"When agencies begin to act like entrepreneurs seeking self-funding
through fees, and low-income people are excluded, the public purpose-the
very reason for public ownership-is defeated." (More and Stevens,
Journal of Leisure Research, 2000)
"You're kidding me, right?" I
said, laughing.
"Nope." No smile in return from the Forest Service Enforcement
Officer. "You have to have a pass to be here."
And with that my introduction
to the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (RFDP), more commonly
called "Fee Demo," had begun.
I’d been in Santa
Barbara, California for about two months working on a rather extensive
project and had taken to stopping in the local
National Forest on the way home from work, particularly if it had been
a difficult workday. It had already been that even before the Forest
Service Enforcement Officer found me, way up a dirt road, in the middle
of nowhere sitting by a creek, and told me I would have to leave or
receive a citation.
I could not fathom why
a pass was required to drive a winding forest road or to simply be
on public land-taxpayer funded land with no improvements,
services or anything else that could even remotely be considered an
amenity. Nonetheless, I left the forest that day and figured I’d
just bide my time until my responsibilities in California were complete,
and I could head back to Colorado where I could roam at will, unrestrained
by humorless officers. After all, the Forest Service might get away
with such foolishness in California, but I knew that they’d never
get away with any such nonsense in Colorado. No more Fee- Demo. No
more feeling alienated on the public lands. Back to Colorado, home
of the Free.
But guess what? It wasn’t more than six weeks after returning
home that I was aghast to read that, yes indeed, Fee-Demo had arrived
on the Western Slope. Yep, the boys and girls in green had "saved" Yankee
Boy Basin near Ouray. For a mere $5 a day we would be allowed the "privilege" of
driving on a county road through a National Forest. Think you earned
that as a right when you paid your taxes? Sorry, either pay up again
or keep out!
In June of 2001 Kitty Benzar, Jan Holt, Skip Edwards and myself formed
the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, which now boasts members in over
35 states. Our goal has been to encourage Congress to repeal Fee-Demo
and fully fund the public land agencies through appropriations. Education
about the program has been our biggest tool to that end. We organized
three protests in Yankee Boy Basin in 2001. In one of those protests
some 120 citizens entered the new fee area at Yankee Boy without paying
and 36 individuals received citations from Forest Service enforcement
officers. Ironically, our membership grows every time a new fee area
is declared, as local residents look for a way to express their outrage
at being denied access to public lands they have used for generations.
The Forest Service and BLM have inadvertently become our best recruiters
of contributors and anti-fee activists!
The really amazing thing
about this rebellion is not just the amount of opposition to Fee-Demo
on the Western Slope and indeed all over
the West, but the diversity of individuals and groups opposing the
program. Interests that are usually at each other’s throats over
land-use issues are working side-by-side. Opponents of the program
are a mix of Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters, Blue Ribbon
Coalition members, conservationists, motorized and non-motorized use
advocates and those, like myself, who have not been previously active
in public land matters but have joined together to fight Fee Demo.
The spectrum is so wide and so united one wonders how Congress could
even consider making this program permanent.
Through two World Wars and the Great Depression, federal lands were
funded with tax appropriations, and all Americans had a right to free
access for lawful recreational purposes. The Land and Water Conservation
Fund Act of 1965 prohibited user fees and commercial activities, while
carving out specific exceptions such as fees for developed campgrounds,
special facilities like boat ramps, and entry to some National Parks.
But in the 1990s, amidst peace and prosperity, Congress claimed to
have insufficient funds for public lands and began applying a business
philosophy to them and expecting them to pay their own way. In 1996,
the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (Fee Demo), which had failed
a House vote, slipped in as a rider on an omnibus appropriations bill.
Suddenly it costs $5 to go for a walk in the woods or park your car
long enough to watch the sun set behind the mountains.
On its face, it certainly appears reasonable that we help federal
land managers do their jobs. But the issue is much more complicated
than that. The public land that Americans have entrusted to federal
agencies to manage is being developed, packaged, and sold back to us
as a product. Gone is the concept of public ownership of public lands.
