Senate Vote Limits Fee Demo
The Senate Energy Committee passed S. 1107 this morning to limit Fee Demo to the Naitonal
Parks. The legislation included NO amendments for other agencies such as the Forest Service or
the BLM. This is an enormous victory!
Some Senators on the Committee received hundreds - even upwards of a thousand - calls and faxes
over the last four days from across the nation. One office received only FOUR faxes saying
"recreation fees are maybe OK!" It was clear to our Senators that fees for the Forest
Service, BLM and US Fish & Wildlife Service have almost no public support. This enabled them
to resist strong pressure from the Department of Interior and Forest Service, which continued
even yesterday afternoon, to add other agencies to S.1107.
Our thanks to YOU - and please pass those thanks along to others who you asked to call or fax
Congress - for making this happen!
American Whitewater supported passage of S. 1107 and opposed including the other agencies in the Senate Bill due to numerous problems with implementation and management of the program in the Forest Service and BLM. We continue working with all of agencies to make sure that they exercise their fee authority in a fair and reasonable manner to defray maintenance costs - as the original authorizing language intended. The next legislative step is to make sure that similar language is approved in the House to limit Fee Demo to the National Parks.
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SENATE COMMITTEE REJECTS PERMANENT FEE DEMO FOR <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /> FOREST SERVICE, BLM, AND USFWS.
PASSES BILL FOR NATIONAL PARKS ONLY.
Grassroots Effort Moves Parks Fee
Legislation
In what is being called a 'remarkable victory,' opponents of the Recreation Fee Demonstration
Program are today celebrating what they see as the beginning of the end of recreation fees on the
National Forests and other public lands.
Despite enormous
pressure from the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture to make the Fee Demo
program permanent for the National Parks, Forest Service, BLM, and US Fish and Wildlife Service,
the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee this morning unanimously voted to pass S.
1107, the Recreational Fee Authority Act (Senator Craig Thomas, R-WY), which makes recreation
fees permanent for the National Parks only. The bill will allow Fee Demo to lapse for the BLM, US
Forest Service and US Fish & Wildlife Service.
Fee-opponents in recent days had flooded Senate offices with faxes and phone calls, expressing
their general acceptance of park fees and their adamant opposition to fees for recreation on
lands managed by the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
Opponents of recreation user fees came together to prevent Thomas' legislation from being amended
and to ensure that it would be moved out of committee as a 'parks only' bill. Gale Norton,
Secretary of Interior, lobbied Senators hard in an effort to included permanent fee authority for
the other three federal agencies within the Fee Demo program.
"Senator Thomas and Senator Craig (R-ID), Chair of the public lands subcommittee, as well as all
Senators on Committee, did an excellent job protecting their constituents ownership of these
public lands." Said Robert Funkhouser President of Western Slope NoFee Coalition.
Another long time opponent of these fees, Kitty Benzar, co-founder of the WSNFC said: "The
Tide has turned, and with a growing groundswell for ending this ill-conceived recreation fee
program, it is becoming every more clear that we will soon see the end of fees to take a hike in
the woods."
The Fee Demo program in the Forest Service, BLM, and USFWS has been recognized as a failure in terms of public acceptance and financial viability. Recent administrative changes to enforcement procedures particularly within the BLM, such as increasing penalties for being on public land without a pass to $5,000, have fueled the growing Fee Revolt taking place across the nation.
Contact: Robert Funkhouser, WSNFC
802-867-2298
Kitty Benzar, WSNFC
970-259-4616