THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION?
Forest Service Moves to Intimidation to Collect More Entrance Fees
Here's how the Forest Service bullies us into donating many millions of dollars to the federal government. Read this and you'll think twice before filling that envelope with your hard-earned cash.By Bill Schneider, 10-21-10
The Iron Ranger now guards our National Forests from unlawful entry. Photo courtesy of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition.
On September 29, I wrote about a historic court decision overturning the Forest Service’s (FS) policy of charging an entrance fee to visit or park in the Red Rock High Impact Recreation Area (HIRA) in Arizona’s Coconino National Forest. In my commentary, I not only urged the FS to forego appealing the ruling but also to throw in the towel and comply with the court decree and stop charging the fee--and then purge the National Forest System of all 95 HIRAs.
I’m one for three.
Almost surprisingly, the FS decided against appealing and hence punishing Jim Smith, a regular guy who likes to hike and park for free on the land he owns, with years of litigation. I dearly hope this decision marks a change in the sentiment in the Obama administration’s Solicitor General’s office, but it seems more likely that Smith’s case was simply so solid the FS had no grounds for appeal. In any regard, though, before you applaud the victory and start thinking the federal government has suddenly become more reasonable and benevolent, you need to hear what the bosses at the Coconino National Forest did in the aftermath of the court decision
Almost before the judge’s signature had dried, the Coconino sent out a press release with the title “Red Rock Country Continues to be a Fee Area.” It contained no explanation of why the agency had chosen to ignore the court decree, only a lot of concern about not having enough money to hire rangers to collect fees--not one word about what the agency was doing, which is, at the least, an unprincipled stretch of the law of the land. (When I find out precisely how the FS plans to skate around the decision, I’ll let you know.)
In the meantime, can you say “above the law?”
But the FS disregarding this court decision and keeping illegal HIRAs in place isn’t the worst news. The Red Rock situation now segues into a bigger issue--how the FS basically bullies public land users throughout the country into “donating” many millions of dollars in fees to the federal government when people have no legal obligation to pay.
(WARNING. If you already have high blood pressure, you might not want to read the rest of this column.)
The Red Rock case is only one of several the FS has had to fight in recent years to enforce its quasi-legal entrance fee program, so now the agency has come up with a plan to fleece public land users without having to defend it at the courthouse. It’s all outlined in an internal memo, which I’m sure the FS would just as soon you didn’t see (so if interested, click here to read it), but here’s the basic message: The FS has a new strategy for intimidating people into paying fees they have no obligation to pay.
The mechanism is a new invention called a Notice of Required Fee (NRF).If you find one under your windshield wiper, there’s no reason to fill the envelope and drop it in the nearest iron ranger or mailbox. Most people do, though, because of how the FS has deviously designed it. (Click here to see the entire form.)
“NRFs look like tickets, walk like tickets and quack like tickets, but an NRF is NOT A TICKET! Only a Violation Notice is a ticket,” Kitty Benzar of the Western States No-Fee Coalition told NewWest.Net in an email.
She speculated that the Coconino National Forest plans have the Red Rock area “continue to be a fee area” by starting to issue NRFs instead of Violation Notices (like the one Smith received) at least in undeveloped parts of the HIRA. That’s what FS has done in other fee hot spots such as Mount Evans in Colorado, the Mount Lemmon and Tonto National Forest in Arizona and throughout “Adventure Pass Country,” the National Forests of California.
The truth is, people who use National Forest backcountry and park at trailheads to go hiking, biking, camping, climbing or otherwise use the undeveloped federal land, including in HIRAs such as Red Rock Country, Mount Lemmon or Mount Evans, do not have to pay the entrance fee. And if they’re issued an NRF, they still do not have to pay the entrance fee. People only have to pay if they use developed areas with “amenities” like toilets, interpretive displays or picnic tables.
Or as Benzar puts it: “Anyone who pays a NRF is essentially making a voluntary donation to the Forest Service.”
But since the NRF has been intentionally designed to look like a ticket, most people pay. Who can blame them for paying when they read this bold-faced statement on the envelope:
“Failure to pay the required fee may subject you to criminal enforcement under 16 U.S.C. 6811 and 36 CFR 261.17. To remedy this Notice, enclose a personal check or money order for the $5.00 recreation use fee payable to the USDA Forest Service in the attached envelope. Postage must be added to the envelope.”
That thinly veiled threat is only true if and when the FS follows up the NRF on a future visit to your National Forests with a real ticket, a Violation Notice, which can subject public landowners to criminal prosecution for daring to enter a National Forest without paying the access fee.
So, I say, pitch NRFs in the trashcan, if you can find one. If enough people do, the FS might get the message.
If you read the internal memo, you can understand why the FS likes the NRF concept. Previously, National Forest recreation tax collectors sometimes issued warning notices (Non-Compliance Violations or Opportunity to Pay Notices). When issuing these warnings, though, the federal agency could not put you in its criminal database called LEIMERs (Law Enforcement and Investigations Management Attainment Reporting System), but by issuing NRFs, the agency can and does put you in LEIMERS.
