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The Recreation Access Tax bill which was recently enacted contains several important, albeit subtle, privatization/ commercialization clauses that may have gone unnoticed by some. One of those clauses reads:
"(1) PASSES AUTHORIZED.- The Secretary may establish and charge a fee for a regional multientity pass that will be accepted by one or more Federal land management agencies or by one or more governmental or nongovernmental entities for a specified period not to exceed 12 months. To include a Federal land management agency or governmental or nongovernmental entity over which the Secretary does not have jurisdiction, the Secretary shall obtain the consent of the head of such agency or entity."
'Privatization clause' - 'commercialization clause', you may ask!???
How so???
The answer is contained in the appended Associated Press article from this morning's press. See if you can spot the not-so-subtle privatization, commercialization, non-governmental RAT connection.
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
December 16, 2004
Feds, tribes
may co-manage bison refuge
By John Heilprin - The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The only federal wildlife refuge set aside to protect
bison will be managed by the Interior Department and Indian tribes in
an unusual partnership that conservationists fear could lead to more
development of public lands.
Under an agreement signed yesterday, the department and the Confederate
Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council will split budget and management
duties for Montana's 19,000-acre National Bison Range, which is within
the tribal homeland on the Flathead Indian Reservation.
Training is to be provided to the tribes, which must consult a federal
manager with Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service before waiving
regulations on the range. The deal takes effect in three months if
Congress does not object.
The deal, negotiated over the past two years, is only the second of its
kind under a 1994 law that lets tribes with a cultural, geographic or
historic link to a federal refuge apply to run it.
An April deal let the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments do a few
jobs on the 9 million-acre Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, about
100 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. A bill by Sen. Daniel Inouye,
D-Hawaii, would require more tribes nationally to manage resources on
refuges with the government.
Jonathan Windy Boy, a Democrat who represents Rocky Boy Reservation in
the Montana Legislature, led a prayer for the Bison Range agreement,
after noting that his Indian name translates to "Old Man Buffalo."
Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson said the deal creates "a
partnership that honors some of the most valued natural resources that
we share on this continent."
Opposition to the deal could come from Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.,
chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's interior subcommittee.
"He has not made up his mind whether this is beneficial or not" for
both Montana and the nation, J.P. Donovan, Burns' communications
director, said yesterday. "He has seen and heard both sides of the
issues, and he wants to take a good look at the funding agreement."
The deal has drawn scrutiny closer to the Bison Range, where visitors
pay a $4 fee and are told the bison roaming the prairie are descended
from calves that followed an Indian home from a hunt more than a
century ago.
About 250,000 people visit the range annually. Birds, elk, bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope call it home.
Opponents questioned whether tribal employees are qualified to run a
refuge and said they fear the deal might become a model for opening
more refuges and other public lands to more energy exploration.
"Based on the number of refuge managers I've heard from, this is
unbelievably far-reaching," said Susan Campbell Reneau of Missoula,
Mont., the author of 21 books on wildlife and conservation. "It could
be applied to all other public land where there is commercial
application, including oil and gas exploration in Alaska."
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- Privatization 
