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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
---- A few points to consider when writing your Letter ----
1) Slipping the Recreation Access Tax into a must-pass bill is
abhorrent and goes against the democratic process. This is the wrong
way to create law.
2) The $388 billion Omnibus Bill was larded with billions of dollars of
pork because there was so little accountability in how legislation such
as the RAT was tacked onto it. There would be no need to force citizens
to pay to walk in their public forests or float upon their waterways
etc. if Congress spent tax dollars more wisely and with greater
accountability
3) Representative Ralph Regula (R-OH), acting against objections from
both the general public and Senators of his own party, forced his
Recreation Access Tax (HR 3283) onto the federal Appropriations Bill.
HR 3283 had not passed either the House or the Senate. Such an
unpopular bill, lacking both public and Senate support, stood virtually
no chance of passage unless sneaked onto the Omnibus Bill. The RAT
should be removed for the Omnibus Bill before the upcoming House vote
on December 6th and the Recreation User Tax bill should be required to
sink or swim based upon it's own merits.
4) The RAT, if allowed to become law, will become the first new tax of
George W. Bush's Presidency; or so it has been said to me, though I do
not know if this is correct. The Recreation Access Tax is undeniably a
tax and it would be an extraordinarily regressive tax at that: a tax
that would hit working families especially hard.
---QUOTED EDITORIAL FOLLOWS ----
http://www.magicvalley.com/news/editorials/index.asp?StoryID=1697
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for
the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
-- C.S. Lewis
"For years members of Congress have tried to convince citizens that the
recreational fee demo program enhances good stewardship and pride in
our recreational public lands.
Their case has failed miserably. The fee demo program, which requires
an access fee from hikers, mountain bikers and backpackers on federal
agency land, is intensely more unpopular today than when it started in
1996.
In spite of this opposition, a few congressional leaders made a
stunning decision a week ago to attach fee demo legislation to the
must-pass $388 billion Senate Appropriations omnibus bill.
With one swift stroke, the pay-to-play philosophy for public lands --
including areas of the Sawtooth National Forest -- has been squeezed
into permanent law.
Making it worse was that this legislation didn't receive a full vote in
either chamber. It also overturned legislation passed in the Senate
this year to abolish fee demo in 2005.
Thanks to the Senate bylaws that allow attachments, or riders, to be
placed into larger bills, Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, squeezed his bill,
HR 3283, into the spending package. This act of hubris should infuriate
the growing bloc of Congress that opposes public land access fees.
Among those opponents is Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig. The Western
Slope No-Fee Coalition of Norwood, Colo., reported that Craig, chairman
of the Public Lands Subcommittee, joined three other key Senate
committee chairmen in refusing Regula's attempt to get a rider earlier
in the week.
But eventually Regula reneged on promises to drop his bill. He brokered
with another chairman, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, to place it in the
omnibus.
Passage of the legislation means fee demo will continue on the federal
books for another 10 years. That's another decade of citations for
treading on public land without a trailhead access pass. And it means
more false campaigns about the program's success because of the high
"participation."
That's the same as saying prison inmates love commissary food, because, well, they simply eat it every day.
But Regula's bill kills the "participation" argument, as well. Since
participation in fee demo has steadily eroded, the bill now gives
agencies authority to prosecute noncompliance with misdemeanor
penalties that reach up to $5,000 or six months in jail.
If the fee demo program were so beloved by the public, Congress
wouldn't jack up the penalties for not complying with it. It wouldn't
dangle the threat of jail time in front of those who don't pay. And
most importantly, it wouldn't have to go behind closed doors in order
to preserve the program.
When you go to those lengths to keep an access fee, you don't have
democratic land policy. You have elements of tyranny, which is nothing
more than the oppressive power of government forced upon citizens.
"It's going to change the face of public lands in Idaho, Colorado,
Nevada, where the majority of lands are public lands," said Robert
Funkhouser of the Western Slope No Fee Committee. "A lot of people in
Congress are upset with Regula's egregious move."
They should be. Because these fee demo politics lack any legitimacy to be called rule of law.
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