January 15, 2007
HELP TURN THE TIDE in Washington on the issue of public lands access fees AND CLOSURES!

Skyrocketing entrance fees in National Parks, widespread recreation site closures by the Forest Service AND WIDESPREAD IMPLEMENTATION OF FEES are attracting bipartisan opposition in Congress. The change from Republican to Democratic control and the subsequent shakeup of Committees and their Chairmen has opened a window of opportunity for a top-to-bottom review of national recreation policy. It's up to us, the American People, to take advantage of that opportunity and ACT NOW to persuade Congress to put the "public" back in public lands.

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has taken a strong stand against the Forest Service's "Recreation Site Facility Master Planning" policy that is already resulting in new fees, increased fees, site closures, and other changes to recreation programs on National Forests.

According to Senator Baucus's spokesperson "the Senator vows that the increased fees will never come to fruition" and "this proposal, at first glance, is ludicrous, because Max doesn't think that the Forest Service should balance its budget on the backs of Montanans who take their kids hunting, fishing and camping on our public lands."

Nor, we would add, on the backs of public lands users in any other state!

Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY), outgoing Chair of the Senate's National Parks Subcommittee, is criticizing the new $80 "America the Beautiful" pass that is pricing Americans out of their National Parks and other federally managed public lands.

According to Thomas, "An $80 fee is certainly higher than what folks should have to pay to recreate on federal lands," He went on to say he opposes expanding the recreation fee beyond the National Parks to other federal land management agencies, which will result in higher fees with no guarantee of improving the impacted recreation sites. "If there's a budget problem in our land management agencies, let's get to the root of it, address it head-on, and not put budget shortfalls on the back of recreational visitors."

We couldn't agree more!

Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) recently sent an open letter to Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne urging him to veto the planned entrance fee increases at Crater Lake National Park and Lava Beds National Monument. "It doesn't make sense to increase park fees while national parks are struggling to attract visitors," DeFazio said. "I am concerned that the increase in fees at Crater Lake will discourage regular visits by Oregon families. . . I agree that the national park system is in need of additional funding, but raising fees for park visitors will only drive visitors away."

NOW IS THE TIME to urge your Representative and Senators to weigh in and protect the public's interest in public lands.

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Congress needs to take a long, hard look at where these "Full Cost Recovery" recreation policies are heading. Individuals, organizations, and local governments must contact their Congressional representatives and ask them to hold oversight hearings and take legislative action to:

- Roll back the Recreation Site Facility Master Planning (RSFMP) process in the Forest Service. This program will eliminate thousands of recreation sites, reduce operating seasons, increase fees, create new fee sites and turn hundreds more sites over to concessionaires. The RSFMP turns the Forest Service recreation programs into a taxpayer funded "For-Profit" venture that forces Americans away from the forests and damages local economies.

    [Read report on RSFMP at here.]

- Repeal the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) for the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish & Wildlife Service and National Park Service, including the new $80 "America The Beautiful Pass" which is pricing the public out of visiting our Parks and other public lands. Fee policy remains extremely contentious, yet the agencies continue to charge the public fees that are well outside of the authority of the FLREA. Incentives created by the FLREA are the driving force behind policies such as the RSFMP.

    [For more on BLM and Forest Service FLREA Implementation click here.]

- Limit the cost of National Park entrance fees. Park visitation is down across the board since the late 1990s when Fee Demo caused a round of substantial entrance fee increases, yet under FLREA the NPS is raising fees yet again, by 100% in many cases.

- Audit the agencies' budgets and mandate that 75% of Congressionally appropriated recreation funding gets to the ground. The Forest Service, for instance, has had its national recreation funding increased by 22% over the last decade while, according to local FS managers, local funding has decreased by as much as 50%. The WSNFC currently estimates that, at best, as little as 18% of Congressionally appropriated funding for Forest Service recreation actually gets to the ground.

It’s been two years since the FLREA was attached as a rider on a spending bill. All the public has to show for it is agency policies that are pricing the public out of THEIR public lands, policies that replace appropriated funding with fees at the local level, agencies that think they are above the law in charging fees outside the FLREA's authority, and the decommissioning of thousands of campgrounds, picnic areas and trails.

We applaud Senators Baucus and Thomas, Representative Defazio, and others in Congress for their stand on THESE IMPORTANT ISSUES. For those of you in Montana, Wyoming and Oregon please contact them and voice your support. For those that live elsewhere, please contact YOUR elected officials. Ask them to oversee these out-of-control federal agencies and restore the PUBLIC in public land.

Please select comments from the sample letter below and - important! - spend a few minutes putting them in your OWN words.  Add your own comments, too. Please sign your name and address VERY CLEARLY.

Please CALL AND FAX YOUR LETTERS to as many committee chairs as you can, plus your own legislators in DC.  Thank you!  Your CALLS AND FAXES will have an impact.

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