Fee Demo was supposed to "demonstrate" that the public will
accept the concept of "pay-to-play." Originally a two-year
test, it has been extended five times. Eight years into Fee Demo we
find that simple, rustic campgrounds have been transformed into paved
RV parks. People must pay a fee to leave their vehicles at trailheads
or drive scenic backcountry roads. Low income Americans are excluded
from enjoying nature on the same terms as the affluent. Forest Rangers
are no longer civil servants and stewards of the land. They are cops
on the lookout for "trespassers" without the proper pass
to be there. Some entire National Forests are now off limits unless
you purchase an entry pass. We are no longer the owners of the land,
we are "customers."
Even worse is the fact
that the Fee Demo Program has been a financial failure as well. According
to a 2003 audit by the GAO, the Forest Service
used about $10 million in appropriated funds for administrative overhead
to manage and operate Fee Demo in FY2001, plus an unspecified amount
of appropriated funds to send staff to national meetings (GAO 03-470
page 32). These overhead costs were not reported to Congress in the
annual Fee Demo report. Nor did their reported costs include discounts
(commissions) to outside vendors for selling Fee Demo passes as a cost
of collection. The GAO stated that this is "inconsistent with
federal financial accounting standards and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
financial manual." (GAO-03-470 pages 25-26)
Although the Forest Service claims the program is a success, with
gross revenue in FY2001 of $35 million, the truth is that the program
brought in far less than $15 million because the cost of overhead,
collection, and enforcement was well over 50%.
Until the GAO audits the
BLM and Fish and Wildlife Service Fee Demo programs, their true financial
results are uncertain, but as it stands,
the net revenues for these two agencies in FY2001 are estimated at
less than $4 million. That’s chump change in Washington.
Legislation currently pending
in the U.S. House (HR3283) would take Fee Demo, which has failed
both with the public and financially, and
expand it into an even worse permanent program. Under HR 3283, a national
pass would be required to set foot or tire on any public land. It would
be disarmingly called the "America the Beautiful Pass" and
would initially cost about $85, with annual price increases sure to
follow. Being caught on public land without your pass would get you
charged with a Class B Misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $5,000
and/or 6 months in jail. If your car were found parked on public land
without displaying a pass, you, as the registered owner, would be presumed
guilty whether or not you were the one who parked it there. The BLM
recently implemented these higher penalties administratively, in defiance
of Congress’s currently specified maximum penalty of a $100 fine,
a move that the WSNFC is appealing.
The land management agencies want these extreme measures because compliance
with Fee Demo has been dismal. In Southern California alone, over 250,000
Notices of Non Compliance or citations have been issued. The program
has not won over the hearts and minds of the public so the agencies
are pushing for a Big Stick approach. If a $100 fine has been insufficient
to deter the public from using their public lands, a $5,000 fine most
likely will. HR 3283 would make criminals out of taxpayers.
Meanwhile, over in the Senate, another bill, S1107, is inching forward.
It would let the Park Service retain the entrance fees they have been
collecting for years instead of sending them to the Treasury, but would
allow Fee Demo to expire in the Forest Service, BLM, and Fish and Wildlife
Service. Most people in the anti-fee movement can live with this because
of the long history the NPS has of collecting entrance fees and the
higher level of infrastructure expected in a National Park. The public
knows full well the difference between the National Parks and the lands
and waters managed by the Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife
Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Forest Service. To start with
they know that the National Parks is where the tollbooths are. The
National Parks is where it can cost up to $50 to enter with your families.
The agencies, however, insist that the public needs and wants ever-increasing
facilities and services, even on the vast tracts of undeveloped land
under Forest Service, BLM, and Fish and Wildlife management. They are
lobbying hard for a national pass and all the other provisions of the
House bill to be amended into S 1107.
The fundamental dilemma
is, does the American public demand that all 640 million acres of
public land be managed as if they were National
Parks? Is the public really demanding that the land management agencies
spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to build capital infrastructure
to "enhance" what God has already given us?
If we allow the agencies to charge a fee or require a permit to enter
these lands then we have given ownership of the lands to the agencies
and taken it away from the people. Access to these public lands would
become a privilege you pay for and no longer a right, and the agencies
would be given a perverse incentive to build more and bigger facilities
so they can charge ever-higher fees.
