling toilets -- though from listening to the USFS you'd believe toilet maintenance was driving the entire program. Fee-Demo about something much bigger. Ultimately, and to many of fee-demo's proponents, it is about the "Privatization of Government" --- which is the title of the appended article by Foldvary.

I have long used a different phrase than Foldvary uses. For 7 years I have said that fee-demo is about "The Corporate Takeover of Nature". Perhaps I've been wrong. Perhaps fee-demo is really about something BIGGER than that.

Scott

I have often tired to get the "Take Pride in America" threat onto the radar screens of the environmental community. So far, nothing has worked. Perhaps the appended article from the current issue of the BlueRibbon Coalition's magazine will help folks appreciate that this volunteerism-based program is an important component in the American Recreation Coalitions' strategy for commercializing, privatizing and YES MOTORIZING, recreational opportunities on America's public lands.

Volunteerism, like user fees, is a privatization tool used to gain special access by special-interest groups. As federal agency recreation budgets are cut ever-more deeply, recreation management will progressively transfer to those who are prepared to give either time or money.  TPIA is a privatization tool heavily supported and endorsed by the motorized recreation industry.

To learn more about TPIA, go to ARC's homepage and follow the links or go to TPIA's official webpage at www.takepride.gov . If anyone would like to view a "proof" version of TPIA's soon-to-be-released brochure, you can find it here. This is quite a special document. You'd think it came directly from the Government, what with it's introductory statements by President Bush and Gale Norton. Nowhere does it say that this is an ARC program .... but when you get to the very bottom of the last page you'll see a mailing address given for the "Take Pride in America Partners Council" and that address is the same as ARC's mailing address.

Scott

PS... A very few non-motorized recreation groups have, perhaps by accident, become associated with this Take Pride in America program. Were it not for their involvement, exposing TPIA as a fraud would be a snap. So if anyone reading this message belongs to one of those groups, I'd ask that you please do all you can to divorce your organization from this effort. You'll be doing the environmental community and your organization a favor!!! 

Quoted from appended article:

Her year-long fellowship at Hoover was followed by another at the Political Economy Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont., an outfit whose website displays the motto "Free Market Solutions to Environmental Problems." PERC advocates selling off national parks to private firms (Disney, perhaps?) and publishes a "parent's guide to teaching children about the environment that is intended to "counter the environmental movement's indoctrination of the nation's youth in public schools." One of PERC's major funders is David Koch.

If you wish to learn more about Interior Secretary Gale Norton, do read on.

Please note, this article appears to make one important mistake. The woman identified as "Marci Albright" is, I believe, actually "Marti Albright".

And why is this important?  Perhaps you haven't even heard of Ms. Albright. That's a problem.

Marti Albright was recently appointed to head the "Take Pride in America" initiative, a join partnership between the wise-use American Recreation Coalition and Ms. Norton aimed to advance the cause of privatization through volunteerism. 

The more one learns about TPIA, the more frightening this program becomes. A superficial glance might lead one to conclude that TPIA was benign, if not beneficial. And how very very wrong you'd be if you were to come to that conclusion.

Scott 

Quoted from appended feature article from Ski Magazine:

[At the moment, Forest Service officials appear to be leaning toward a policy change that would allow more visible displays of sponsors, whose logos, names or ads could appear on items they underwrite.]

What's happening with respect to commercial advertising on the National Forests today is an almost carbon copy of what happened just recently with the controversial Beeline Pass debacle.

You might recall that when Copper Mountain Ski Resort proposed issuing a ultra-premium-priced lift ticket (called the "Beeline Advantage") that would allow the bearer to cut in front of all non-advantaged skiers, local USFS decision makers said: ABSOLUTELY NO WAY - regulations do not allow this.

You might also recall that it was Dave Holland, Director of Recreation, Heritage, and Wilderness Resources Management for the USFS who overruled those local managers and authorized the issuance of these elitist, undemocratic, passes. Today Dave Holland is at it again, further bending/ breaking forest rules to advance the cause of Industrial-Recreation. What's up with this man and with the entire Washington Office recreation staff?

Scott

PS... I've appended a passage from the January National Forest Recreation Association Newsletter which, I believe, helps answer the question I've posed above. NFRA's newsletter is definitely worth reading from cover to cover (8 pages). While you as a member of the general public can not attend any of the closed-door meetings taking place between the upper echelons of the USFS and their private-sector "partners" you can, at least, get a sense of what they're discussing by reading these industry newsletters. 

Quoted from appended article:

Clement {Conservation Director for Friends of Acadia} agreed. "We never want our funding to replace what is basically congressional responsibility" to fund the national parks, she said Tuesday.

Friends of Acadia is your quintessential National Parks Service "partner" organization. They actively support fee-demo, going so far as to sell park passes. They seek out corporate sponsorship for Acadia NP. They fundraise for the park and generally embrace a wide range of free-market solutions. In a nutshell, they play by today's rules. In exchange, they have earned a seat at the table. (* see note)

So is it any surprise that funding for Acadia National Park is now being slashed? What better park to DEFUND than Acadia??? Where better to shift the burden of resource funding from allocated tax dollars and replace those dollars using the preferred free-market funding mechanisms of 1) user-fees 2) volunteerism  3) partnerships   4) corporate sponsorships and 5) private philanthropy?? Friends of Acadia will be there to take up the slack, won't they!?

To  Ms. Clement and indeed to all, I ask:

What is the mission of the current Administration if not to replace what are congressional responsibilities with free-market solutions?  What are the desired outcomes of their budget cutting, if not to promote and facilitate privatization and commercialization??  Is it better to help the Administration achieve its goals, as do the folks at Friends of Acadia??? Or is it more productive in the long-run to fight the SOBs who are destroying America, as do such truly excellent groups as Friends of Yosemite Valley, Friends of BC Parks, and Friends of the Clearwater?

Scott

 "We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -Martin Luther King Jr.

  "We will remember not the words of our natural enemies, but the unforced capitulations of our former friends." -Scott Silver

(*NOTE: Friends of Acadia gives frequent congressional testimony and has testified in support of fee-demo on several occasions.)

A brand new budget-related scandal befell America's Crown Jewels today and it can be laid directly upon the Bush Administration and upon those persons occupying the  topmost rungs within the National Park System, i.e.. Gale Norton and Fran Mainella.

Pasted below is an Associated Press version of the story. Additional details are available in the original news release. I suspect there's much MORE to this story than meets the eye.

The National Park Service has been taken over by ideologues and fanatic supporters of public-private partnerships, outsourcing and commercialization. My suspicion is that these political creature are in the process of creating a crisis within the NPS for which a very nasty free-market-based solution has already been formulated.

That being the case, here is a link to a message I shared back in June 2002. It was titled "NPS Director to Receive Privatization Award" and may be relevant. You'll see that back then I correctly sized up Ms. Mainella with respect to the Yellowstone snowmobile issue. I suspect I was equally correct with respect to the commercialization/ privatization of the National Parks. If so, we are witnessing a heist of mindboggling proportions.

Scott

PS...It will be telling to see how the NPS concessionaires Delaware North and Xanterra, the Travel Industry Association, and the American Recreation Coalition react to this breaking story. We should all eagerly await their press releases.