u.s. HOUSE WANTS YOUR OPINION ON RECREATION FEES
Congress Looks at Recreation Access Tax
By Bill Schneider, 6-06-08
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| Fishing a remote lake on national forest land; how much should it cost? Photo by Bill Schneider. | |
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The U.S. House of Representatives has decided to take a serious look at the much-criticized implementation, if not over-implementation, of the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act (FLREA), This is the law that has saddled us the pandemic of new and ever-increasing recreation fees to enter and use our public lands, which is why it’s called RAT, for Recreation Access Tax, by its distracters.
Those who pay the RAT to use their own land don’t get many chances to voice their opinions, but now, our elected officials want to hear what you think.
The U.S. House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Publics Lands has scheduled a hearing for June 18 in Washington D.C to hear testimony about how the FLREA has been implemented. The Subcommittee is calling the hearing “Paying to Play: Implementation of Fee Authority on Federal Lands.”
Distracters primarily led by two nonprofits, the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition and Wild Wilderness, have repeatedly claimed federal agencies have illegally over-implemented FLREA. The agencies, mainly the Forest Service, disagree and claim to be following the letter of the law.
At this point, four anti-fee witnesses will plead their cases before the subcommittee: Kitty Benzar of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, Bill Wade of the Coalition of National Park Retirees, Idaho State Representative George Eskridge, who sponsored Idaho’s state resolution calling for the repeal of FLREA, and Peter Wiechers, a teacher and kayaker from Kern River, California, who has been bird-dogging fee abuses by the Sequoia National Forest.
No word yet on who will defend the government’s implementation policy.
The public can submit written testimony for the hearing record until July 2. Send testimony as email attachments to Domenick.Carroll@mail.house.gov with a cc to Laurel.Angell@mail.house.gov.
This is not a hearing on the Baucus-Crapo Bill, introduced by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID), which is in the Senate, not the House. “There is no House equivalent of the Baucus-Crapo bill,” Benzar told NewWest.Net. “My hope would be that by highlighting the abuses that are occurring this hearing will inspire a member or members of the House to sponsor one.”
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Comments
"RAT" is a propaganda term used in this debate. Its one thing to mention that it is what the detractors call it, another to use it in the title of the article.
See Bill's chronology at
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/recreation_fee_chronology/C41/L41/
"I GOT FLREA FROM A FLORIST IN THE FOREST, COLLECTING SPECIMENS FOR THE POOREST. FLREA. IT WAS HIS IDEA. OH, PARTLY MINE BUT HIS MOREST. TO BE ABLE TO FLAIL, ON IDEAS FROM ABIGAIL, MY FLORIST IN THE FOREST TO NAIL, THE BLAME ON OUR ABIGAIL, SHE HE MOST DEPLORIST. CHARGING ME, AND THEE, DID SHE, TO GAIN FUNDS TO BURN THE FOREST. AN NGO WHORIST IN THE FOREST, WITH INTENT TO DEFOREST. I WANT NO MORIST. FLREA. FLREA. I DON'T WANT TO SUBMIT TO FLREA. I'D RATHER HAVE FOREST FOR FREE-A. TO USE IT FOR FREE-A. A PLEASE NO MORE FLREA.
I will blame this on Friday Nite Lites and Campo Viejo, RESERVA 2001, Tempranillo
A nice bottle of Spanish red wine....for my red whine....my Red State Whine.....now a Blue State Rebuke.. deserving of a Blue State ---- (4 letters, rhymes with "duke"). Pasta Night. Much better than Pasta Stone. Just another geriatric joke.
Sometimes the Feds are such a joke that we have to joke about it, just to maintain some sort of sanity. You know it will take 20 years of toll collections just to pay for the studies about whether or not to collect the tolls. Let alone the lawsuits. Maybe a chance for the Supremes to issue an opinion. Doo dah. Doo dah. Where are those Camptown ladies singing tonight?
