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Today NationalParksTraveler blogger Kurt Repanshek wrote about the soon to be introduced America the Beautiful Pass (ATB). You can read what Kurt had to say by clicking here
ATB is a new multi-agency National Recreation Passport that will go on sale starting January 1, 2007. ATB will replace such familiar passes as the National Park Pass, the Golden Eagle, the Golden Age and the Golden Access Passports.
This new pass will also allow the bearer to enjoy basic access and use of most of the nearly 700,000,000 acres of public lands administered by the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation.
The annual cost for an ATB pass had yet to be determine as of October 27, 2006. What has been determined, is that American citizens (or those domiciled in America) can earn a pass by volunteering at least 500 hours.
If you start today and are prepared to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week until the end of the year, you'll almost, but not quite, have earned a pass. If you can't afford to purchase a pass this Christmas, you better start volunteering quickly! And should you wish to work at a more leisurely rate of 40 hours a week, you can earn your pass in a mere twelve and a half weeks.
Wild Wilderness has been closely tracking the coming of this new passport since it was first introduced as proposed legislation in 1992 by the American Recreation Coalition. That early legislative effort was broadly denounced by virtually everyone inside and outside of the legislature. For good reason, it failed to become law and the ARC's efforts to create their pass floundered. It was not until December of 2004 when legislation introduced by Congressman Richard Pombo was stuck onto an appropriation bill against the objection of ranking members of the US Senate that ATB was finally authorized.
 We have written extensively on this subject and by clicking on this link you can access what we've had to say. We will very soon have very much more to say! Please stay tuned.
For now, we'd like to invite you to read the Standard Operating Procedures federal land managers are following as they prepare the roll out ATB pass. You can access that document by clicking here.
I would just add that the agencies will be breaking the law when the pass is introduced. You see, when Pombo's bill became law, Congress required that the new pass be called "America the Beautiful--the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass". In Pombo's haste he failed to appreciate that the phase "America the Beautiful" was copyrighted and could not be used without permission of the copyright holder.
Pombo may not have known, or perhaps did not remember, that a century ago while standing atop Pike's Peak in Colorado, school teacher Katharine Lee Bates penned her famous song describing what she saw before her -- the "purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain."
Today, you or I or Ms. Bates' decedents would need to be in possession of an America the Beautiful Passport to look out upon those majesties and plains. But because the decedents of Ms. Bate own the rights to the those famous words and have not granted the government permission to use them, federal land managers will be in violation of those copyrights when their ATB pass is put on the market for sale.
Interestingly enough, if you decide to read the Standard Operating Procedures referenced above, you'll discover that the agencies are fully aware of this fact. Remarkably, they seem perfectly willing to break the law.
Scott
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- Land management 
