Bay Area Chapter of the Sierra Club
2350 San Pablo Ave #1, Berkeley, CA 94702

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 1999

Contacts: Jeffrey Kane, (510) 893-4335, roadless@pacbell.net
          Vicky Hoover, (415) 977-5527, vicky.hoover@sierraclub.org

NEWS RELEASE - BAY AREA SIERRA CLUB MOUNTS OPPOSITION TO CONTROVERSIAL
FEES FOR ACCESS TO PUBLIC LANDS

Government officials and the public are not seeing eye-to-eye over
continued implementation of user-fees for access to public lands.
Although the U.S. Forest Service, Clinton Administration, and Congress
continue to expound the public's willingness to pay fees in order to
visit National Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands, there is
increasing evidence of public disapproval.  At the same time,
environmental advocacy groups are stepping up their efforts to shut the
door on Fee-Demo.

Under the Federal Recreational Fee Demonstration Program, authorized by
a rider attached to the fall 1996 Interior Appropriations Act, four
government agencies have been charging fees for access to parking,
camping, and other public facilities.  The program is bringing some much
needed revenue to agencies that have been forced to deal with shrinking
appropriations over the past two decades and are now plagued by enormous
maintenance backlogs and facilities that can't keep up with ever-growing
numbers of visitors.  However, even while Congress is hailing Fee-Demo
as a success and has extended the program through 2001, fee collections
have not met their proponent's original projections, and Congress has
even called on management agencies to develop more "creative fee
structures and arrangements."

The public and environmentalists are asking why the Forest Service and
other agencies are still starved for money at a time when there is a
trillion-dollar budget surplus.  Millions of visitors directly benefit
from funding for facilities and management of public lands each year,
making it one of the greatest values afforded to taxpayers.

"What this adds up to is an effort to acclimate the public to paying for
something for which there is a long tradition of free access," says Jeff
Kane, Chair of an ad hoc Sierra Club committee organizing against the
Fee-Demo Program.  "Recreation industry lobbyists have been pushing
user-fees since 1979.  If the public is willing to pay for access and
Congress permits private industry to develop commercial facilities on
public lands, then the proponents of Fee-Demo stand to reap enormous
economic benefit."

Congress has stated that the concept of user fees is by-and-large
acceptable to the public, pointing out that even many people paying to
use facilities on public lands agree that those who use public lands
ought to foot the bill.  Environmentalists counter that protections
afforded to forests and watersheds through proper management and limited
development benefit everyone by providing clean air and water, wildlife
habitat, and healthy forests.

This week the Inyo National Forest is considering comments on their
announced plans to restructure fee collections for the visitor center
and South Tufa area of Mono Lake in eastern California.  Attributing a
significant drop in the visitation of the visitor center to new user
fees, the Forest plans to stop charging individuals wishing to see films
and exhibits at the visitor center, and instead raise the current fee at
the South Tufa area.  "This is going from bad to worse," commented Gary
Guenther of Eastern Sierra Wilderness Watch.  "Their new plan calls for
shifting funds generated by visits to a natural treasure requiring next
to no facility maintenance in order to support a highly developed
facility that the public is obviously not willing to pay for with a user
fee."  Guenther adds that such a tactic runs counter to one of the
fundamental principles of Fee-Demo: at least 80% of funds generated at a
facility are supposed to go directly into maintaining and improving that
facility.

Scott Silver, Executive Director of Wild Wilderness in Bend, Oregon,
suggests that "the Forest Service shows no inclination to listen to the
growing public opposition to Forest fees. Unless enough public protest
reaches Congress directly, it is likely that Forest fees will soon be
made permanent."  With this in mind, Wild Wilderness, several chapters
of the Sierra Club, and organizations throughout the country are
planning over 50 events as part of a national day of protest against
Fee-Demo scheduled for August 14, 1999.

Their views have already found sympathetic ears.  Bipartisan legislation
to end National Forest participation in Fee-Demo, known as the Forest
Tax Relief Act, has been introduced in each of the past two years by
Southern California Congresswomen Mary Bono (R, Palm Springs) and Lois
Capps (D, Santa Barbara).  "It's just not fair that my constituents must
pay extra taxes to hike, picnic, or see a sunset in our National
Forests" says Rep. Capps, "when big logging companies get subsidies for
their activities on these same public lands."

The Sierra Club storngly opposes the recreational user fee program for many
reasons that are even more important to the environmental health of public lands
than a reluctance to "pay to play". The fee program has the ominous potential to
transform recreational management of our public lands from a public service
orientation to a commercial enterprise.  There is strong evidence that
recreational interests that generate the most income like mechanized-lift
skiing, off-road vehicle use, resort development and power boating would take
prece-dence over lower impact activities like hiking, camping, backcountry
skiing, nature study, and educational outings. This trend toward
commercialization and motorization of our priceless public lands is the most
significant reason to fight recreational user fees.