“They (FS) can only prosecute you if they follow the NRF with a Violation Notice,” assured Benzar, “but your license plate might go on a list, and you might be more likely to get a Violation Notice later. It’s basically a threat to break your knees later if you don’t comply now. They like to issue NRFs so they don’t have to waste time defending them in court.”
The FS now knows courts will likely dismiss tickets issued in places or for activities where they aren’t legally authorized to do so, such as parking at undeveloped trailheads to go hiking, she said, “but there is money to be made from intimidation (ask Tony Soprano), and that’s what a NRF is--an intimidation tool.”
How bad is this? I think I’ll put it mildly. It’s a sneaky, mean-spirited, downright embarrassing ruse. Intimidation has replaced enforcement because, it seems, the current entrance fee program isn’t enforceable.
And then the FS twists that knife another half-turn at the bottom of the faux ticket where it states: “Thank you for your cooperation.” Ouch!
I wonder how high-profile political appointees like Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack or Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell can even look in the mirror after condoning such irresponsibility. Or perhaps they don’t even realize how low their recreation managers have gone to continue collecting entrance fees.
To read NewWest.Net’s extensive coverage of the recreation fee issue, click here.
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This wouldn't be an issue if the Forest Service was able to generate funds from other economic activities such as mining, grazing, and fire-moderating logging.
The sick fact is that land management, including recreation management, has costs. Even if it is undeveloped trailheads, at some point maintenance has to be funded, or even volunteers overseen.
I also want to state that it is profoundly unfair for rec users to gripe about this when the further truth is that ALL Americans, including those millions who never, ever recreate on USFS land, are subsidizing recreation activities through Congressional appropriations.
For all the mung I hear about "subsidized" grazing, logging, and mineral operations (which return way more taxes to the general treasury) the silence about recreation subsidy is roaring on these pages.
More importantly however, the main thing is, regardless of your or my opinion on FS recreation fees, the FS is violating the law here in Sedona. Period. They have been found guilty in court (slammed in fact; read the judge's 33 page decision) yet they continue to violate the law.
If you want more rec. fees, great; lobby Congress for them. As of right now though, the FS is breaking the law and extorting citizens. They are outlaws.
USFS should end the HIRA fees on Mt. Lemmon AZ and other National Forests.
Rep. Daniel Patterson
Tucson-LD29
twitter.com/RepPatterson
But be willing to allow those who do pay such as ranchers, loggers, miners, drillers share the land and the taxpayers can afford to let you have a free ride.
Mid- to higher-level FS management has been wooed for years by libertarian/conservative "think tanks," planting the seeds of libertarian ideology, which has grown and borne this bitter fruit.
Taken to its logical extremes, only the wealthy will be able to afford recreation on "public" lands. Regular folks will be left on the outside, looking in on forests that will bear an increasing resemblance to the royal forests of yore, when only aristocrats could recreate and hunt "the king's deer" or elk, or whatever.
You aren't naive enough to believe the costs of maintaining the forests are going to decrease if ranching is not allowed are you? It has increased with the loss of the timber industry due to forest fires in dead and dying timber that is not cut or cleaned. Just like physical condition deteriorates with aging in animals, including humans, the same happens to plants such as trees.
The U.S. Forest Service bureacracy with respect to Outdoor Recreation is treating citizens with crass disrespect. They should hang their heads in abject shame. They won't. The problem is they have NO SHAME. They will illegally pad their coffers, ignore the existing FLREA law, and bully, bamboozle, and bulldoze recreation users as long as they think they can continue to get away with murder. The Coconino situation can only be correctly labeled as a Police State mentality.
I am a retired 25 year outdoor recreation manager with the U.S. Forest Service. I am horrified with their descent into darkness. There are dozens of retired FS professionals equally upset and distraught. As a furious taxpayer I urge concerned citizens to contact their Senators and Repersentatives and demand an outright repeal of the existing fee law, the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act. That is only Step one. Step two is to demand that Congress take the U.S. Forest Service to the woodshed in a meaningful and businesslike way--ASAP. Total Reform of the agency is mandated. Enough is enough of them brutally running roughshod over the Public. We the people are the owners of our precious National Forest lands and waters. It is our common national and natural heritage. After the election is over carry that message loud and clear to Congress. Congress has been culpable in letting them get away with tyranny and gross malfeasance with their fee scam for over a decade. Congress must take proactive corrective action immediately. Only you can make that happen.
Any libertarian economist who claims otherwise is ignoring a great deal of costs shoved off onto the public.
By contrast, recreationists' impacts on public lands are minor, while their economic impacts on local economies are significant. The financial elephant in the room (other than the agency capture phenomena whereby extractive industries have co-opted segments of the Forest Service) is wildfire fighting, where millions and billions have been spent to protect undefensible cabins in the wildland/urban interface. So if these cabin owners, from Joe Sixpack to billionaires, refuse to create defensible structures and spaces around their cabins in the woods, why should the public pay vast sums to save them from their own folly?
