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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
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Forest fees fly anew, bringing blasts in Bend
Appropriations bill rider allows wider, 10-year program, despite opposition
By Barney Lerten
Last Updated: Sunday, November 21, 2004 9:35 PM
Reference Code: AR-19517
November 21 - Scott Silver surely isn't happy that the 8-year-old
"pilot program" to levy fees for access to much of America's public
lands has just been extended another decade, and dramatically expanded.
But the Bend founder of the group Wild Wilderness says the way Congress
did so - or to be more specific, an Ohio congressman with no public
lands in his district made it happen, in sneaky fashion - should only
help to fuel rising opposition in coming months and years.
"Shenanigans, dirty politics and brutally applied abuse of raw power
(have), once again, trumped the democratic process," Silver told the
group's (www.wildwilderness.org) supporters by e-mail on Saturday.
On Saturday, Congress passed HR 3283, the Federal Lands Recreation
Enhancement Act, introduced by Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio., the original
architect of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program.
A news release from the House Resources Committee stated, "The bill
will improve recreational facilities and visitor opportunities on
federal recreational lands by reinvesting receipts from fair and
consistent recreational fees and passes."
Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., the committee's chairman, said, "This
legislation ensures continued access to recreational opportunities on
our federal land while protecting the public's pocketbook."
"We have given federal land managers the ability to assess reasonable
fees for specific activities and uses," Pombo said. "This bill will put
an end to fears that fees will be used by federal land managers, since
we have laid out very specific circumstances under which these fees can
be collected and subsequently reinvested."
But others see it differently.
"This was a victory of pork over principle," said Robert Funkhouser,
president of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition. "Ralph Regula is
responsible for the first tax increase of the Bush administration. He
and (Alaska) Senator (Ted) Stevens have sold out America's heritage of
public lands for the price of a road."
Regula managed to get the bill attached as a rider to the giant, $388
billion omnibus appropriations bill, approved by Congress on Saturday
in the rush to end the final, lame-duck session of the 108th Congress.
But Funkhouser noted in a news release that the bill itself never
received separate House approval and never was even introduced, given a
hearing or voted upon in the Senate.
Western lawmakers' deal rebuffed
HR 3283 passed the House Resources Committee in September, under strong
pressure from Regula, who is expected to become the next chairman of
the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
Funkhouser and Silver said the bill marks a radical change in the way
public lands are funded and stands in sharp contrast to a competing,
more moderate bill that had won Senate approval. S. 1007, sponsored by
Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., would have let the National Park Service
retain their entrance fees for local use, but would allow access fees
to expire in the other agencies. The Senate passed Thomas's bill in May
by unanimous consent, but it never had a House hearing.
Fee-demo foes said Regula's efforts to attach his rider early last week
were strongly rejected by the chairmen of all four pertinent Senate
committees: Senator Thomas of the National Parks Subcommittee, Sen.
Pete Domenici, R-N.M.., of Energy and Natural Resources, Sen. Larry
Craig, R-Idaho, of the Public Lands Subcommittee, and Sen. Conrad
Burns, R-Mont., of the Interior Appropriations Committee.
The four Western senators forced Regula to remove the rider on Tuesday,
Funkhouser said, but he "reneged on the agreement" two days later,
"went over the heads of the Senate's public lands chairmen and struck a
deal with Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chair of the Senate
Appropriations Committee."
"Regula reportedly agreed to give Stevens funding for a road in a
remote community in Alaska in exchange for allowing Regula's bill to be
reattached," Funkhouser said in a news release. "That left the four
senators who had negotiated the original deal hopping mad, and
disappointed millions of fee opponents who expected that such a seismic
shift in policy would receive public hearings, not be done behind
closed doors."
Silver said, "This 'victory' came at enormous cost, as measured in
political capital. The fight within Congress generated extraordinary
animosity on the part of key senators that is not being directed at key
House members. . In the long term, their apparent 'win' could easily
blow up in the faces of those who made it happen. In the long term, the
agencies may come to regret ever going down this path."
"We'll see what the future holds," he said. "The fight continues - that much is certain."
Regula's legislation will go into effect when fee demo expires at the
beginning of the next fiscal year, unless the new Congress acts to
derail it, Funkhouser said.
Its key provisions include permanent recreation fee authority for all
national forests and BLM land, as well as all lands managed by the Fish
and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation and National Park Service.
"But the war is anything but over," Silver wrote. "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."
Coming: Stiff fines, national pass
Failure to pay the fees will be a criminal offense, punishable by up to
$5,000 and/or six months in jail. Drivers, owners and occupants of
vehicles not displaying a daily or annual pass will be presumed guilty
of failure to pay and can all be charged, without government obligation
to prove their guilt, Funkhouser said. The measure also encourages
agencies to contract with private firms and other non-governmental
entities to manage public lands and enforce fee collection.
The bill also establishes a national, interagency annual pass called
the "America the Beautiful" pass, expected to cost $85 to $100 annually.
Funkhouser said the program is considered a double tax by many and puts
the burden of funding the land-management agencies on the backs of
rural Americans. He noted that Regula's bill failed to attract a single
Western sponsor and was co-sponsored by seven Eastern congressmen.
"Changing public land policy in the middle of the night via a rider is
despicable," Funkhouser said. "Once again, the congressman (Regula) has
proven to be hostile to rural and Western values, and will stop at
nothing to push his agenda."
Silver told fellow fee foes, "I will be sharing with you increasingly
aggressive strategies that, when executed, will ensure that the newly
passed recreation fee program will fail."
The original fee-demo program, also created by Regula, was similarly
passed in 1996 as a rider on an omnibus appropriations bill. The
original 2-year "demonstration" was repeatedly extended, despite
sparking protests nationwide and widespread non-compliance by
individuals, as hundreds of groups, four state legislatures and dozens
of state counties opposed the program.
Supporters said the new bill incorporates public participation by
establishing Recreation Advisory Committees that will consist of
members of the local government and recreation community. The group
will provide recommendations to Interior Secretary Gale Norton
regarding the establishment, elimination or adjustment of a fee.
Silver said Saturday, "The fight is not over yet. We'll be trying to
encourage people not to go where fees are charged." In addition, he
said, as the privatization forces led by the American Recreation
Coalition push for more volunteerism - in effect, to "outsource federal
employees" - Silver said his group will urge folks not to be involved
that, either.
"It's hard to go against something as 'apple pie'" as volunteer
programs, Silver said, but it's "absolutely one of the fundamental
building blocks of the privatization agenda."
While the president's re-election no doubt has emboldened Republicans
in Congress, Silver said, "The support we got and people we backed were
all Republicans. This is not your typical partisan politics. Basically,
it's a fight between some Republicans and other Republicans."
"There's a level of arrogance that exists in D.C. now, at the very top
- people like Ralph Regula," Silver said. The push to extend and
enlarge the public lands fee program "would probably not have happened
had the administration not just turned so anti-democratic, and this
sort of naked abuse of power is acceptable in our government."
"None of the people I work with are that depressed," Silver said.
"Everyone looks at it as a setback. Everyone plans to fight on."
"You know, these next couple of years are going to be challenging," he
said. "We know that Gale Norton was just pressuring the living hell out
of these senators. If fighting some battles is the best way to be
effective, that's what I'll do. But if we've got to join another fight
to push back, (we will). . You have no idea how afraid I am for our
country."
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- Privatization 