Secondly, I don't recall there being a loud voice in those that would like to repeal fees for recreation users of state parks. If they're to have a right to charge fees to make up for budget shortfalls, why cannot the BLM or FS?
Why cannot those same groups address the root of the problem by lobbying for an uncreased budget of the federal land agencies?
Those who claim that the federal agencies are incorrectly applying the law may have a claim, however it should not be distorted into a case for repeal of the law.
Let's take your "user pays" reasoning a step farther.
Why have free public libraries? Many people who pay taxes for them never check out a book, and hey, most people can afford to just buy books at Barnes & Noble anyway. The ones who can't probably can't read.
Why have publicly funded fire departments? Let those whose houses are on fire provide the 911 operator with a credit card if they want a fire truck to come.
Schools. If I can afford to send my kid to private school, why should I be taxed to fund public schools?
Why make all taxpayers pay for FEMA? Let those who are hit by hurricanes, floods, tornados, and forest fires pay for disaster aid, most of us aren't affected!
You see where I'm going with this. The discussion should be about whether public lands are in the same category as libraries, fire departments, schools, and disaster aid: things that provide sufficient benefit to our society as a whole that they are worthy and proper recipients of public funding.
I think that public lands are worthy of public funding even by people who seldom or never use them. You may disagree. The problem is, we've never been given a chance to have that discussion. Fee Demo and FLREA were both passed as midnight riders on must-pass appropriations bills. One point of view was forced on us without open discussion or a vote. That's not the way major changes in public policy are supposed to happen.
I believe that less propaganda and more fact would do more to further the discussion, but I guess he disagrees. In the end, though, it is his column, so he can write whatever he wants to.
The Senate and House Democrats now want to have users pay to use public lands, because they don't want to use tax payer money. Well, all those people who voted to not log don't live here, either. There is a cost for any action. The USFS used to not cost the Feds money. Now they do. The action had a result, and the known result is way less money in the USFS budget and huge tax cost by allowing NGOs to live like public parasites on their tax forgiven donations and tax dodge Conservation Easement schemes.
Cowboy up, folks. The benefit was national, and the proposed use and value of not logging was presented as national. So users need not pay, in a fair world. All citizens and immigrants should pay with their taxes. Raise taxes on everyone to pay for free use of public lands. With Obama, that is going to happen anyway. That is his campaign promise.
That Baucus, and the House, pissed away hundreds of millions in Special Interest tax breaks to the Timber Barons in the 2009 Farm Bill must be noticed and accounted for. Having users pay to ride or hike in public lands is a disgrace, and in light of the special interest tax reductions, in light of the fewer dollars to the Treasury, I guess the American people should look to their Democrat politicians for relief. Weyerhaeuser, Plum Creek Timber, all got relief. So where is the general public's relief in public land use?
This is not propaganda. It is facts, and the truth. Timber Barons got vast tax reductions by a Democrat Congress, and public lands are proposed to fee-to-use recreational lands. Something is very, very wrong with that concept.
If FLREA was passed as you say, then I would in fact be in favor of an open debate on the floors of Congress to revise the bill. Or repeal it if decided. The more I think about it, the more this seems like the politically easiest, way to address budget shortfalls.
Instead of a kneejerk reaction against FLREA, I'd like to see a constructive approach to resolving budget issues, through revenue-generation or taxes. Maybe the anti-FLREA folks are, but I'm not hearing much of it
Tim,
I think if FLREA would have been passed in the light of day, with reasonable public input, actually voted on by Congress, there would not be any controversy about recreation fees, or RAT as it is, in fact, even if you might think it shouldn't be called that. That's why this hearing and the Bacus-Crapo bill are so important. We finally can do what the majority of people want, not what a few administration insiders want for public land users. If most people want fees to access public lands on top of their tax money, then so be it. End of story. But I doubt it.
And Justin, I agree completely.The FS should be funded properly through normal channels instead of putting pressure on district rangers to raise money for anything they want to do or that needs to be done, like maintain campgrounds, with more and more fees.
Bill