That's a libertarian-type question.
Under a capitalist system such as our own, the costs of going in and thinning trees far exceed the profits that such activity can generate. (unless you are "thinning" 400 year-old old growth). That's why timber extraction is a heavily subsidized enterprise (by taxpayers).
I can answer that one-it's because of all the enviro groups,with all of their lawsuits,attempting to ban any human use of forest service lands, other than taking pictures,hiking on designated trails,and breathing the air.
Those of us who hunt on National Forest lands already pay a fee-the extra 11% tax we pay on firearms and ammunition,all goes to the vatious state wildlife agencies (FWP in Montana) and the USFWS. These funds go to fish and game management, wildlife conservation,and trail/road maintenance.
Forest Service law enforcement personnel, in order to avoid having to defend their tickets in court, have resorted to issuing "non-tickets" that look like tickets but are actually "weapons of mass intimidation."
This is not about how the FS or other agencies should be funded, it's about whether they should have to abide by federal law.
Todd, Inky, Dave, please declare your position on this. Is the Forest Service subject to federal law or is it not?
Comments about grazing, logging, mining, drilling were made to note the contrast with recreation in terms of taxpayer subsidies. The FS is not rolling in money -- never has, even during full-bore extractive development drives under conservative administrations.
Ideally, Congress and presidents alike should fund the USFS to provide recreation opportunities -- I have no problem with modest fees in developed campgrounds, but collecting fees for backcountry use isn't kosher -- would only be appropriate if backcountry areas became over-popular, such as picking up trash (and worse) on the 14ers.
Extractive industry use on public lands should pay the real costs of that development -- planning, regulatory inspections, roads, improvements and ultimately cleanup and reclamation. Anything else is a rip-off of the taxpayer and ill-gotten gains for the ranchers, miners, loggers and drillers, because they didn't pay their way.
Restructure the agency or continue it's primary function as a pork-delivery system for congressmen and their financially co-dependent constituents. Most comments describe various symptoms and window dressing, not root causes of what ails the USDA-Forest Service. Serving the general public is the last thing on this agency's mind.
This is a no win situation. We all want nice trailheads, toilets, but are we willing to pay for these?
And yes, we all pay taxes. But shrinking budgets means that money that once went to toilets is now going to fire or somewhere else.
$80 for a years pass is not too much considering the cost of movies today, the lattes you buy every morning, Disney World, etc.
I for one couldn't give a rat's ass whether a trailhead is "nice" or not. All I do at any trailhead is transition from one form of locomotion to another. The trailhead is a distant memory five minutes after I arrive at it.
Toilets should be installed anywhere there is a demonstrated need for sanitary facilities. That's Stewardship 101, and the tax funding is there. So no, I am NOT willing to pay at the trailhead to have a toilet located there.
Discretionary appropriations to the Forest Service from Congress went up 93% between 1999 and 2010 - three times the rate of inflation. (Source: USDA Forest Service Annual Budget Justifications) Shrinking appropriations are a myth. If the Forest Service can't get the money to the ground that is an administrative problem they need to solve. The GAO has given them numerous suggestions how they can do that, over a period of many years. (GAO-09-443t)
There are a whole bunch of people in this country who cannot afford a latte every morning. I am sick of the arrogant attitude of people who feel qualified to decide for me how much I can afford or how I should prioritize my purchases, and who have the gall to equate a National Forest with Disney World.
I don't want trailheads that are all gussied up with "amenities." I just want to be able to go for a walk in the woods.
Having said that, I applaud the ability to use funds that were generated locally, e.g. outfitter-guide permit fees, for local projects such as trail work or invasive species control. Much better than the funds disappearing into the black hole of the general fund like previously. But, I don't agree with the proliferation of fee sites, specifically trailheads.
All you people who want the government to have money: Hey, what's stopping you cheapskates? Give it to them!
As for the rest of us, we want the government to abide by its own laws, something the FS is having a hard time doing.
Never mind that poor people, if they scrounge the gas money for a weekend jaunt, are not going to be supporting the "local economy" in any meaningful way. They'll be bringing their baloney, cheese and white bread in from home.
As for the matter of subsidy, the main reason economic activity needs to be "subsidized" is because of the paperwork. It does not take that much to put together a decent grazing plan, a solid timber harvest, site a mine, plan for recreation, or even build a stable road. It is all the eco-nitpickery that has caused administrative costs to skyrocket far beyond any possible return. THAT'S where the subsidy lays, in supporting superfluous jobs that would otherwise rationally not exist at all or at far-reduced levels.
I am sick to death of the ranting about "below cost" programs when the costs themselves are not examined for their necessity. Dya really need a 300 page EIS for a grazing permit, or for a new outhouse? Furk no, ya don't.
I'll agree that we've missed the point of Bill's article, which is the snaky fake-ticket scam being perpetrated. But the larger issue, of revenue generation to support too much administration, remains.