The public and the local
land managers would be better served by taking a course that emphasizes
the use of our limited resources to maintain
what we already have first. The incentive to "build it and they
will pay" is clearly not in the public’s best interests.
Nor can we as a nation afford to maintain that level of capital infrastructure.
It becomes a vicious circle: The more the government develops its public
lands - the more maintenance is required - the more fees are imposed
- the fewer number of people who can enjoy these special places. And
in this circle, we lose access to our natural areas.
It’s already happening
all over the West:
The BLM at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is building
three new visitor centers. One alone costs over $10 million. At the
same time Monument managers want to start charging for backcountry
use and car camping because they do not have the funds to deal with
those uses.
At the Maroon Bells in
Pitkin County, Colorado, the Forest Service has built a toilet for
$1.6 million but has to charge a fee because
they say they don’t have the funds for toilet paper.
In Ouray, Colorado, the Forest Service threatened to close the world-class
jeeping and hiking area of Yankee Boy Basin unless Fee Demo was applied,
citing lack of funds for toilet maintenance. But the following year
the Forest Service spent over $650,000 to expand a concessionaire-run
campground across the highway.
The BLM’s Cedar Mesa
area, a vast swath of canyons and plateaus west of Blanding in southeastern
Utah, charges a fee for all hiking,
whether day hikes ($2 per person per day) or overnight backpacking
($8 per person per trip). These fees for the most popular places are
causing an increase in use at lesser-known spots, which start to become
hammered as visitors search farther and farther afield for areas that
are still free. As those spots in turn show the impacts of increased
use, the fee area is enlarged to include them, causing people to search
out still more remote areas, in an endless game that damages the very
resource the fees were supposed to protect.
Opposition to Fee Demo has been overwhelming and widespread. From
New Hampshire to California, from Idaho to Arizona, Americans from
all walks of life and all political persuasions are raising their voices
against this program. Resolutions of opposition have been sent to Congress
by the state legislatures of Colorado, Oregon, California, and New
Hampshire. Thirteen counties in western Colorado alone, as well as
counties, cities, and towns across the nation have passed resolutions
opposing the program. Hundreds of organized groups oppose Fee Demo,
and civil disobedience to it is rampant.
The Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee unanimously passed Senator Craig Thomas’s
bill, S. 1107, in February. It calls for permanent fee authority
in the National Parks only. Senate Public Lands
Subcommittee Chairman Larry Craig (R-ID), at a hearing on Fee Demo
on April 21st, made it clear that he would not support the idea of
access fees for any agencies except the National Parks. Other members
of the Subcommittee shared this view.
The legislative hearings regarding HR 3283 in the House Subcommittee
on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands on May 6th were not
so positive. While there is strong opposition to the Fee Demo Program
in the House Resources Committee on both sides of the aisle, there
is a chance that this bill might move to a Committee vote. Chairman
Pombo has indicated that he would like to see something move this year.
What he is calling for at this time is unclear. But, one thing is certain:
those of us that believe in public ownership of public lands have much
to do to ensure that our voices are heard in Washington.
The Western Slope No-Fee
Coalition has urged those in Congress to recognize the distinct differences
between the National Parks and the
land managed by the other agencies. We have urged them to choose the
financially responsible course, to maintain what we already own first,
to stop this "Spiral of Government Growth," and to uphold
Public Ownership of Public Lands. We ask you to contact your representatives
in Congress and ask them to oppose HR 3283 and to end Fee Demo.
Eight years into a failed program, Americans are speaking out and
beginning to be heard. Congress must restore adequate appropriations
for public lands management from existing tax dollars. We must say
no to heavy-handed, heritage-robbing and discriminatory public land
user fees.
Oh, and that $5 fee to drive into Yankee Boy Basin that got me started
on this issue? In 2003, the Ouray County Commissioners, tired of being
the poster child for Fee Demo, pressured the Forest Service into lifting
it. A group of local citizens now organizes a volunteer effort each
summer to provide stewardship. For a few thousand dollars in voluntary,
tax-deductible donations they accomplish what the Forest Service needed
$40,000 and a phalanx of law enforcement rangers to do.
Yankee Boy Basin is once again in public hands, and free.
-Robert Funkhouser, President, Western Slope
No-Fee Coalition