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The second part of the appended Sierra Club Alert is critically important. First The Wilderness Society, and now the Sierra Club, has come out in opposition to George Bush's National Parks initiative. "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" is how BOTH organizations put it.
I'd like to make it a little clearer than that!!
George Bush's National Parks Initiative is designed to use the authority of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program to REPLACE congressional funding for our National Parks with USER FEE REVENUES collected from paying customers. Money so collected will be spent to provide infrastructure that will facilitate increased park visitation and will, in turn, generate additional revenue receipts.
The big winner, will not be the American people, the National Park System, or the Federal Treasury. The winners will be the most-wealthy Americans who will see their income taxes reduced, the tourism industry who will market and sell our National Parks as attractions to International Visitors and MOST ESPECIALLY the winners will be the private corporations who serve as the National Park Concessionaires.
Without the authority of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, none of the revenues collected by the National Parks could be retained. Without Fee-Demo, all of the receipts would BY LAW have to be returned to the Federal Treasury. George Bush's disastrous National Parks Initiative would be virtually impossible without Fee-Demo. George Bush's National Parks Initiative is an unmitigated fraud and must be denounces as such! If enacted, it almost guarantees that the Recreation Fee Demonstration program will be made permanent!
Interestingly, the Sierra Clubs Official Fee-Demo policy states:
"The Sierra Club will inform and educate Sierra Club members nationwide on the long range consequences of public land recreational access and user fees. The recreation fee demonstration program, specifically, is not just a benign effort to fund needed programs but is the leading edge of the recreation industry's attempts to transform public land recreation into commercial "products"."
But the Sierra Club's Fee-Demo policy also states:
"The Sierra Club opposes recreation access and use fees on federal lands, other than lands managed by the National Park Service."
Perhaps the time has come for the Sierra Club and everyone else in the environmental community to oppose Fee-Demo on ALL public lands.
NOTHING good will come from this program.
Scott
--- BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE ---
From: Bruce Hamilton
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 11:42 AM
Subject: Bush's broken promises LTE needed
<<<<<snip>>>>>
URGENT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR NEEDED ON BUSH'S BROKEN PROMISES
Yesterday President Bush did an abrupt U turn on controlling carbon
dioxide from power plants, breaking one of the few pro-environment
<<<<<snip first part, begin second part>>>>>
At the same time, during the campaign George W. Bush committed to
increase funding for the National Park Service to deal with the backlog
of maintenance from old neglected infrastructure. He highlighted this
issue in his first address to Congress and got a round of applause.
Now it is apparent that he is robbing Peter to pay Paul, shortchanging
other underfunded Park programs such as research and ranger
interpretation programs to steer money to the maintenance budget line
item. He is also using the need to fund the existing Park's as an
excuse to attack the new National Monuments, claiming that President
Clinton's actions to establish new parks has caused the problem.
Two environmental campaign promises, two broken promises. This is a reckless start for the Bush Presidency.
Please let the American people know you care about this through a letter to the editor today.
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- Land management 
